By Grace Thornton
The Alabama Baptist
Emmett Cooper said the idea first got planted in his head just before a spelling test in the third grade.
“I was a struggling student and I couldn’t remember how to spell the word ‘geography,’” he said.
Cooper said he must’ve been trying to decipher it out loud, because the boy behind him piped up and said, “What, you can’t spell ‘geography’? That’s easy. George Earl’s Oldest Girl Rode A Pig Home Yesterday.”
Hearing his classmate use that memory device was a pivotal moment for Cooper, he said. “That ignited in my heart a desire to find a way to learn stuff easier. I explored that extensively over the next few years and I did better in school.”
And now as an adult, Cooper said his passion is to see Christians grab hold of Bible concepts in the same easy-to-remember way. He wants both adults and children to connect biblical truths with everyday items, just the way God meant for it to be, he said.
“It’s the spiritual technology of Deuteronomy 6:8,” he said, referring to the passage where God instructs Israel to bind His words on their hands and write them on the doorposts of their houses and gates.
“The secular world has used this tie-a-symbol-to-a-message technology effectively for years,” Cooper said. Hearing “plop, plop, fizz, fizz” still makes people think of Alka Seltzer, even though that campaign ended decades ago, he said. And seeing a swoosh on a cap makes people think of “Just Do It.”
“This technology has always belonged to God’s people, and we need to take it back and use it for God’s purposes,” Cooper said. “How can we apply what we can’t remember?”
There are symbols that correlate to biblical truths, like the lion and the lamb, which point to Christ, he explained.
There also are symbols like the 12 stones that the Israelites set up as a memorial to remind the next generation of how they had crossed the Jordan River on dry ground.
“Once all this began to come together for me, I had the desire to create a Bible that used these memory devices,” Cooper said.
He’s worked on the project for decades, but now it’s in print — the HoneyWord Bible, with a tagline that says “Making God’s Word Stick.”
The idea is to tie everyday symbols with biblical truths so that more and more tangible things can remind people of who God is and the truth of His Word, Cooper said.
“It is meditative in its orientation,” he said. “When you read and associate symbols with biblical truths, you walk through life seeing those objects and thinking about the truth that correlates with them.”
How does the HoneyWord Bible work?
Each concept has a “click-er,” or a symbol that takes the concept and helps “make it stick.” For instance, next to the Ten Commandments in Deuteronomy 5, which forbid stealing, there’s a picture of an orange peel along with an easy-to-remember phrase: “I won’t steal even an orange peel.”
Mike McLemore, executive director of Birmingham Baptist Association, said the “simplicity” of this Bible “can be a great tool.”
“It gives a theme that every child can understand, but youth and adults can benefit from it as well,” he said. “It’s very simple to use and a unique concept in learning, and I would love for all of our churches to know that it’s an option when they consider what Bible to give to their children.”
That’s Cooper’s hope — that every child in Birmingham and beyond will have that tool in their hands. Through the generosity of donors, the HoneyWord organization founded by Cooper gives the Bibles to children for free.
Sandor Cheka, director of HoneyWord nonprofit publishing ministry, said they hope to see the Bibles make an impact starting in Birmingham and spreading out across Alabama and to the world. Formerly a Baptist children’s minister, Cheka said he was impressed with the HoneyWord concept because it’s something that kids “can grab onto.”
“At the end of the day, there’s nothing greater that we can do than to teach the next generation about the principles of the Bible and salvation,” he said.
Cooper agreed.
“My burden is not HoneyWord — my burden is to equip God’s people with this make-it-stick approach so we don’t lose the next generation,” he said. “It’s something God taught us to do, to associate things with His Word. The Bible is the biggest picture book in the world. The Word and the world that God created are designed to be seamlessly used together to make God’s Word stick.”
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For more information, visit honeyword.org.
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