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Making the Most of the Bible in the Year to Come

By the time you read this, Christmas day will have passed!  2014 is fast approaching and it is a great time to consider planning to enhance some aspect of your spiritual life in this year.  We won’t call it a New Year’s resolution, since we often fail at those.  Consider making one or two objectives for your personal spiritual growth in the year ahead.  Something is always better than nothing.  Having family devotions three times a week consistently is better than attempting to do so seven days a week and never getting it done at all.  A personal prayer time several times a week that actually happens is an improvement over a goal that never happens because you fail at it so often.

In this article I want to encourage you to develop a strategy for personal reading of the Bible.  And, I want to be flexible enough that if your plan incorporates another believer, that’s allowed and encouraged.  Someone might say, “I want to get up a little earlier every day and read a chapter of the Bible before work with my wife and that’s my Bible reading plan”.  I want to affirm that if you think that will happen for you better than reading alone, it is a worthwhile goal.  If you find a strategy that gets you regularly reading Scripture and thinking about its message, then that is the right one for you!  Another strategy might be to have a reading friend with whom you meet for personal study of the Bible on some regular basis.

For most of us however, I’m suggesting finding a strategy for some individual reading, study, and prayer directly from Scripture. Like many of you I use devotional books as well (like John Piper’s A Godward Life, Book I and II), but I also read the Bible itself regularly.  I want God to speak to me through the Bible.  I want to be taught, corrected, encouraged, challenged and strengthened by the Spirit of God from the pages of His book.  Sometimes I get little out of it (or so it seems).  Sometimes I am really uplifted by what I read and learn.  I keep at it no matter what the results seem to be on any given occasion.  Before I suggest a few strategies, let me make a few general comments about it.

 

The 66 books of the Bible are not all equally easy to study and comprehend

Imagine reading The Constitution of the United States without any context or background information.  If I translated the Constitution into Arabic and read it to people in a remote village in North Africa, they might find much of it confusing and foreign.  There are some books of the Bible that are like that even for people that have gone to church for a while.  I just read the three chapter book of Habakkuk this morning.  There are some real “gem” verses in the book that warmed my heart.  However, if I didn’t have some background and training, I would have found most of it a waste of time.  Interestingly enough, Habakkuk asks some of the same questions we ask today about God’s justice in His actions.  It takes some work to see that clearly. Other books of the Bible are more accessible to modern readers without additional assistance.  I say this so that you won’t lose heart and give up.  It’s all the Word of God, but it’s not all easily understood.

That’s why attempts to read through the Bible from Genesis to Revelation in order often fail.  Only the most faithful and determined person can accomplish this goal.  That’s because the reader finds themselves bogging down in parts of the Bible that are both complicated to understand, and devoid of easy and obvious applications to modern life.  Those laws, instructions and commandments are all a part of the big picture of God’s plan, but require quite a bit of work to understand and apply wisely to modern Christian living.  I recommend an approach that builds on success: start small and build!

 

Tools are often necessary for further understanding

It’s a good idea to have a few basic tools handy.  Start with a good quality study Bible like the ESV Study Bible or the Reformation Study Bible can make your journey through Bible reading much easier. These study Bibles include study tools and notes that help give you the background information to help you make sense of some confusing books and passages.  I can also recommend the purchase of the New Bible Commentary as a one volume commentary on the Bible that can be easily referred to as needed.  If you want to go deeper in a book of the Bible and need a commentary recommendation, ask Pastor Tag Tuck or myself for some good ideas.  There are some really questionable commentaries out there, so a little guidance is helpful.

Having a few decent tools accessible can help you feel like you aren’t reading the equivalent of a medical textbook.  I could read an advanced medical textbook and think to myself, “I’m reading English but not much is making sense.”  The language would be too technical for me to understand.  I’d need some tools handy to make much sense of it.  Sometimes we get frustrated in that same way while reading the Bible.  Tools can help us grow in our knowledge and understanding.

