A new year is fast approaching and with it a new opportunity to dive into God’s Word. Here are some tips on getting started with a new Bible-reading program.
Here’s the link to the program I recommend: Five Day Bible Reading Program.
Transcript
Welcome to another edition of 3 Minute Thursdays, where, in three minutes or less, I try to say something helpful, maybe even useful about a subject that’s of interest to Christians like you and me. Today we’re talking about Bible reading programs.
So, we’ll get three minutes on the clock, and here we go. We’re coming up to the end of 2017. 2018 is just around the corner, and if you’re like me, you’re probably already starting to think about how you’ll read the Word of God in the year ahead. We’re Christians, and we know we are so utterly dependent on the Word of God, if we’re to grow in godliness in the year ahead. If we’re to grow in our relationship with God in the year ahead, we’ve got to be in the Word of God. What a gift that God gives us his Word, so day by day we can access the mind of God and understand the will of God. That is truly a treasure. So, of course, we want to be reading the Word in the year ahead. Yet, we also know that we’re sinful people and our great desires can so easily go astray. At one moment we can be soaring in these spiritual highs and we love to be in the Word of God. Before long we find it’s hard. We find that we’re distracted.
So let me tell you how I stay on track in my Bible reading and how I intend to stay on track in the year ahead. I use a Bible reading plan. I use the five day Bible reading program. I’ve used it for several years now. I intend to use it in the year ahead. Let me tell you what I love about it.
First, it’s a Bible overview plan. That means you won’t be diving deep into any one book, or any one section of the Bible. Instead, you’ll be reading the entire thing. Over the course of the year, you’ll read every word, from Genesis to Revelation. I love that. The more I do that, the more I find it helpful, the more I find I’m just drawing these connections across the whole of the Bible, the more I find my familiarity with all of God’s Word is growing.
Another thing I love about this program is it’s chronological. That’s especially pertinent in the old testament, where, as you read the histories, you’re also encountering the prophecies that go at the same time. I find that so, so helpful. To be reading in Chronicles, and then to read the prophecies that go at that same time.
Another thing I love is it’s a five-day program. Ever since I was a kid, I’ve been reading the Bible just about every day, but not on Sundays. Sundays, either I haven’t read, or I’ve been reading the text that we’ll be preaching at church that day. So I find it very, very helpful to have a five-day program, where I can have a couple of days either to catch up if I’ve fallen behind or a day to read something else. To turn my attention to another book or to another text.
To put it all together, this is a great plan. Let me show you how I access it. I access it every day on my iPad. I simply pull up the app. I’ve got the readings. There’s usually four or five of them a day. I give it a tap, and it takes me right to Logos. It opens it up, and there’s my reading. I go through it, go back to the app and read the next one. And go day by day simply reading the Bible that way.
Of course, there are also posters available, there’s a reading guide you can put in your Bible, you can use the bookmark system, whatever you like. Listen, the Bible doesn’t mandate you must have a Bible reading plan. However, many, many Christians will say they have proven very, very helpful, very, very useful. Certainly, that’s been the case for me. As we come up on the end of 2017. As we look ahead to 2018, why don’t you spend just a little bit of time thinking and praying about how you will read the Word of God in the year ahead.
That’s another edition of 3 Minute Thursdays, thanks for watching, I hope you find it helpful, I’ll see you again soon.
