Bible Reading Strategies

#biblestudy

Many people intend to read the Bible - many even make a good start - but soon get bogged down. To sustain our good intentions, most of us need some guidance. We don't need much, just a little advice as is in this webpage.

First, purchase a modern version such as the New Living Translation. Other good choices are Today's New International Version, the New Revised Standard Version, or The Message.

The Bible has 1189 chapters. You can read a chapter and underline a few highlights in 4 to 5 minutes. So you can read the whole Bible in about 90 hours. At four chapters a day (about 20 minutes), you'll finish the Bible in just 298 days!

Each time you pick up the Bible to read, it helps to ask God's Spirit to speak to you through it. Invite him to point out things and coach you on how to apply the Bible to your life. Soon you'll learn to hear God's voice personalizing scripture to your situation.

Here are three Bible reading plans, one that is sure to suit your situation. 

Story-Line Plan

If you've never read the whole Bible story, or if your grasp of Bible stories is fragmented, then start with this plan. It is valuable to understand an overview of the entire Bible – and you can do this by reading only the most action-packed 30% of the Bible. The other 70% contains alternative views of the same story, side commentaries written by prophets, and poetry. Reading just 30% of the Bible takes about 30 hours. If you read it like most people read novels, in 20 minutes a day, you'll grasp the whole Bible story in three months!

Here are the details:

Begin with Luke (the story of the life of Jesus, which occurs from about 0 to 33AD), and then read the book of Acts (the story of the formation of the Christian church, which happens from roughly 33CE to 90CE).  

Next, return to the beginning of the Old Testament and read this sequence: Genesis, Exodus, Numbers, Joshua, Judges, 1&2 Samuel, 1&2 Kings, Daniel 1-6, Ezra, Nehemiah, and Esther. That's all you need to get the gist of the entire Bible.

Here's a tool that provides some background on the books: Biblical Authorship. It's a work in progress, meaning it's not finished but is far enough along to meet most of your needs.  

Tips

Gather one or two friends every week or two to share thoughts on the readings. If one of them is a mature Christian and experienced in applying the Bible to life, that's even better.

The Story-Line Plan is an excellent strategy for someone who is in college or beyond and accustomed to learning from reading. I invite them to read one book at a time from this plan, and each time they finish a book, make two shortlists. The first contains the three big ideas they think the author wanted to convey. The second is the three biggest questions that arose as they read the book. After this, we make time to sit down and talk about their three big ideas and big questions. 

Once, I worked with an investigator who lived most of the time in Shanghai. So we did this strategy via email. He shared it with his Chinese fiancé, who spoke only Mandarin and had a Buddhist background. Along the way, they both choose to follow Christ. A few months later, the man flew to California for baptism (his fiance was baptized even sooner, in China). The biggest challenge in this approach is to limit the discussion to the two lists. The student invariably has trouble keeping from getting lost in detail. But it's best to keep them at a high level in their first pass through the Bible. Then they are much better prepared to drill down into detail later.


Lectionary Reading Plan

Once you read through the Story-Line Plan, especially if you are in a church that follows the Revised Common Lectionary (RCL), try this plan. Even if your church does not follow the lectionary, it's the best plan I know for long-term spiritual formation. Each week, the lectionary includes at least four scriptures. Usually, the passages come from:

Some weeks the RCL offers more choices. Theologians from a wide range of Christian traditions carefully selected these scriptures to follow the Christian calendar and cover the central Christian themes in proper balance over a 3-year cycle.

To help readers reflect and dwell on these scriptures, I wrote Tim's Scripture Digest. Please check it out.


Read Every Verse in the Bible Plan

Many people like to follow a plan that takes them through the whole of scripture on a periodic basis. Gloria Wall, a parishioner at New Life Nazarene Church (Cupertino, CA), developed a 3-year daily Bible reading plan based on the RCL that includes every scripture in the Bible. Her plan even connects to each Sunday's lectionary reading!


Chronological Bible Plan 

If you are not in a lectionary-based church, or you want to read the entire Bible in chronological order, you can do it! Just purchase a “Chronological Bible” and start reading. These are available in several modern translations from any Christian bookseller.