There are many excellent Bible reading plans available to the Christian. If one were to read 3 chapters of the Bible each day, and 5 on Sundays, one could read through the entire Bible in a year. Most Bible reading plans are meant to accomplish this goal. Many are designed to allow the reader to read through the Psalms, Proverbs, and Gospel's twice, and the rest of the Scriptures once. One of the better plans is the reading plan by Robert Murray McCheyne which has you read through various types and genres of Scripture simultaneously.
These sorts of reading plans work for many people, and many people derive great benefit from them. I, however, am not one of them. For me, these plans make the goal of reading through the Bible more important than reading the Bible. When I follow one of these plans, I tend to read to finish the section, rather than for understanding. I recognize that the problem is not with the plans themselves, but with me. However, I also think that the way I read does not lend itself well to using these methods. Put simply, it is too fast for me to dig into the text, and too slow for me to synthesize my reading. Recently, I've found a method that works much better for me, and which has made Bible reading a joy.
Get the Big Picture:
I stumbled across this quite by accident. For class here at Covenant Seminary (which has a fancy new website) we are required to read the Bible (a more obvious sentence may never have been written!). Due to the pace of the schedule, this often requires reading large sections of the Bible in one sitting. Recently, I read Genesis over the course of two days, and Matthew's Gospel in one. Last semester, I read the majority of Paul's letters in a few days. I learned two things from this:
1. "Books" in the Bible are much shorter than we think them to be. When I opened Genesis in the past I would see the "book" as containing 50 "chapters." Just the terminology that we use caused me to think of Bible reading as a daunting task. The 66 books of the Bible are described with terminology similar to a novel. It gives the perception that they are longer than they really are. Likewise, "chapter" sounds similar to what you would find inside of a book that you would pick up at Barnes and Noble (...or download on your eReader). I recognize that this sounds obvious, but reading a "book" or three "chapters" sounds like a difficult task. In reality, though, reading a whole book of the Bible is not unlike reading a chapter in a "normal" book. Matthew was, I think, about 35 pages. Not insurmountable in a single sitting by any means, and it is a fairly "long" book, especially by New Testament standards.
2. When reading a whole book of the Bible in one or two sittings, you see things that you would have otherwise missed. At the end of Matthew, the authority and magnificence of Christ are poignant having read the Gospel from start to finish. One finishes the book and cannot help but to worship, such is the rhetorical force of the book read cover to cover. This is something that I did not "get" when reading a few chapters a day.
I should mention that I do not read a book of the Bible every day or even every week. I might do something like this every other week or so. In the intervening time I think about the book that I read, and reflect on the major themes that it put forth.
Dig Deep:
This likely looks quite different for me than it might for other people. This daily aspect of my devotional reading was also discovered by accident. After I finished Greek in exegesis last year, I purchased a Reader's Bible and decided to try to read from it everyday. Recently, having just finished Hebrew II, I read a Hebrew's reader Bible as well. Basically, I choose a book (John in the NT and passages from Numbers in the OT), and I read anywhere from a few verses to paragraph (depending on how complicated the section or vocabulary is). While my "big picture reading helps me grasp the flow and argument of the book, this allows me to dig deeply into the text and notice minutia that I too easily skip when reading more quickly in English.
As an example, the other night I was reading in Numbers. I was reading about Caleb encouraging Israel to enter the land despite the presence of mighty people occupying the land because God had promised it to them. The very next verse says that the Israelites picked up stones to stone him. Surely I read that wrong, I thought. But no, that's what it said. When I read that passage in English I read so quickly that I blow right by the enormity of the situation. "Yeah I know," I think, "they don't go into the land." But slowing down and reading the Hebrew, it struck me in a new way. The slavery, the plagues, the Red Sea, the promise to Abraham... The goal is right there, and when Caleb says as much, they pick up stones to stone him. Wow.
Now, many of you who read this might not be able to read the original languages, but that does not mean you can't intentionally slow down and focus on a few verses. A good book or two on hermeneutics (how to read) might not be a bad investment of your time. Learning to read the Bible well is not a skill that we are born with, it is something that we learn.
As I said at the outset, there is no "right" way to read the Bible, but we must read it. We must be a people of the Book who hear the voice of God and allow it shape, change, and mold us. I have found a method which allows my Bible reading to be refreshing and exciting, but it might not work for you. That is okay, but you must, as was famously said to Augustine, "Take up an read." Tolle lege.
"Cor meum tibi offero, Domine, prompte et sincere."
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