My Year of Bible Reading with No Chapters or Verses
Not too long ago I took one of my grandsons out for a bagel and asked him a question. “What’s the most important thing in the world?” I told him it had to be a person or an object.
After a long pause, he responded, “The Bible?” “That’s right,” I said.
I went on to say that apart from God’s Word, we would have no way of knowing God’s thoughts, commands, warnings, or promises. We’d be limited to general revelation, which gloriously declares aspects of God’s character and deeds, but is silent when it comes to our separation from God and his plan to reconcile us to himself through Christ.
The Bible is an unspeakably precious gift that men and women have given their lives to protect, proclaim, and publish. So it makes all the sense in the world to spend as much time getting to know God through his Word as we can.
A Plan for Reading
As 2020 comes to a close, a lot of us are thinking about a Bible reading plan for 2021. I’ve spent numerous years since 2001 reading through the Bible. It’s always a rich, rewarding practice, whether I’m reading through a study Bible, using the McCheyne Bible reading plan, or benefiting from the Prof. Grant Horner plan.
When I want to slow down and go more in-depth I’ll read Scripture along with a trusted commentary (Christopher Ash on Job and Greg Beale on Revelation were both fantastic).
But a couple years ago my church committed to reading through the Bible and I decided to use the 6 volume ESV Reader’s Bible.
Wow.
I discovered early on that I do better reading the Bible in a year when I seek to finish early, rather than always trying to catch up. So I aimed to read 25 pages each time I sat down. I didn’t always achieve that, but I succeeded often enough to enable me to finish by the end of September.
Bob Kauflin (@bkauflin) is director of Sovereign Grace Music. He equips pastors and musicians in the theology and practice of congregational worship, and serves as a pastor at Sovereign Grace Church in Louisville, Kentucky. He writes at worshipmatters.com and is author of True Worshipers: Seeking What Matters to God. Bob and his wife, Julie, have six children and a growing number of grandchildren.
This post originally appeared on Worship Matters, on Dec. 11, 2020.