Bible Reading Program

I've just come across what I consider to be some excellent advice on Bible reading and thought I'd share it with you. You can read the whole article here, but I wanted to include the ten suggestions the author makes. You may not have the time or want to do it exactly the way the author suggests here, but you'll know the sort of thing to look out for.

1. Find a quiet, undisturbed place to read. Start in the New Testament since the New Covenant is necessary for perspective on the Old Testament. Might as well begin with Matthew.

2. Read through one entire book in a single sitting. Obviously, the first five books of the NT are going to require some time. But do it. (You're eternal. Live like it!) These books are whole units and are meant to be read as such. We need to experience their coherence. Trust me; the Holy Spirit will bring the entirety of the book to your mind in the future in a way you've never experienced before.

3. When you've read the book once, don't move on! Read through it again. For the first five books, if you must break them into chunks, go with five or six chapters—whatever maintains the arc of the narrative.

4. Re-read that one book. Note the way the narrative and themes flow. Commit those stories and themes to memory. Note where they exist in the book.

5. Re-read that one book. Pay special attention to the way the Lord is portrayed.

6. Re-read that one book. Examine the relational aspects of the book, God to Man, Man to Man, Man to God.

7. Re-read that one book. Note the Lord's redeeming and salvific acts within the greater arc of Creation, Fall, Redemption, and Restoration. (This first pass through the NT assumes you have a modicum of OT understanding. After reading the OT through, the second pass through the NT will clarify things further.)

8. Re-read that one book. This time around, note all the Lord's commands and how we're told to practice them. Consider how they might work practically in your daily activities.

(By this point, you've read the same book seven times. Depending on the length of the book, it may have taken seven days or seven weeks. It doesn't matter. This is about changing your life and relationship with Christ. This is about sixty years of discipleship. It's not about getting through the Bible in a certain length of time.)

Now comes the hard (and controversial) part…

9. Take everything you've learned in this book and put it into practice. Take a month (*see comments below) to do nothing but concertedly meditate on what you've just read by making it real in your own life. It might mean that the only Bible you read this month are the parts of this one book that you still aren't getting and must re-read. Doesn't matter—do it. (If you absolutely have to read something every day that isn't part of this program, consider a few Psalms or a cycle of Proverbs. They're the most suited to broken-up reading patterns since they are collections of wisdom and less unified than a book like Romans.)

10. After your month, take stock of all that you've learned by reading and practice. Make a mental assessment of the themes of the book and how they apply to your discipleship. If you're confident you've read and practiced this book, move on to the next one. Once the NT is finished, move onto the OT. (I realize some of the OT books are daunting in length for a single read-through. Make a concerted effort to read them in one sitting. Failing this, some of the OT books are narrative, which allows for breaks in the story. Psalms and Proverbs are easily segmented, as noted above. All prophets must be read in one sitting the first time through. A book as enormous as Isaiah is hard to partition, so consider reading it on a weekend day.)

Questions for Jonah

I thought I'd just leave a few questions here which might help us think through the book of Jonah when we read. You can use these as you wish. I hope they might a help if you need them.

1. The book of Jonah is a prophetic book. So what do we learn here about the nature of prophecy.

2. What does the book teach us about God and his relationship with our world and with humanity?

3. What is Jonah's real problem? Does he overcome it?

What to read and when

Well, since this blog is about reading the Bible together then let's get down to it. Which raises the question, what are we going to read? The Bible is a large book made up of 66 different books. There are historical books, poetic books, biographies (of a sort), prophetic books, wisdom books etc. So where to begin?

That's where all of you who want to participate come in. Maybe there are parts of the Bible you've read often and others you have completely ignored, but would like to read now; or books that have always intrigued you and you would like to learn more about. Please put up a post to say what books you would like to read.

And whilst waiting for that to happen I suggest we start reading now. To begin with I suggest reading the book of the prophet Jonah. It's short and fairly easy to read but more importantly I think, it draws us right to the heart of God.

Our aim here is to read through the whole Bible eventually. But we are not setting ourselves a time limit. But neither should we approach this in a leisurely way. Jonah is not hard to read, so how about we start posting on it on Monday. Impressions, questions, doubts, difficulties: all are welcome as we set of on this journey through God's word.

Questions and relationships

I was reading Genesis 18 and 19 this morning, and thought some thoughts on that would make for a good first post to this blog. Abraham is taken into God's confidence. God shares with him something of what he is planning to do. But Abraham doesn't understand everything.

I wonder how well Abraham knew God when these events came about. There is so much behind the Biblical accounts we just don't know. God had called to Abraham and Abraham had acted on God's call in belief. He began to live an adventurous life under God's wing. That it wasn't all plain sailing is evident from the accounts themselves. There were lack of faith, doubt (which I don't think is the same thing), mistakes, new beginnings, and lots more besides. And all the time Abraham was learning to live with this God who at times seemed so mysterious and unfathomable. And that meant getting to know God.

This is what this passage is all about. Abraham doesn't understand; he's trying hard but he has so many questions. And God opens himself up. He gives Abraham a glimpse into who he is, and he will go on giving such glimpses (i.e. revelealing himself) throughout Abraham's life. That is what relationship is all about.

Today, we hear a lot about faith and trusting God. But it often seems as if open, honest questioning is frowned upon. If we believe, we believe unquestioningly; if we question, then we do not believe. That is not what God said or did to Abraham. When Abraham questioned God opened up.

This blog is for those who want to discover God. I believe that those who discover him will truly want to live in relationship with him. This journey of discovery will be centred on Scripture, because it is through Scripture that we find out who God is, how he acts, what he truly desires. So we will read Scripture and share our discoveries with one another. But our discoveries may sometimes unsettle us, cause us to question previously held beliefs, cause us to ask more about who this strange and mysterious God is. I hope we can be open with each other in our questioning and helpful to each other as we try to point to some ways God may be answering our questions.