 

There are treasures to be mined in the reading of Scripture

Don’t get discouraged.  There are treasures in the Bible that are easily mined for Bible readers at any level of understanding.  Sometimes God has graciously left the gold on the ground for you to pick up.  While even gospel stories and parables can confuse us, other times we find ourselves engrossed in an interaction Jesus had with someone, and find ourselves identifying with someone in the story.  Perhaps we hear a gospel truth in our reading that is just what we needed for that day.  It doesn’t always make me feel “good”.  There is that persistent command to love one another that keeps showing up in some form or fashion.  I am often inconvenienced by that.  However, I am often encouraged, cleansed, and uplifted by something I read in the Bible.

 

Strategies for Bible Reading

Discipleship Journal Reading Plan

Let's talk strategy.  I plan I’ve used for many years is the NavPress Discipleship Journal Reading Plan, which you can download here. Here are some variations on this plan.

At GCC, we have included this in the visitor bags over the years.  This plan has you read from four different sections of scripture 25 times each month.  That means if you are in a confusing section, you probably are also reading something that makes a lot of sense.   You are always reading from the gospels all year long.  Thus, the life and teaching of Jesus are emphasized in the plan.  The longest reading, by necessity, is from the Old Testament.  The plan can be varied, for example, reading two sections in the morning and two at night before bed.

It works for me because I have some flexibility.  I can miss some days or chose just to spend time in prayer and still reach my goal.  Some days I get busy and miss altogether.  The plan is still waiting for me and allows me to keep myself exposed to God’s Word from four different places in the Bible every day.  I’ve used it so much that I adapt it as needed.  I decided not to read Job this year, which allowed me to focus more on the three other readings.

 

M’Cheyne Plan

Another plan is one created by a well-known Christian author of the past, Robert Murray M’Cheyne.  Similar to the previous plan, you read from four locations at a time.  Unlike the plan above, you read every day of the year.  The advantage is that by adding back in the “relief days”, you have smaller sections of scripture to read each day.  Pastor Tag mentioned to me that he enjoys this plan.  You can follow it online or download the PDF.

 

One Psalm, One Proverb, One Old Testament, and One New Testament

This plan is simple and has no time schedule associate with it.  Eventually you will read through the entire Bible.  You will read Psalms and Proverbs multiple times in the process.  There is much to commend the frequent reading of the Psalms.  Proverbs is awesome especially for children and parents.  And a chapter of the old and new is a manageable amount.  If you miss a day, your bookmarks will be waiting for you the next day.

 

Focus on a Book at a Time

As one who has used the Discipleship Journal Bible reading plan for over 30 years, I occasionally deviate from the plan.  That can be very good and healthy.  I might read through a book of the Bible one at a time and reread that book several times.  On this plan I might pick several books I want to explore more deeply over the next year.  I have no intention of reading the whole Bible when I do this.  I might pick a gospel, a letter of Paul, and a couple of key Old Testament books.  I try to delve more deeply into the books and study them more thoroughly.  I enjoy this as an occasional change of pace from reading all over the Bible.

 

Using Technology

For those of you who are online on your phones, tablets, or computers a lot, there is a great free app called YouVersion that has a variety of Bible reading plans, including the ones already mentioned. You can  receive daily email reminders that will take you right to the chapters you are to read for that day, and you can adjust your schedule if you happen to miss days in the process. It’s flexible, accessible, and convenient if you prefer to do things online.

 

One Year Bible

Lastly I mention the One Year Bible.  This Bible is broken up for you in manageable chunks to read every day.  Some people have found this a useful way to read through the Bible with a clear goal in mind.

 

To wrap it up…

So it is obvious by now that I think Bible reading is important growth in every way, and that the best plan for you to pick is the one you believe you can handle.  For your long-term health and growth as a Christian, there is nothing like the study of the Bible.  You will benefit from studying it with others, but I encourage you to develop a healthy practice of reading and study on your own. Let's make 2014 a year in which GCC reads, knows, and hungers for God's Word!

 

Merry Christmas!

Don

 

 

Don Ward

Senior Pastor

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