Plodding Habits - Bible Reading

As we approach Christmas and the end of the calendar year, I want to encourage those in our church and any other readers out there to adopt some habits that will feed your soul. First, consider making a plan for reading your Bible every day. This is a habit I have tried to pursue in my own life. When I stick to it, it has fed my soul and helped me see more of what God has to teach us in his Word.  I have found that the more I read through God's Word, the more I want it. God has often used passages I have read to guide me in current situations in life. We have the great privilege of abundant access to God's Word, and I encourage you to use it.

There is no one way to pursue this. Nor is there a command in Scripture that we must read part of it every day. It is not a sin to skip a day; God's love is not manipulated by your level of consistency in Scripture reading. However, we are to hide it in our hearts and we cannot do that if we do not read it.

Here are a few suggestions and resources that may help.

Scripture Version

Each version/translation has a philosophy behind it that tries to balance faithfulness to the meaning of the original texts, readability, and clarity. I'm not going to enter that debate, but I recommend you value faithfulness to the original meaning.

If you're not sure which version to pick, then use the version your church uses during worship. Your church leadership has likely considered the different available translations and picked one they think best. In addition, the wording you read will match what you hear and read in worship. I personally use the ESV for this reason.

Format

For those that prefer printed books, I recommend a Readers Bible for a read through the year plan. In 2015, Dr. Ben Shaw introduced me to these. This version gets rid of all the notes, all the cross references, even the verse numbers. I used it in 2017 for my daily reading and found I was able to concentrate on the text rather than be distracted by following footnotes or trying to read some of the study notes. Here are some examples.

That said, there are also many great study Bibles out there. If you plan to take a slower pace and study passages more closely, that may be a good option for you.

For those that prefer to read on your smartphone, I have used the YouVersion app. In spite of the odd name, it gives you access to many different versions and has built-in daily reading plans. In addition, for several of the versions you can listen to a recorded reading.

Plan

As the old saying goes, a failure to plan is planning to fail. Pick a plan that stretches yourself but is still reasonable.

If you’re just starting the daily reading habit, you might consider a New Testament only plan at around one chapter a day. Reading the whole Bible takes around four chapters a day. There are other plans that take two years to go through the whole Bible. Again, be reasonable about your time available.

Here are two plans our pastor at Redeemer compiled that I recommend:

New Testament and Psalms in One Year
Chronological Whole Bible in One Year 

The Chronological plan attempts to arrange passages in chronological order so it is easier to follow the larger narrative of the Bible. I used this in 2017 and found it very helpful to put the prophets in context of the kings of Israel and Judah. Both of those plans are designed to be printed on two sides of a single page, trifolded, and used as your bookmark.


If neither of those sound like the thing for you, take a look at the list of plans provided by Tim Challies about a year ago.

Bottom Line 

Pick a version, format, and plan, and stick to it! This is the "plodding life" I regularly write about. Not glamorous, not earth-shattering. Do it day in, day out, faithfully, consistently, even when it is hard and you barely understand what you just read. Keep at it. God's Word will do the work of feeding your soul.

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