How many times will you read through the bible in your entire lifetime? This is an important
question to ask because I was thinking about my life and I'm 29 years old right now, and I've only
read through the bible twice from beginning to end so far. In 29 years, if I maintain
that, it means that I'll probably only read through the bible in my entire lifetime six times.
And the question is am I satisfied with reading the bible only six times in my entire life? I know
as a follower of Jesus it is incredibly important for me to actually read through the entire bible
because this is a thing: the bible is a story. it's a story from beginning to end focusing
its attention on Jesus as the messiah, the person who's making everything right in the entire world.
And the thing is there are tons of different stories all over the place in the world today,
whether you know it or not. There are stories of other religions. There are stories within
our secular understanding of the world. There are stories within how we should actually live
in the world that is implicit maybe through media or your friends or society at large or some of the
values and laws that are established. But story is everywhere and I need to, as a Christian,
immerse myself in the story of the bible so I am changed and formed by the bible rather
than changed and formed by other alternative stories in the world. So this is what I'm going
to cover in this video. How should I go about reading the whole bible from beginning to end?
How am I actually able to read the whole bible say in one year? and what does reading the bible
actually do to me? so how should you read through the bible? Well, there's the traditional way of
reading from cover to cover genesis to revelation, but most people get stuck and stop reading around
Leviticus which is genesis exodus Leviticus the third book in the entire bible. So maybe that's
not the best way to go about it. Some people go between the old and new testament so they maybe
start with an old testament book and move to a new testament book and go back and forth. Some people
follow a lectionary which is prescribed readings of different chapters every single day throughout
maybe a year or the course of three years. What I'm doing right now is I am actually writing
a bible reading plan that incorporates new and old testament books together that help you and I
understand the story of the bible. So I actually begin with the Gospel of John and then I go to
Genesis, then I go to Matthew then I go to Exodus, then I go to mark then I go to Leviticus and then
I actually go to Hebrews, which is kind of odd. So I haven't published this yet but what I would
encourage you to do is maybe look at yourself and say, am I the kind of person who can just
chug along and read from beginning to end? If not then it would be okay to pick and choose different
aspects of the bible to read first. So how am I actually able to read the bible in one year? It's
actually not crazy as long as you can put aside 15 to 20 minutes a day of reading which maybe
it's your first thing in the day maybe it's at lunchtime or maybe it's the end of the day. If you
can do that you can read through the entire bible in one year. If you can read three and a half to
four chapters a day of the bible you've got it made. You don't actually need to read the bible,
you can actually listen to the bible. A lot of my bible reading is when I'm going running. I listen
to the message translation of the bible and I just let it go and all of a sudden I read 10 chapters
in one run. I would encourage you to listen to the bible more than actually reading the bible with
your eyes because the bible was actually meant to be heard and not necessarily read like we read
books today. And what does the bible do to you as the reader? Well, the bible actually helps to form
you. This is what's amazing. You might think "wow I've read the bible once already in my life," and
that's great no there are so many different layers to the story of the bible. There are
so many layers you don't pick up on in the first reading that you actually need multiple readings,
multiple life experiences to actually be able to understand what is going on. The bible is not a
book that we just read and that's it. The bible actually speaks to us in our circumstances and by
reading the story of the bible over and over again we're allowing God through his revelation to speak
to us consistently throughout our life. So here's my last question. How many times is it enough for
you to read through the bible from beginning to end in your lifetime? Maybe you decide that i
know i'm not satisfied with six i would like to read through the bible consistently in a yearly
by yearly annual biannual basis, but the bible is important and may we allow it to form us.