Bright Wings

Because the Holy Ghost over the bent World broods with warm breast and with Ah! Bright Wings.

January 13, 2010

Bible Reading for the Slightly Under Achieving

It is not that we don’t have great plans to read the bible every January. It is just that we so rarely get through it. Now we have been alive in Christ long enough that we want to be a bit more realistic about reading through the Bible in a year. I am 37 years old, I have been a Christian since I was four years old, a pastor of some sort for over 12 years and I am confessing publicly that I have never completed my January resolutions to read through the Scriptures in a year. Gasp! I write this smack dab in the middle of January when many of you are falling behind in your resolution…enjoy, take hope, start fresh.

Let me say a few things here to help us deal with our bible reading problems.

First, I think it is a wonderful goal to read through the Bible in a year. It comes from a desire to be what John Piper calls, ‘bible saturated’. It comes from a godly desire to grow not only in the worn out sections of our Bibles - the middle part of the back half of all my well used Bibles are falling apart (basically Paul’s letters). We want to grow biblically in a comprehensive, ‘whole counsel of God’ (Acts 20:27) sense. We desire to mark our years not only with birthdays and holidays, but with goals and hopes rooted in spiritual disciplines (this year I will fast monthly or this year I will rise early to pray three days/week or this year I will spend my Wednesdays reaching out to my neighbors with the gospel and love of Christ, etc.). So, you might be tired of January resolutions and your failures in realizing them over the course of the year- but this doesn’t make them wrong. It is good to try and read through the Bible over the course of the year.

Second, we all have different abilities, capacities, and strengths. Some of you can identify strongly with my failures in this area. Others don’t get it, the discipline of yearly bible reading in not a big issue. So adjust your expectations, goals accordingly. Be courageous and stretch yourself- but don’t set lofty goals that are really outside your basic abilities. I am a slow reader, I am fairly unorganized. If I try to read 3 chapters a day, every day- I will quickly fall behind, get lost, and give up. So I adjust.

Third, you can read ‘through’ the bible without necessarily reading every chapter and verse. There are 1100 chapters in the 66 books of the bible. To read them all in a year you have to read 3 chs/day, 7 days/week. If I try this I will fall behind, lose track, and give up. So, I make it my goal to read ‘through’ the whole bible in its various sections/genre over the course of the year. Then I look back over the year and see the gaps of my reading and try to fill them in over the course of the next year ahead. This way I cover much of the Bible, and every part of the Bible- while being able to take time to read and ingest, meditate, and apply what I read more realistically.

So here is what I do:

First, I keep my ‘bible reading bible’ (for most of you that will be your regular use bible- I have an ESV Journaling Bible with wide margins for notes, doodles, etc thatI use, and then I have my ‘preaching’ bible that I try to keep a bit more pristine) handy, so if I have time during the day- I can do some reading.

I keep a two sided print out of this pdf ( Check it out here.) document listing all the books of the Bible and their chapters in my bible. As I read a chapter I mark it off. When I read next, I know where I am according to where I left off, not according to date. If you read and track according to date alone- it gets overwhelming to fall behind and then try to catch up. 

I try to read 2 to 3 chapters a day, 3 to 4 times a week. I circulate through the various genres of the bible, and stay daily in both Testaments. Again, this way I am going ‘through’ the bible, getting the big picture and enjoying the full counsel of it all, but at a pace that is more feasible for me. Here are the genres I break the books into:

1. Pentateuch/Law: Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy

2. History/Narrative: Joshua, Judges, Ruth, Esther, Ezra, Nehemiah, 1 & 2 Samuel/Kings/Chronicles

3. Wisdom: Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, Job

4. Poetry: Psalms, Song of Songs, Lamentations

5. Prophecy: [Major] Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Daniel; [Minor] Hosea, Joel, Amos , Obadiah, Jonah, Micah, Nahum, Habakkuk, Zephaniah, Haggai, Zechariah, Malachi; or- Prophetic/Apocalyptic: Ezekiel, Daniel, Zechariah, Revelation

6. Gospels and Acts

7. Epistles: [Paul] Romans, 1 & 2 Corinthians, Galatians, Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians, 1 & 2 Thessalonians, 1 & 2 Timothy, Titus, Philemon; [General] Hebrews, James, 1 & 2 Peter, 1-3 John, Jude

So on one day you are reading Genesis 11, Psalm 100, and Matthew 5.  Once you get through with Genesis (Law) move on to some History/Narrative (1 Samuel). Once you get through a gospel, move on to a letter from Paul, then to a letter from Peter, and so on. Be sure to mark the chapters, books off on your sheet so you’ll be able to quickly see what you’ve covered and the gaps you need to move on to.

Here’s the math: if you read 3 chs/day, 4 days/week you’ll cover 624 chapters of the Bible through the year.  If you circulate through the genres above you will get a good comprehensive grasp of the whole bible, and at a pace that might give more room for journaling, studying, meditating. Realize that there is a good deal of ‘overlap’ (between 1 & 2 Kings and Chronicles, let’s say) and that if you read Isaiah this year you might not cover Jeremiah, but you’ll have still spent a good deal of time in the Major Prophets. You might read 1 Peter, but not get to 2 Peter.  Nonetheless, at the end of the year you’ll have moved ‘through’ the Bible pretty steadily. Then next year, read through those chapters and books you didn’t cross off this year.

Slightly under-achieving brethren unite! Let’s start digging in…

Tags: Spiritual Disciplines

posted by Erik Braun