The 3650 Challenge

Here is something to consider: Do you think it would change your life if you were to read 3,650 chapters of the Bible over the course of the next year? Let me explain why I’m asking the question.

It was a little over a year ago that I discovered Professor Horner’s Bible-Reading System [2]. His system is intense: you read 10 chapters per day, every day, all year round. Not only that, but each of the 10 chapters you read in a day comes from a different book of the Bible. You do not study these chapters and over labor every word, but read at a good pace and count on repeated readings to do the same kind of work as fewer, slower readings. I have not followed the plan every day since then, but have enjoyed it for months at a time. Recently I’ve been doing the plan by listening to the Bible instead of reading. This provides 2 benefits: it redeems my commute and it also slows me down to a better pace (I tend to read too quickly).

A new year is approaching and I got to thinking about doing a program like this in some kind of community. I’m wondering if you’d be interested in banding together, perhaps linking up through Facebook over the course of the year.

Professor Horner’s plan calls for 10 chapters per day. Spread over a year, that equals 3,650 chapters. So again, do you think it would change your life if over the next year you were to read or listen to 3,650 chapters of the Bible? That would mean that over 2012 calendar year you would read through (or listen through) all the Gospels four times, the Pentateuch twice, Paul's letters 4-5 times each, the Old Testament wisdom literature six times, all the Psalms at least twice, all the Proverbs as well as Acts a dozen times, and all the way through the Old Testament History and Prophetic books about 1.5 times.

The program is not for the feint-of-heart. But for those who have the time and those who are able to stick to it, there is a lot of joy in drinking from the biblical firehose in this way.

I have not yet decided if this will work, so this is not quite an invitation to join me. Rather, I am simply trying to gauge interest. So…would you be interested in banding together to do Professor Horner’s plan with me in 2012? We can meet up via Facebook or some other network to share what we’ve been learning, to encourage one another, and so on. Leave a comment if you are at all interested.