Reading the Bible (6)

 Continuing from last post...

If you are thinking, “I’ll never learn all there is to know about the Bible. It will take me forever to even get an idea of the Biblical road system,” I’ve got great news for you!

            Firstly, because the Bible is God’s Word, His disclosure of Himself, it is first and foremost a relational book, a letter from God to us. This means that whether we are just getting started on the “road system” or have been on it for years that God will reveal Himself to us through our interaction with His Word.

            Secondly, because the Bible is God’s Word, it is the best book that’s ever been written. Even though it was composed over a period of 1,500 years, and even though it has numerous human agents as authors, because its primary author is God it is tightly written and its themes tightly woven. This means that things come together much more quickly than we might anticipate, which underscores the need to read the entire Bible and to read it consistently.

            Thirdly, we can read the Bible for decades and never stop learning and never stop seeing new dimensions of God and His Word. We shouldn’t be surprised at this because the Bible is the Divine book, it is God’s self-disclosure, and since God is infinite there is no end to our coming to know Him. There are always new depths to plumb in the Scriptures, deeper understandings of things and relationships that we haven’t seen before. We’ll explore more of this later on.

            Reading an average of four chapters a day results in reading the entire Bible within one year; that is very little time invested in the most important thing in life, our relationship with God. Most of us spend more time watching television or reading the newspaper than we do reading God’s Word. When we say that we don’t have time, we are really making an excuse when the truth is that other things are more important to us.

            There are many areas of the world where possessing the Bible is illegal. There are many other areas in which people are allowed to have Bibles but none are available. And yet in our nation and in our homes they lie and gather dust.

            Men and women have been imprisoned and executed throughout the centuries, including in our own time, in order to translate, preserve, and distribute the Bible. And yet in the homes of many professing Christians Bibles are seldom opened.

            Having a million dollars in the bank is no good unless we draw on it. Having the treasure of the ages in our home is no good unless we read it and experience it.

            While elsewhere we’ll discuss Bible translations and study Bibles, here I want to make two points that I’ll expand on later.

            The first is that you should begin your lay-of-the-land reading by using a translation that is easy for you to read. Remember, the object of this type of reading is to familiarize yourself with the Bible, to get to know the terrain, the road system, the main themes and storyline. The important thing is to actually drive the car. Once you learn how to drive then you can be particular about what kind of car you want to drive and what features you want the car to have, but all of those issues are secondary until you actually learn to drive.

            The second thing is really a matter of preference and I’m going to share my preference with you. When I do lay-of-the-land reading, that is, when I do general Bible reading, I don’t want to use a Bible with study notes because they can be distracting. I want to focus on the Biblical text and follow the Biblical line of thought and I don’t want my eyes or curiosity drifting into notes which may lead me to lines of thought that may not be in the Bible’s text. Now when I study the Bible that is different, and we’ll talk about that next, but when I’m reading to keep up my familiarity with it I want to keep focused on the text and only the text.

            There are reading schedules that are available that will lead you through a year of Bible reading. They usually have a daily Old Testament reading and a daily New Testament reading – usually three Old Testament chapters and one New Testament chapter. Of course, you can make your own schedule. I personally like to mix my reading up between the Old and New Testaments, this keeps me exposed to the different parts of the Bible throughout the year. The more familiar you become with your Bible the easier it will be for you to devise your own reading schedule if you should care to do so.

            There is no day like today to begin reading the entire Bible.

To be continued...