Bible Reading

I haven’t talked much about what I’ve been doing for Bible reading this past year, but since I’ve really been enjoying it I thought I would share.

Now before I explain, I should say one thing. If you haven’t done it before, I would recommend you start by reading through the Bible – either from Genesis to Revelation, or by alternating between the Old and New Testaments. Something that gets you the whole Bible, and gets you reading through complete books. Even if it takes you two or even three years to do it. (For more ideas, listen to this podcast: Bible Reading – What to do…)

That being said, here’s what I’ve been doing this past year.

Basically, the idea is to read through one complete book every day for a month. In other words, if you’re reading Malachi (that’s my book for December), the idea is to read the whole book once on the 1st, once on the 2nd, once on the 3rd – so that you’ve read it about 30 times over the course of the month.

Before I explain why I’ve enjoyed it so much, I should clarify that, being a wimp, I started with the smallest books, and made no agreement with myself to continue with all 66 books. Although I have a plan to do that. I’ll show you exactly what I’m doing in a moment, in case you want to try it for a year.

After 12 months of reading books, with the books getting bigger, it still only takes about 10 minutes a day, so this is not a big commitment.

Now, here’s the beauty of it. First, you obviously get to know the book very well. Second, I’m reading both Old and New Testament throughout the year.

Third – and this may be one of the best things – reading an entire book carefully really gives you a balanced view. You hear the complete thought that the author is trying to share, and not just a chapter or verse. And the Bible has incredible balance that we rarely have. (For example, to show how we often have a different balance than the Bible does: In the book of Acts, with all its early church fervour and apostolic preaching and witnessing, did you know that the word “love” isn’t mentioned once? Or – read through 20 random Psalms, look at the themes, and ask yourself how balanced the worship music in your church is…)

You can’t avoid the uncomfortable parts, you can’t avoid the “obscure” parts – you get the whole story. You get saturated with it. And that’s just REALLY cool.

Ok, if you want to try this, here are the first two years. A couple other things – first, you can read in whatever language you like, and you can also listen. I try to alternate between English and Spanish. Second, the first books are so tiny, I did two a month – one for the first half of the month, and one the second half.

YEAR 1

• January: 3 John, 2 John
• February: Philemon, Obadiah
• March: Jude, Titus
• April: 2 Thessalonians
• May: Nahum
• June: Haggai
• July: Habakkuk
• August: Jonah
• September: 2 Peter
• October: Zephaniah
• November: 2 Timothy
• December: Malachi

Again, up to here you’re probably only spending 10 minutes a day or less. This is where I’m at. So let’s look at…

YEAR 2

• January: Joel
• February: 1 Thessalonians
• March: Colossians
• April: 1 Timothy
• May: Philippians
• June: 1 Peter
• July: James
• August: Song of Solomon
• September: Ruth
• October: Micah
• November: 1 John
• December: Galatians

At this point you’re probably at around 20 minutes a day, and you’ve read 27 books of the Bible really well. If you wanted to continue, you could – I estimate about 6 years to do the whole Bible. Over the last year and a half, I would probably do books a half or a third at a time – for, say, the 8 largest books.

If you want to try it, let me know! If you want to jump in the middle and read what I’m reading, go ahead! I don’t know how long I’ll continue for – there are so many other things you could do – but I’m going to keep going for a while because it really is cool what you can learn when you read a book over and over.