Showing posts with label #Read. Show all posts
Showing posts with label #Read. Show all posts

Read the bible in a month. Yes, seriously. A month.

by K.W. Leslie, 29 December 2023

January’s coming; you’re making resolutions, and one of ’em is to read the bible. As you should! It’s gonna make you more familiar with God. Some people unrealistically expect a new, profound God-experience every day as the Holy Spirit shows ’em stuff, but hopefully you’re more realistic about it. Hopefully you’re realistic about all your resolutions. Not everyone is.

So you need to read through through the entire bible, Genesis to maps. (That’s an old Evangelical joke. ’Cause a lot of study bibles include maps in the back. Okay, it’s less amusing once I explain it.) Every year Christians get on some kind of bible-reading plan to make sure they methodically go through every book, chapter, and verse. ’Cause when we don’t, we wind up only reading the familiar bits, over and over and over again—and miss a lot of the parts we should read. The reason so many Christians misinterpret the New Testament is because they know so very little of its Old Testament context. Every time I quote just a little bit of the Law to explain Jesus’s teachings, way too many people respond, “I’ve never heard that before.” Sadly, I know exactly what they’re talking about.

But part of the reason they “never heard that before” is because they totally forgot they did hear it. Because their bible-in-a-year reading plan had ’em read the Law back in February… and when they finally got to the gospels in September, they’ve clean forgot what they read in February. And by next February when they’re reading the Law again, they’ve clean forgot what they read in September.

So why take a year to read the bible? ’Cause everybody else is doing the bible in a year.

Seriously. It’s a big market. Publishers sell one-year bibles, which chop the scriptures into short daily readings. Sometimes really short daily readings, ’cause they’ll give you three readings: A chapter of the Old Testament, half a chapter of the New Testament, and half a psalm or some other poetry for dessert. If you don’t buy their specially sliced-up bible, there are websites which do it for you, or modules to add to your bible software, or you can just get a list of somebody’s bible-in-a-year plan and follow it yourself. Stick to it and in a year—a year!—you’ll have read the bible.

Yes the bible is a big thick book collection. But come on. It’s not so thick it takes a year to go through.

The year-long program makes the bible sound like this huge, insurmountable mountain to climb. It’s no such thing. Why, you can read it in a month. And no, I’m not kidding. A month. I’ve read it several Januarys in a row. Takes me three weeks.

Yes, there are bible-reading programs which read the bible in three months. That’s a little more reasonable. In fact if you wanna really get familiar with your bible, and quickly, it’s a great idea to do this three-month plan and read the bible four times in a year. (Ideally in four different translations.) Read it every time the seasons change—in December, March, June, and September. Get a bible-in-three-months plan and go with their schedule, or get a bible-in-a-year plan and read four times as much.

If you struggle with reading, or reading comprehension, fine; there are six-month bible-reading plans. But when we’re talking a whole year to read the bible, this pace has serious drawbacks. And not just ’cause it makes the bible sound impossibly massive.

Imagine reading any other book a page a day.

Bible chapters are short. ’Cause when the ancients wrote books, their chapters were short! A chapter is what we’d consider a section of a chapter nowadays. They’re like four or five paragraphs. If you’ve ever read Les Miserables the chapters are even shorter. The sections in these TXAB articles I write are just as long. And bible chapters are often longer than the average chapter in ancient literature.

So imagine reading a “big thick volume” of a book in only a chapter a day. Like Les Miserables, or War and Peace, or The Lord of the Rings, or Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, over the course of a year. You’d never think to chop them up into 365 daily readings. But let’s say you did.

You’re gonna have the following troubles:

  • A narrative is gonna get sliced up. Several times. In several awkward places. Can you remember, day to day, where you are in the story? Hope so.
  • How well are you gonna remember a concept in one of the early chapters, when the concept comes up again three months later? And eight months later? And 11 months later?
  • When you can’t follow the storyline, you’re gonna get frustrated. Frustrated readers don’t usually go back and reread things in order to sort things out. They tend to stop reading altogether.

These are some of the many reasons why a year is much too slow. Three months is better. But if you want a serious overview of the bible with a fresh memory, read it in two months. And as I keep saying, you can read it in one. The entire bible, front to back, within the month of January. (Book order up to you, of course.)

