​12-Year-Old Girl Reads Entire Bible Twice — and Counting

Taniguchi Iku challenges anyone who hasn’t read the Bible to start.

By Andrew McChesney, adventistmission.org

Twelve-year-old Taniguchi Iku received a special gift from her grandmother when she started first grade in Japan: a Bible.

Iku loved her new Bible. She opened it and read it. Some words were difficult to understand, but she was so happy to have her own Bible!

She kept reading the Bible as she got older. Then one day when she was in the fifth grade, she thought to herself, “Why can’t I read the whole Bible?” She couldn’t think of a reason why not, so she decided to read the Bible from the beginning to the end in one year.

But Iku, a fourth-generation Seventh-day Adventist living in the southwestern city of Yonago, had to figure out how to get through the entire Bible in a year. First, she counted how many chapters are in the Bible. Iku learned that the Bible has 1,189 chapters. She could finish the Bible in one year if she read three chapters every day and five chapters on Sabbaths.

Iku wondered when she would find the time to read the Bible. She had lots of homework in the fifth grade, and she didn’t have much time after school. Her mother said it would be better to read the Bible in the morning, before school, so she could start the day with Jesus. So, Iku set her alarm clock for 5 o’clock.

Iku found it difficult to wake up so early. Everyone was still sleeping, and it was dark outside. But she remembered that she wanted to read the Bible in one year, and she jumped out of bed.

She prayed, “Dear God, help me to understand what I am going to read.”

Starting to Read

Then she started with the first book of the Bible, Genesis. Iku found that it took 30 minutes to read five chapters every morning. Before she knew it, she had read the whole Bible in a year.

After that, Iku thought, “That was so interesting! I want to read the Bible again!” So, when she started sixth grade, she read the whole Bible again in a year.

Something interesting happened as Iku read the Bible, her mother and sisters said. She began to change. She started to want to memorize the Bible — not just the Sabbath School memory verse but other parts of the Bible as well.

She also became happier and smiled more. People liked being around her.

“She always has been a nice child,” said her mother. “But she started praying a lot. She became more positive. She talked about God all the time and started to look forward to the Second Coming.”

Iku’s little sister, Miko, who is 9, wanted to be like Iku and began to read the Bible, too.

Her older sister, Nana, 14, said Iku now understands the Sabbath sermons better than anybody in the family.

Pastor Sees Difference

The pastor of the local Adventist church, Hiramoto Akira, has noticed that Iku is more alert during the sermon.

“She listens to sermons very intently, takes notes, and then shares what she heard with other family members,” he said.

Iku was baptized on March 18, 2017. Her positive influence led Nana to be baptized, too, the pastor said.

Iku’s favorite book of the Bible is Romans.

“There’s a lot of good verses there,” she said.

Her favorite verse is Romans 8:38-39, which says, “For I am persuaded that neither death nor life, nor angels nor principalities nor powers, nor things present nor things to come, nor height nor depth, nor any other created thing, shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord” (NKJV).

Iku said it’s not difficult to read the whole Bible, and she encourages anyone who hasn’t read it through to start. The secret, she said, is to read a little every day.

“Even just little by little, read the Bible every day,” she said.

Part of the Thirteenth Sabbath Offering in third quarter 2018 will help Japan’s only youth church, Tokyo’s Setagaya Church, train young people to be gospel workers. Thank you for your mission offering.