Wednesday, April 14, 2010

"A Daunting Task"

How many of us have read the Bible?  I'm not talking about reading portions of it through a devotional or during sermons and Sunday School, but the Bible, the whole thing front-to-back, word-for-word?  

For believers, spiritually it would make sense that we probably should have read it through at least once before God tells us we're done down here and we go up and account for ourselves (anyone else dreading that?).  I don't believe that not reading the entirety of the Scriptures is a strict sin, however we're encouraged to meditate on His Word and hide it in our hearts, inferring that we should be reading it on some consistent basis.  Even then, it is very easy to read over the words and not take them in, making the act of daily reading mindless rote instead.  Add to that passages that are just plain tough to understand without a concordance or inserted sidenotes, trying to understand God's thousands of pages is a daunting task to say the least!

But you know what, God is ever so patient with us.  He's molded our minds to not understand everything in the first place, so we can't even begin to take it all in at once.  That's why Jesus spoke to his disciples in simpler ways, not in dumbing things down but in ways they could understand more easily to take it in.  I believe approaching His Word can be taken in the same way: in digestible bits to understand the bigger picture.

This morning I felt led to begin reading the whole Bible again.  Yes, I have read it completely through once, but that ended up being a thing I just wanted to do.  There were still countless times I digested a passage and prayerfully thought about what God could be speaking to me, but overall I just wanted to have every single word pass before my eyes, to claim that I had "read" the entire Bible.  It took a couple of years, reading two chapters at a time, then unfortunately not keeping to it occasionally, etc.  But this morning was different.  I want to try again with a different mentality.

I'm going to read the Bible one chapter at a time and write about what the chapter literally says and what it says to me, as well as any springboard thoughts the Spirit pops in to my brain and fingertips.

Now that I've begun this whole blogging thing (I really hate that word, "blog" though), I realize its multifaceted potential.  First and foremost, in the vein of 365-Day projects, writing after each time I read will basically make me analyze more deeply what I'm reading.  Not every chapter will unveil a universal truth or a revelation about God's plan with my life, I'm aware.  I'm pretty certain when I get to the genealogies in the Old Testament I will be the same Christian before and after.  But who knows what will happen?  I believe God speaks to us in so many different ways.  Plus, if you follow me in this adventure, any outside insights are encouragingly welcomed!  I'm no scholar and I think that a lot of my analyses in general life barely penetrate the surface, but that might be the way it's supposed to be.  I try to be an honest man and speak honestly, so if you follow then that's what you'll get.

I have no idea how long this will take (or even if anyone else has done this before to gauge the length).  If reading two chapters each time took over two years, will it take four years at a one-chapter pace?  Also, my routine (sorry to call it that) is reading around five days a week, normally on the weekdays, so it might take even longer!  But why rush?  I'm not in this for a record time; just the accountability of reading and not walking away and forgetting like His Word meant nothing to me ... even the genealogies!

You're welcome to join me!  At whatever chapter you've entered just jump on in!  We might just become closer as we grow even more so to our Father and Creator, our Vine, who hasn't left us to run around aimlessly.  He has given us a road map:  His Word.

No comments:

Post a Comment