I remember setting a goal to read the Bible through 4 times in a year. I had to read I think about 16 pages per day (10 OT, 5 NT, 1 poetry). Well, there were two results: I read a lot of the Bible that year, and I spent the week between Christmas and New Year trying to finish! There are two possible undesirable results of an overly ambitious Bible reading plan: either you fail and feel like a failure, or you succeed and feel proud. There is a series of posts on this tendency at Apologia Christi.
A better and more achievable goal, in my opinion, is to tackle the Bible one book at a time with the mindset of “I want to understand this book” rather than “I need to get through this book.” Then you won’t feel pressure if it takes longer. Some of the most rewarding Bible study is when you hit something strange and get side-tracked finding out more about the Bible. “Do not boil a goat in its mother’s milk!” Huh? Well, reading commentaries on a verse like that can open your eyes to the cultural setting of the Bible and in turn help you to find indirect application of the strangest verses to life today.
Right now I’m “stuck” in the book of Deuteronomy, but I’m finding it so interesting that I’m not too concerned about my Read-The-Bible-In-A-Year plan. The last book I got really stuck in was Hebrews. That’s quite a book and it’s a shame to have to read it in a rush.
Note: This post was inspired by recent posts by Eddie Arthur and Wayne Leman.
Scripture cited: Exodus 34:10, Deuteronomy 14:21
Hi Ling.
If reading through the bible is imposed by others, it can easily become a burden. But many Christians have only read the same few familiar passages, over and over.
Your idea of reading a whole book is a good one, but I would hope people would then tackle another and another, until thye had read the whole she-bang. We must have been given it for a reason!
I read the bible a lot, but had not intentionally read the whole thing through until one of my fellow elders visited a Blue Mountains church that was promoting reading the NT through in 91 days. We adapted the plan, mostly by removing the dates, and 3 members of our congregation read through the NT: one very quickly and the other 2 more slowly.
After reading through the NT, we decided to read through the OT. One has completed the project, one is up to Judges and one has completed the book of Psalms.
I like Michael Coley’s read through in 52 weeks by genre system. I’m not following it exactly, but am reading 8 to 10 chapters a day on my second read-through, and hope to complete it by Christmas, then start again using another system and another version. On the first read-through I used the new TNIV translation, and am now reading through the ESV Reformation Study Bible.
I have also followed a reading plan – and did succeed in finishing the Bible 3 times last year. The first time I read straight through, second time I found a chronological reading plan (but that did not include all the books), and the third I used the genre plan mentioned by David above. However, being a
“speedy reader” I found that I was racing through just to finish and did not spend much time really understanding what I was reading. So this year I decided to focus on reading complete books and slowing down. It is working very well despite the nagging feeling that I am not reading “enough”. I have just finished the Psalms.
Hello there, David. I wanted to thank you for linking to the Apologia Christi series on Quiet Time Guilt.
By the grace of the Lord, I have been steadily receiving emails from numerous folks who have offered me their thanks. Many blessings to you and your blog.
In Him,
Daniel
“Apologia Christi”
David and KP,
You’ve inspired the “Eat the Elephant” post. Thanks for your comments.
Daniel,
Your site is on my blogroll. Plug the Bible reading poll on your blog if you’re feeling generous.
Zondervan publishes a Bible designed to be read in 90 days by reading 12 pages a day in about 30 minutes a day. They also list the plan within the Bible so that it can be used with other translations, too.
[...] / put together a great post today on Read the Bible 4 times in a year LingamishHere’s a quick bit [...]
I’m a little behind( not refering to my anatomy) in reading you’re posts, but I just finished reading the book, The Blue Parakeet by Scot McKnight. The subtitle is how to read the Bible. His premise is that the Bible is a story that God wrote to us through the many authors. Each book is a wikki-story that is written to a certain group of people at a certain time in history. If we look at the Bible as a whole story and not make laws out of certain parts of it we will understand what God is saying to us at this point in history. Each part of The Story has to be read with understanding about the culture at the time and then how we can apply it to our culture today. Reading this way will mean that when you are in Africa you will interpret some passages differently than I would apply the same story to us here in America.
There are five chapters on women in ministry that really opened my eyes to the fact that we are all created for ministry and we have silenced many (women) who God called to preach, teach, prophesy, etc. Forgive me for my past bigoted views.
Two years ago I pondered the Bible as a blog: http://lingamish.com/2007/05/if-the-bible-were-a-blog/
Sounds like McKnight’s bird has a sweet song.