It is Bible reading time!
I pass out Bible reading schedules every year on the last Sunday of the year. It is a blessing to see people enthusiastically take up the project each year. Last year I published an article here on P&D called “Bible Reading and Vain Vows.” How did you do with your vows of Bible reading last year? I hope you established the habit, whether you made it all the way through the Bible or not.
This year I want to talk up a tool I rediscovered a couple of years ago, a Bible Reading Journal. Years ago, I guess nearly forty years ago now, my wife and I got involved in a Navigators discipleship class. Part of that program asked us to record our Bible reading daily, noting the date, the passage we read, and one brief idea or reflection what we had read.
After completing that plan, I kept up my own Bible Reading Journal in spiral notebooks. Later I used loose leaf pages that I put in my paper based Daytimer binder. The value of keeping a journal like this is that you hold yourself accountable for your own Bible reading. On those days that I skip, I always enter the date. Sometimes I also enter an excuse, keeping in mind that a chapel speaker once said, “an excuse is the skin of a reason stuffed with a lie.” By excuses, though, I mean things like, “Sunday” — Sundays are very busy days for me, so opportunities to read the Bible sometimes get missed on Sunday (though not always).
It is all right to miss a day here and there when you are following a schedule. In fact, the schedules I often recommend include “skipped days” for catching up and “events.” This is something I learned from the Navigator’s schedules I give out to our church people and publish links to in this annual article. You can still complete a through the Bible in a year plan including skipping four or five days a month. I’ve redesigned my own schedules to allow for this flexibility.
In my journal, then, I make sure to record the blank days. That way it stares me in the face when I open my journal and reminds me to “make provision for the Spirit” by getting up early enough to read. It also helps me to be more consistent.
After using the Journal for some years, I set it aside for some reason. I don’t remember why, it might have been when I started putting loose leaf sheets in my Daytimer. In any case, a few years ago I wanted to counsel a young couple about Bible reading and I noticed my spiral notebook. The first entry was October 1, 2001. It went on with entries through September 24, 2002. I was shocked! Had I left it so long? In any case, I resolved to start again. Here is the first bit of my entry from August 5, 2022. (Yes, that is the correct date)
Almost twenty years later I take up this practice again. Hard to believe I let it lapse so long. It is a good tool for daily Bible reading. I am reading Hebrews these days in prep. for preaching through it.
Following that entry, I made a little note from something I read between Heb 5-8, read that morning.
What is interesting is that I found I had gotten very sporadic in my personal Bible reading. Of course, as a pastor, I am reading the Bible constantly, preparing for messages, Bible studies, etc. But personal Bible reading is a vital part of discipleship. Some of the weeks that followed had many “flex days…” that is, empty entries with nothing but the date.
Using the Bible Reading Journal, though, has helped me increase my consistency. There are still days where I miss for one reason or another. Sundays, as mentioned, and travel days where my schedule is all out of whack. Skipping a day due to lack of personal discipline (i.e., laziness) has become much less frequent than in the past.
I would encourage you to take up this practice. Just go on down to an Office supply store and buy a spiral notebook and keep it with your Bible. Besides checking the little box on your Bible reading schedule, look for some passage that sticks out to you as you read. Jot down a sentence or two about it.
After a while, I think you will find much more success in Bible reading than you have had in the past.
Now to offer you links to Bible reading schedules:
First is my own Chronological Bible Reading Schedule. This schedule takes you through the Bible in chronological order (approximately). It came about through the studies completed in our “Thru the Bible” series in 2005 and 2006, with some revisions since then. We should also note that scholars are divided on some chronological questions, so you may find other chronologies of the Bible vary somewhat from ours.
The benefit of a Chronological study is that it puts the prophets and epistles in their historical context. As I like to say, you can find out “what the prophets were mad about.”
This year I added a new addition to the roster of Bible reading plans. Many people start out in January fully intending to get serious about reading their Bible “this year.” But they aren’t habituated to it! The annual Bible reading schedule may be well beyond the ability of a beginner. Consequently, this year we created a “Beginners Bible Reading Schedule” that has you read between 1/3 and 1/2 a chapter a day, five days a week. The idea is to create a habit of regular Bible reading, then graduate to a bit more the following year.
Here are links to the Navigators schedules:
They come from the Discipleship Journal at the Navigators site:
The 5x5x5: a plan for reading the New Testament in one year – if you aren’t in the habit of daily Bible reading, this gives you a good start.
Book At a Time: this plan alternates between one OT book and one NT book with additional one chapter a day readings from the Wisdom literature and Isaiah.
DJ Bible Reading Plan: this plan has you reading four different portions each day, giving you a well-rounded look at all the Biblical message from different perspectives.
Each of these plans includes at least one flex day in the week. These enable you to catch up if you fall behind.
The Murray McCheyne plan. Many disciples use this plan, it might be just what you like to use.
Links to two previous articles posted just at the beginning of 2020:
My Yearly Bible Reading Journey by Kristopher Schaal
Some years ago, I began an epic journey. I started reading through the Bible every year.
During my senior year in college, reading through the Bible once per year had become a requirement for Bible majors. I was a church music major, so that requirement didn’t apply to me, but it did catch my attention. However, during my four years of seminary and first year in ministry, I hadn’t yet made that a habit in my life.
My primary reason for starting in the spring of 2015 was that I was concerned I was reading so slowly in my daily devotions that I was not retaining an accurate picture of “the whole counsel of God.” …
Bible Reading Challenges from Local Church Pastors
… Today we have two brief challenges from pastors for alternate ideas for Bible reading. These challenges aren’t “the whole Bible in the year” but rather “systematic purposeful Bible reading.” …
God bless you as you read your Bible in 2024.
Don Johnson is the pastor of Grace Baptist Church of Victoria, Victoria, BC, Canada.