Last year my wife and I, along with some brothers and sisters (in Christ) read through the entire Bible together using a reading plan from the Discipleship Journal. It was a very beneficial and helpful plan, as it takes you through the Bible with two readings each day from the Old Testament, and two from the New Testament. Reading the Bible this way really helped unite the OT and NT in my mind, as well as helping me to have a better grasp of the historical timeline of the Bible.
Having done that last year, and really being encouraged by it, my initial thought was that I would follow the same plan again this year (John Piper has used that same basic plan for 20 some years). However, as I thought and prayed about it, I realized that I feel like I have an inadequate knowledge of the New Testament, particularly the epistles. At the same time, as a pastor whose main focus is on ministry through music, I feel like I constantly need to be reading the book of Psalms, since it is the “song book” of the Bible. So, I’ve created my own plan for 2010:
New Testament- 6 chapters per day (starting in Matthew, then bouncing to Romans, then back to Mark, then Acts, and so on…)
260 chapters in the New Testament
This will take me approximately 7 times through the New Testament in 2010
Psalms- 1 chapter per day
150 chapters in Psalms
This will take me 2 times through Psalms in 2010
I figured on 317 reading days, which allows me to take Sundays off for other reading, or for make-up days. The fact that there are only 150 chapters in Psalms will allow me to split up some of the longer Psalms (like Psalm 119) into different days, and still not get behind.
I put this out here for several reasons. Here are two:
1) To encourage you to set some Bible reading goals for yourself this year. The link above to the Discipleship Journal reading plan will take you to about four different plans, ranging from 1 chapter/day to reading through the Bible in a year. As Christians, we are to “live by every word that comes from the mouth of God”. It’s hard to live by words that you’ve never read.
2) For accountability. I hope some who read this will remember that I’ve made this commitment, and ask me how I’m doing with it. We all know that we need accountability to help us accomplish our goals, and even though I have an accountability partner, I figure “the more the merrier!”.
I’m working on setting some Scripture memorization goals, and some book reading/study goals. For the same reasons, I’ll post those when I get them worked out.
–Soli Deo Gloria