Sixteen years ago I was listening to one of my audio bibles and noticed it was about 92 hours long. That’s listening to it at the relatively slow pace that a voice actor goes. I read much faster than that. I realized I could easily read it in half that time—which means it’s theoretically possible to read the bible in a week if motivated. You know, like zealous brand-new Christians tend to be. How often have you heard baby Christians claim they started reading their bibles and couldn’t put it down, and got through the whole volume in quicktime?

So in order to prove the bible-in-a-month deal was doable, I put the following limitations on myself. I think they’re reasonable and doable. I still follow ’em.

  • An hour (or so) per day. If I go over an hour, it’s only because I’m so close to finishing a book, it’d be nuts to stop with a chapter or two to go. Most days the reading takes less than an hour: Most of the bible’s books are short.
  • Only six days a week. I skip Saturdays—unless I miss some other day of the week; then I catch up Saturday. Still, only six days.
  • An unfamiliar bible translation, which oughta make me less likely to skim the verses I’m familiar with.

I read fast, which is why I’m usually done in three weeks. So you can totally do it in four.

Or listen to an entire audio bible.

Maybe you’re not much of a reader. Which is odd, considering you read TXAB and I write very few short pieces.

If that’s you, that’s fine. An audio bible might be more your speed. Get one. I have a page full of links. You can download one for free, or visit one of the many sites which stream the bible, like Bible Gateway. Or get an app (yes, Bible Gateway has one) and stick it on your phone. There are many available translations.

Like I said, one of my audio bibles takes 92 hours to listen to in its entirety. Divided into 24 days, I’d have to listen to about 3 hours 12 minutes a day. For some of us, the daily commute to work and back is longer than 3 hours (which is kinda nuts, but that’s life) and what d’you usually do in that time? Listen to other stuff? Curse at the other drivers? Load up on audio bible instead.

For those folks who live their lives with headphones on, you can listen to way more than three hours a day. Might finish the bible in two weeks, like one of those on-fire Christians who can’t put their bible down. Remember when you were like that? (Oh, you never were? Well, don’t worry. Statistically less than a third of us came to Jesus like that.)

Though the bible’s a big thick book collection, going through the whole of it in January is far from impossible.

“But I don’t wanna read it so fast.”

Ever since I first pitched this idea, a lot of people have been eager to tackle it for themselves. Bible in a month, baby! They drop everything else they’re reading, all the TV programs they’re usually watching, suspend their Netflix account, and cram bible for the month. And to their own great surprise, do it.

I get just as many people who really don’t wanna take the bible-in-the-month challenge. Which is fine. Nobody made this mandatory, y’know. I sure don’t. I just think it’s a good idea: Why take the snail’s-pace approach when you could be done already in January? Worse, lose track and drop the ball by mid-March, just like your gym membership?

For certain people, it’s not enough to say, “No thank you; not for me.” They gotta defend themselves. (Again, they really don’t.) And how do immature people defend themselves? By not just opting out: By slamming the practice, and condemning the person who promotes the practice. It’s not just “not for me,” but somehow evil. Reading the bible so quickly isn’t just a road not chosen; it’s a sin. Or so they tell me.

Here are the usual objections I get.

“IT’S DISRESPECTFUL TO MAKE A MARATHON OF READING THE BIBLE.” Disrespectful to whom? God? Did God decree we should only read his word in a slow, solemn pace, so that it takes a year? Or is he much more pleased when people are hungry for his word, and wanna read lots of it?

Slowness is neither respect nor reverence. It’s just slowness. True, some people are slow because they wanna be careful and methodical, and that’s good. But people are also slow because they’re lazy: If they’re slow about it, they don’t have to work too hard. Or they’re procrastinating: Put off the parts of the bible they don’t like, then whip through those passages quickly. When slowness is just an excuse to avoid reading the bible, it’s pure hypocrisy to claim speed is disrespect.

True, if we read the bible so fast we comprehend little to nothing, all so we can brag “I read it in one week; top that!”—yeah, it’s stupid. Too many people run marathons just so they can brag they ran marathons. So there are definitely people who speed-read bible so they can brag they sped-read bible. Don’t be one of those. If you’re struggling with reading comprehension ’cause a month is just too quick for you, take two or three, or however long it truly takes you. But 12 months, I still maintain, is impractically long. And foolish.

“THIS IS JUST A STUNT.” And so what if it is?

Most of the things our churches do in January are stunts. My church used to do a yearly 21-day diet fast. My neighbor’s church does a back-to-church deal so they can collect all the folks who resolved to do more church in the new year. Exactly what’s wrong with these stunts? Just because it’s wild and out of the ordinary, doesn’t mean you can’t profit by it.

