Each year I include Bible reading goals in my New Year’s resolutions. I am always excited about digging into the Word and meeting my God for a feast in the year to come.
Some people may think that starting a Bible reading plan on January 1 is trite. Lots of people give the read-the-Bible-in-a-year a go when the New Year rolls around. The popularity of New Year’s Bible reading challenges isn’t the problem. The problem is that so few of those plans are seen through to the end. I know this pain firsthand.
Even so, I am not jaded. I’m all for Bible reading plans. I say it’s better to read and fall behind than to never read at all.
Here I am once again, with January just hours away, and I’m getting ready for another year of Bible reading. Although there are plenty of reading plans available, I wanted to go simple this year. So I have crafted a plan that is a bit more loose, consisting of two elements I’m calling the Daily Drink and the Sabbath Soak (alliteration is key to this plan). Here’s how it will work:
The Daily Drink
Supposedly it takes the average reader 75 hours to read through the entire Bible. That’s 4,500 minutes (whoa!) or 12 minutes a day (well, that’s not so bad). My plan is to go book by book, reading for 12 minutes each day. I’ll mark my place after 12 minutes, mark my spot, and pick up from there the next day. Simple enough, yes?
Now, I don’t plan to read from Genesis to Revelation . . . I want to mix it up a bit. I’m actually thinking about reading the books in alphabetical order. That means I’ll be starting in Acts, followed by Amos, then I’ll move on to Chronicles (1 and 2).
The Sabbath Soak
In addition to reading through the Bible in full, I also want to study some passages a bit more in depth. Sundays typically offer a bit more time for me to read and reflect. So each month, I’ll choose a different book or passage from the Bible to concentrate on.
The first Sunday I’ll read through the book/passage in my usual translation; the following Sundays of the month, I’ll choose other translations. Shorter books I could read in full each week; longer books I will likely cover for two or more months as needed. Ephesians will be my pick for January because that’s the book my pastor is teaching from right now.
What do you think? Would you like to join me for this year’s Bible reading? Maybe even for a month or two? Let me know if you plan to join me. We can encourage each other to stick with the plan . . . and maybe we will make it a bit further into 2012 then the average Bible reader.
