Making the Most of your Bible reading plan

Ah the start of a new year, even though polls show as much as 80% of those who profess to be Christians fail to read the Bible at all, for those of us who actually care to read the things that the God we claim to serve felt important enough to write down for our edification the start of a new year means the start of a new “Read-through-the-Bible-in-a-year” reading plan.  These plans are nice and they really help young in the faith believers get into the habit of reading the Bible, and they can help mature in the faith believers read passages that they might tend to miss as they choose a new book to read as the finish the last one.

The drawback is to read the Bible in a single year you have to read 3 ¼ chapters every day (or three chapters for 3 days, and four chapters on the fourth day).  That can end up being a huge amount to read every day (especially on the day you need to read Psalm 119!), this means the downside to such a reading plan is we fail to give the proper level attention to what we are reading. 

Let me encourage anyone participating in such a reading plan this year to go one-step further.  Pick a scriptural subject, any scriptural subject you are interested in at all, and write down everything the Bible has to say about that subject. After you have picked a subject, write down the inverse of that subject, or as close to the inverse as you can get.  So if you want to read everything the Bible says about God’s love, also write down everything the Bible says about His wrath.  If you want to write down everything about Salvation, also write down everything the Bible has to say about God’s condemnation.  At the end of the year, you will be a better-rounded Christian for having read both sides of the issue.

If you are not planning to read the Bible through in a year and it has been a while since the last time you read through the Bible in a year, it is not too late to get going this year!  There are plenty of online resources that will help you break down what passages to read on which day, and even apps you can download for your phone if you want that extra level of interaction.  

 Again, here are the steps I recommend doing:

1. Pick a year long reading plan
2. Pick a scriptural subject that really interests your or you would like to learn more about and write it down
3. Now think hard and also write down the exact opposite (or as close to the exact opposite as you can think of) of the subject you picked
4. As you read the Bible write down everything it has to say about those two subjects (I like to hand write this, but doing it in a computer program is fine, the important thing is to write it down).
5. If you want to go above and beyond, at the beginning of the year, write down what you expect the Bible to say about the two subjects and then at the end of the year compare what you expected the Bible to say to what it actually said.

Making the Most of your Bible reading plan