If the bible-in-January stunt gets people to read their bibles for once, you should be all for it.

“HOW MUCH CAN YOU RETAIN FROM READING SO FAST?” Me? Quite a lot. I have a better-than-average ability at reading comprehension. You? I dunno. But it’ll be way more than you retain from reading so slow.

This is probably the most regular excuse I’ve heard for reading through the bible slowly: “We need the time to chew our spiritual food, and meditate on it better.” It’d be nice if that’s actually what people do with their daily bible readings, but let’s get real: They do no such thing. They only read ’em, maybe post a few bible memes on Instagram, then move on with their day. The whole “I need time to meditate” excuse? Yep, more hypocrisy.

The point of reading the entire bible isn’t actually retention, although some retention will happen. It’s to remind us what’s in the scriptures. Retention’s more likely when we read it more often, so when you do this bible-in-a-month thing every year, you’re really likely to retain stuff. But even if you just do it this once: There are parts we haven’t read in the longest time, and we need to be reminded they’re there. We need a refresher. Familiarity is something a lot of us Christians lack with the bible.

How much are we gonna retain? More than someone who never reads it. And while everyone on the three-month plan is a third of the way through, we even have time to go through the bible again. Twice.

“IT DOESN’T MAKE YOU A BETTER OR SUPERIOR CHRISTIAN.” Yeah it does. In a month I’ve read 12 times as much bible as those Christians on the yearly installment plan. That’s clearly superior.

Oh you mean morally superior? Well no; of course not. Not unless I actually follow God’s instructions in what I’ve read.

But like I said, I’ll have read 12 times as much bible. I got all God’s instructions down by the end of January, whereas the folks on the yearly plan won’t be half done till July. I have it fresh in my memory, and know where I need to go back and review; they don’t. Depending on how their plan is structured, they can go most of the year making the same mistakes, committing the same sins, because they haven’t yet been corrected—or because it’s been far too long since they read those corrections, and they forgot ’em already. I have a serious advantage over them.

No, I haven’t earned special heavenly Brownie points from God by reading the bible in a month. No, I’m not more righteous, more saved, more mature, more anything, unless I put what I read into practice. But I did get that bible read, and have a several-month jump on other Christians. That ain’t nothing.

“I CAN’T SPARE AN HOUR A DAY.” Fair enough. Many can’t. Some of us have crazy busy lives, and simply can’t take a free hour for ourselves and our spiritual lives. That’s a much bigger issue than reading the bible in a month. If you can only snatch a few minutes for yourself at a time, please spend it on prayer. When you get more time, then concentrate on bible study and mediation. If you want to plow through a bible within a month, you may have to resort to audio bibles.

But lots of people absolutely do have a spare hour. That is, after we part with some other leisure activity, like TV, video games, Facebook, or something they really don’t wanna put on hold.

“I’M NOT SURE I COULD BE THAT DISCIPLINED.” Also fair enough. But God’s calling you to be. Self-control is a fruit of the Spirit. When we lack self-control, it’s not because God hasn’t granted us the ability; it’s because we’ve not bothered to put this Spirit-granted ability into practice, and don’t exercise it. Compared to other forms of self-control—diets, quitting tobacco, going to the gym regularly, cutting back on luxuries—reading the bible in a month is rather easy. Unless we’re suffering from an addiction or medical condition, our lack of discipline isn’t a valid excuse.

Maybe you need an incentive: Once you finish the bible, reward yourself. Or read the bible with a partner, and if you finish the bible your partner can reward you, and vice-versa. Do it in a group and egg one another on. Ban all other reading material, all other forms of entertainment, from your life till you get that bible completely read. If you’re not disciplined, use this opportunity to grow your self-control.

One possible schedule.

Here’s one possible schedule you can follow. Gets you through the Old Testament (I listed it in roughly the order it was composed), then the New (generally bunching authors together).

January has 31 days, so there are plenty of extra days available.

And no, you don’t have to start on 1 January! Start anywhere. Start in mid-January and finish in mid-February. Start in February. Start on Wedesday instead of Sunday, and take your breaks on Sundays instead of Saturdays. Who says you have to sync up with any calendar?

