When Pastor Matthew Olson stepped to the pulpit of First Baptist Church of Sharon in Jones County, Mississippi, he had a simple, audacious goal: open the Bible at Genesis and not stop until he reached the final "Amen" of Revelation, even if it took four days and nights.
It took 96 hours. And he made it.
Olson began his marathon at 6:30 p.m. on Saturday, June 1, and pressed on for four straight days, according to local broadcaster WDAM. His unofficial mark surpassed the recognized record for marathon speaking by an individual, held by Ananta Ram KC of Nepal at 90 hours and 2 minutes, as Fox News reported.
Letting the Word Be Heard
The driving idea was as old as the church itself: let the Word of God simply be heard. "He said, what would it be like if the Bible was preached for 96 hours uninterrupted from Genesis to Revelation," discipleship pastor Rich Gray recalled to WDAM.
This was no reckless stunt. Olson's team followed the same guidelines used for official record attempts. For every 60 minutes of preaching, he banked a five-minute rest, which could be saved for showers and short naps. A medical team watched over him the entire way, and what they witnessed only deepened the sense that something special was unfolding. Forty hours in, team member Brittany Carter marveled at his stamina: "His voice is as strong as ever and probably better than when we started."
"He Is Worthy"
For Olson, the explanation was never about his own endurance. It was about Scripture. "The Word of God is truth, and it's sufficient," he said afterward. "It is what sustained me for 96 hours when, physically, I should not have continued."
The inspiration, he has said, traces back to a 2025 mission experience in a hostile region where he went without access to a physical Bible. That absence sharpened his hunger for the Word, and the idea of preaching the whole of it without pause took root.
Above all, Olson kept pointing past himself to Christ. "Jesus is Lord," he said. "He is worthy of every sentence I preached, every sacrifice that was made, and every step of obedience" that followed.
The congregation could have pursued formal Guinness World Records verification but chose not to. As Breitbart News noted, the church balked at the roughly $16,500 adjudicator fee, preferring to direct those resources toward mission work rather than monetize Scripture. The record stays "unofficial," and Olson seems entirely at peace with that. The goal, after all, was never a certificate on the wall.
The whole event was streamed for the world to follow through the church's app and Facebook page, with viewers tuning in around the clock. It is a striking image for a noisy age: one preacher, one open Bible, and four days devoted to the conviction that the gospel still deserves to be heard from beginning to end. For believers across the country, it lands as a joyful reminder that the Word endures — and that the One it proclaims is, indeed, worthy.
