Keeping That One Resolution We All Make…

It’s one of the most common New Year’s resolutions among followers of Jesus: “This year I will read the entire Bible!” And we start out all gung-ho and read every day for 3 or 4 days, maybe a week… Then we miss a day or two – we plan to catch up “soon,” and we make a couple of stabs at it, but eventually, we just forget about the whole thing…

We know reading the Bible is important. We know it feeds us and teaches us and shapes our lives, our decision-making, the very quality of our lives on earth… But many of us feel defeated when we try to keep up with a Bible reading plan.

So here are some tips and a link to a plan that just might make 2013 the year we actually read the entire Bible:

• Get a version of the Bible you can read and understand. This cannot be stressed enough – (and I’ve got zero interest in debating with anybody who thinks there’s only one “authorized version.”) For most of us, the King James or the New American Standard versions are not very readable. I recommend the New Living Translation – I’ve used it since 2008 (here’s a blog post about why I changed versions: The NLT and Me).
  
• Do not, I repeat, DO NOT open your Bible up at Genesis and start reading with a plan to go straight through to Revelation! You will get bogged down pretty quickly in some boring stuff – legal codes, census counts, obscure history – and your eyes will glaze over and you’ll give up. There are better ways to do it – more on that in a minute…
• Read earlier in the day rather than later. I used to try to read at bedtime – I lost count of how many times I fell asleep on God’s Holy Word. Make it a practice to read early in the day, maybe at breakfast or on a coffee break.
• Relax – don’t get stressed if you miss a day. There’s no law, or Bible verse, or church requirement that says you can’t miss. So if you get behind a day or three or 30 – just pick up reading on the next day. The object is to read the entire Bible – if it takes you 18 months to do, no big deal.

Here’s a plan that might work well for a lot of people. Advantages include:

• Providing variety throughout the week by alternating different types of scripture. The benefit is you don’t get bogged down for days in the less than stimulating portions of the Bible.
• Providing continuity by reading the same scripture type each day of the week.
• Providing an opportunity to see the many interconnections between sections of Scripture. One day you may be reading Paul’s teaching about God’s covenant with Abraham in Romans, and in the next day or two you’ll be reading about the actual establishment of the covenant in Genesis.

In a nutshell, here’s how it works:

1. Sundays: New Testament Epistles
2. Mondays: Penteteuch/The Law (Genesis through Deuteronomy)
3. Tuesdays: Old Testament history
4. Wednesdays: Psalms
5. Thursdays: Old Testament poetry
6. Fridays: Prophecy
7. Saturdays: Gospels

We have hard copies of this plan, and several others, including the Daily Walk magazine available in the foyer at New Hope – or here’s a link to a printable copy in PDF.

If I can help you with finding a Bible or a plan to help you read it – please drop me a note!

 

 

Sunday Replay 08.17.08

Another great day at church.  The worship band raised the creativity bar a little, and I know they were anxious about it beforehand – but worship was awesome!  Yeah, I know we’ve got to make up some ground technically, but I couldn’t be more pleased with how far we’ve come already!

We continued our “Church on the Move” message series, focusing on the Learning That Makes Us Deeper.  We examined the experience of the Bereans in Acts 17, and saw that one of the key indicators that the church is “on mission” is a pervasive willingness to hear, study, and grow in the teaching of God’s Word, the Bible.  There is a direct correlation between the depth of our devotion to the Word and the power of our impact on the World! 

The Bereans received the Word that was taught, they researched the Scriptures for themselves to make sure they were getting the truth, and they responded to the Word in obedience.  Being a “people of the Book” doesn’t mean we spend all – or even most – of our time reading, studying and discussing…  It means we GO and SERVE!

Next up: Outreach Makes Us Bigger

Lots of great stuff coming our way this fall:  Disciple University, a personalized, self-directed journey to being a mature, devoted follower of Jesus and a disciplemaker…  “To the Streets – Community Service as Worship” will give us another chance to put our faith in action “outside the walls”… and a strategic planning initiative that will help us dream about, think about, and prepare for future ministry.  Exciting and challenging stuff!

A quote to close: “If you do not change what you are doing today, tomorrow will be no different than yesterday.”

Have a great week!

The Bible and the cell phone

My buddy Chris had this up on his blog a few days ago – I thought it fit in great with our “Homerun” theme and last Sunday’s message:

I wonder what would happen if we treated our Bible like we treat our cell phone?
 
What if we carried it around in our purses or pockets?
 
What if we flipped through it several times a day?
 
What if we turned back to go get it if we forgot it?
 
What if we used it to receive messages from the text?
 
What if we treated it like we couldn’t live without it?
 
What if we gave it to kids as gifts?
 
What if we used it when we traveled?
 
What if we used it in case of emergency? 
 
What if we constantly asked ourselves, ‘How did I ever get along without it?

Something to make you go….hmm…where is my Bible?” 

What would you add to the list?