I’ve seen other reading programs which divide the bible up into roughly equal amounts of reading each day. It means you gotta quit reading partway through a book. Ideally I like to read a book (any book, not just bible books) all the way through. So you’ll notice I didn’t bisect the books if I could help it. Psalms is an exception, ’cause Psalms is huge—and technically Psalms consists of five books of psalms, and I didn’t divide those five books.

If you wanna rearrange things for your own convenience—maybe you wanna read an Old Testament book, then a New Testament book, then the Old Testament again, and so on—go right ahead. Whatever gets you through the bible.

And if you wanna read equal amounts of bible each day, here’s the easiest way to do it: Go get one of those yearly bible-reading programs, and read 13 days’ worth of material each day. That’ll get you finished in 28 days.

Ready to take the challenge? Let’s start reading.

TXAB’s bible-reading plan.

by K.W. Leslie, 28 December 2022

Whenever the new year approaches, Christians resolve to read the bible. The entire bible, not just the parts we like best: Genesis to maps, as the old joke goes. (See, when you buy a bible in print, most of them have maps of Israel and the Roman Empire in the back. Yes, explaining the joke makes it less funny. Yes, deliberately making the joke less funny is ironically funny. Yes, this is metahumor. I’ll stop now.)

Christians tend to pick up a bible-reading plan of some sort, and most of the time it goes through the scriptures in a year. Which, I insist, is far too long. I prefer you do it in a month. Yes it’s totally possible; the bible’s a big fat inspired book anthology, but it doesn’t take an entire year to read. What book do you take an entire year to read?—unless you chop it into bite-size bits so small you’re spiritually starving. No wonder so many Christians lose track and lose interest.

Now if a month seems too extreme for you (especially if you don’t read), y’know what you could do: Read the bible at your own speed. Read it till you’re done. However long it takes you to get it done. Might be three months. Maybe two. Then again you might surprise yourself and finish it in one.

That’s where TXAB’s bible-reading plan comes in. It’ll help you read it at whatever speed you’re going.

Read the bible over Lent.

by K.W. Leslie, 03 March 2022

So it’s Lent. And during this time, some of us Christians either

  • do a little fasting or other forms of self-deprivation, and spend some time meditate about what Jesus suffered on our behalf;
  • contemplate nothing, but fast anyway ’cause it’s tradition; or
  • contemplate nothing, fast nothing, feel smug because our religious customs don’t obligate us to do a thing, and mock those who do.

Hopefully you’ve chosen the first thing. And if you’re gonna meditate on something, why not read the bible? The whole bible? ’Cause you can. You can actually read it, in its entirety, within a month. So there’s certainly no reason it can’t be done with 10 extra days. You can easily take the time you’d ordinarily spend watching reality TV shows, and read the scriptures. And have time left over. Easy-peasy.

Even if you don’t plan to give up anything for Lent, (’cause you’re American and self-deprivation isn’t your thing), you can still carve out a bit of time each day to read some bible, and make up for the fact you didn’t read the whole thing back in January. Or maybe you did start, but dropped the ball. Or that you’re doing the six-month or year-long bible track, and dropped the ball on that. Either way, it’s catchup time.

So there’s your Lenten challenge: Read your bible. You know you oughta.

One possible schedule.

If you’re gonna tackle the bible this Lent, here’s one possible schedule you can follow. Gets you through the Old Testament (in roughly the order it was composed), then the New (generally bunching authors together).

Lent has five Sundays, so if you skip a day… you have an entire extra week to catch up.

As I’ve said elsewhere, other reading programs carve the bible into equal portions for the day. If you wanna do that, you can: Get one of those yearly bible-reading programs, and read nine to 10 days’ worth of material each day. That’ll get you finished in 40 days. But ideally I like to read a book all the way through, so I didn’t slice and dice the books when I could avoid it. (Psalms technically consists of five individual books of psalms, so I actually didn’t divide those books when I spread ’em out on the schedule.)

Of course, you don’t have to follow this program. You can use TXAB’s bible-reading plan and read it in whatever order, at whatever speed, and get ’er done in 30 or even 20 days. (Or if you’re just crazy enough, 10 days.) Whatever works for you.

Ready to take the challenge? Let’s get to it.

Why you’re not gonna read the bible in a year.

by K.W. Leslie, 30 December 2021

So I wrote yesterday about how people choose to read the enitre bible as one of their new year’s resolutions, and how they really oughta skip the whole bible-in-a-year idea and read it in a month. Because it’s doable, and because you’re more apt to retain and understand it if you don’t stretch it out.

