It just so happened that on the night of day twenty, I was in church and heard a talk on 1 John 2:18-28. One of the main points of this talk was to stick with the original message of the gospel, and flowing from that was the application to read the Bible, and read it each day.
The Bible is the source of our guidance, and the source of our life.
Psalm 119:105 describes it as a light for our path. It lights up the darkness of life around us.
Anyway so I have been encouraged again to read the Bible and read it often.
Last time I had just finished the Pentateuch, which was 187 chapters and this time I was able to read:
Matthew
Joshua
Judges
Ruth
Romans 1 - 3
This was a total of 80 chapters and so a running total of 267 chapters out of the 1189 in the Bible.
Reading the Bible is not just an activity to slip into your schedule for something to do, it is a life giving, encouraging activity which teaches, convicts, disciplines and moves us to a deeper walk in Jesus.
Read the Bible today!
So some years ago I had an aim, that aim was to read the Bible one time for every year of my life.
I have made it half way now, finishing 22 times and I am the ripe old age of 44.
Getting that far though has meant that I had to plan, and so I have planned, and now I actually put in my diary my daily readings.
Then this year I decided to add the Bible Marathon challenge, so now I am a month behind my schedule. Now I could easily re-write my schedule, or try and catch up, slowly but surely. A friend of mine used to say when watching a team playing sport that were behind, they just need to grind away. Now this is not sport, and ultimately it does not matter if I don't meet my schedule, what matters is that the word of God impacts my life deeply and that I apply it and change, growing in his grace and mercy.
Anyway another way of being sure I am continuing reading the Bible is blogging what I have read, and so I am going to continue the updates and my plan is to do this every ten days.
So what did I read in the first ten days. I read the Torah.
Genesis.
Exodus.
Leviticus.
Numbers.
Deuteronomy.
I am not going through the Bible from start to finish this time, in fact next up is the gospel of Matthew.
So this time I am mixing up the old and the new.
Some people say, and with some accuracy, that you can't get a lot out of just reading the Bible in chunks, for want of a better word, but there are other ways to add to daily Bible reading.
The church I attend works through books of the Bible, preaching a passage on the Sunday, and we study the same passage the Wednesday before in our Bible Study groups. Even the kids in kids church look at the same passage. The church in unity studying the Bible together. Currently we are working through the epistles of John.
Also I have another blog called The Tribal Bible in which I am paraphrasing the Bible, and currently working through Genesis. This makes you stop, go slowly and think about the words and concepts even more.
So my encouragement is read the Bible, and study the Bible, do both.
I'd love to hear if anyone else is on the same pilgrimage, to read the Bible one year for every year of their life.
Yep, so without any tension building here - it was a success!. This was not actually all of week five, rather just shy of half a week, being three days.
But the end result of it all is at about 8:00 am on January 31 Revelation 22 was read to finish the Bible in 31 days.
Success!!!
So here is what I read in those three days:
II Corinthians
Galatians
Ephesians
Philippians
Colossians
I Thessalonians
II Thessalonians
I Timothy
II Timothy
Titus
Philemon
Hebrews
James
I Peter
2 Peter
I John
2 John
3 John
Jude
Revelation
So for the stats -
I read 111 chapters making a total of 1189 chapters and of course 0 to go!
Over the course of the month I read at an average of 38.35 chapters per day.
It was a real challenge, especially when you are working and busy most nights, but it was a great thing to do.
That is the end of cycle 22 - and I have now read the Bible at an average of once every two years in my life, half way to my goal of making it once every year.
Cycle 23 has commenced, but that can be for another post!