But some of you won’t. I know; I’ve heard the feedback. Many of you got it in your heads a month is impossible. Or unreasonable. Or that you need the extra time to process what you read. (And okay, I’ll take your word for it you actually do meditate on what you read, and aren’t just pretending to practice a real spiritual discipline just so you can weasel out of the challenge. ’Cause I know some of you legitimately do. The rest of you, I have my doubts… but fine; you meditate.)

Likewise I know plenty of Christians with plenty of self-control, but reading is a struggle. It’s never been something they enjoy, nor do for fun. For all we know, they have undiagnosed learning disbilities. (Some of ’em have been diagnosed.) So, for the life of ’em, they can’t manage to get through the bible. It really frustrates them because they know they really should read it, but, y’know, reading.

I should point out new believers regularly claim the bible has proven a giant exception to their reading difficulties. Zealous new believers will pick up a bible, find they can’t put it down, whip right through it… and soon after, seek something else to read. Reading the bible turned them into readers! But that’s not everyone, so let’s be fair.

For those folks who don’t struggle to read, I still point out the way bible-reading plans are commonly structured, they are poison to reading comprehension. To reading retention. To natural pacing. To context. To enjoyment! They turn what should be informative and inspiring, into a chore. And people hate chores, and are happy to find excuses to get out of ’em. “Whoops, missed two readings. Oh well; guess I’ll start over again next January.” Then they don’t.

Chopping the bible into 365 segments (or 366 in leap years, or 313 if they let you take Saturdays off) is a design feature of the yearlong reading plan. This is the very thing which makes the plans terrible.

“Devotions”: Times we especially focus on God.

by K.W. Leslie, 05 September 2017
DEVOTIONS di'voʊ.ʃənz noun. Prayers, religious observances, or worship.
[Devotional di'voʊ.ʃən.əl adjective.]

It’s a really good idea for Christians to block off several minutes of time, every single day, solely for the purpose of connecting with God. A little bible, a little prayer, a little meditation or contemplation. Something which helps us focus our lives on God.

’Cause life is busy. Or it’s not really, but we just suck at time management, so we never make the time for God. You know how there are certain friends and family members you just never hear from?—they’re either way too busy, or time with you frankly isn’t one of their priorities? Well, for a lot of Christians, we’re in danger of having that kind of relationship with God. One where we sorta take him for granted in our lives, but when’s the last time we really sat down with him and talked?

So, devotional time.

Part of your average Christian’s struggle with devotions, comes from the fact they really don’t know what to do with themselves during this time. What should we pray? What should we read, and meditate on?

That was my struggle as a teenager and young adult: Nobody had properly taught me how to have my own devotional time. They talked about having one. “I sit down with my coffee and my bible, and read, and pray, and have my quiet time.” Okay; what d’you read? How many chapters?—or do you read a paragraph and spend the rest of the time meditating on it? What d’you pray?—and how do you pray for 15-minute stretches when you only have two minutes’ worth of material?

Whenever I was at youth functions, the youth pastors would lead the devotional times. But I’m gonna be blunt: Those weren’t proper devotional times. Those were mini-lectures disguised as worship. Pastor’d discuss the dumb things we kids did, or might do, and how we oughta think about such things, and lead us to pray, “Lord Jesus, help me behave like the pastor was talking about,” even if deep down we didn’t really care.

Some of the adults I knew were dependent on devotional books and magazines. (“Devotionals,” for short.) One of the more popular devotional magazines at my church was Our Daily Bread. I still know plenty of folks who make a point of reading through Oswald Chambers’ 365-day devotional, My Utmost for His Highest, every year. I own a few devotional books: Brief writings by clever Christian authors, arranged in 365 clips for my convenience, with a bible passage to read for edification, and a brief prayer in case I can’t think of anything to tell God.

I get why people use the canned material: They don’t know where to start. The problem? That’s not your relationship with God. That’s you reading about Oswald Chambers’s relationship with God; or about the relationship of whoever wrote the devotional you’re using this year. Praying their prayers instead of your own. Meditating on their ideas instead of the scriptures. Yeah, some of ’em have good ideas, but still: Ever call up a friend on the phone, then read somebody else’s letters to them? It’s kinda like that.

No, I’m not saying ditch the devotional books. Keep ’em if you like ’em. But don’t confuse them for proper devotions. It’s gotta consist of you and the Holy Spirit. Any facilitators have gotta be temporary, there till you get the hang of doing this on your own.