How could I become a legalist in my Bible reading? First, there was the matter of personal legalism and beating myself up if I happened to miss a day for whatever reason. There were some days where I would miss my reading and I would get quite discouraged because I’d fallen behind on my schedule. I had to quickly learn that I couldn’t & shouldn’t do that to myself. I had to remember the purpose of my Bible reading: to learn the Bible & know God more intimately. I doubt he was condemning me for missing a day, so I shouldn’t be condemning myself. Once I learned that it was okay to miss a day due to circumstances it gave me more freedom, and, as a result, I’ve actually missed fewer days & have been successful in making it more of a priority in my life.

The second lesson I had to learn was to not burden others or look down on them because they weren’t reading as much as I was. That whole relative holiness is a bad place to go. Why? Because there is always someone doing more/better than you. Reading the Scriptures should not be creating within us a sense of pride & boastfulness about the amount of time that we are spending with the Lord. No, instead, it should be creating humility within us and molding us to look more like our Maker. This was a tough lesson to learn, especially in regard to those closest to me. Here, I had to learn & remember that we’re not robots and everyone is at a different place in their relationship with God; plus, I don’t know what they are doing to spend time with the Lord & grow spiritually.

So, why did I share everything I did in these three posts? It’s not to be prideful or show you how great I am. If anything, I want to show you that making the Bible a part of your life can be a reality. You just have to find a method that is going to work for you. What works for me may not work for you; but, there is something out there that will work. If you’re not interested in reading through the entire Bible, then find something you do want to read or study and dedicate yourself to seeing it through. I mentioned YouVersion.com in my previous post in this series; they are a great resource for finding a reading plan that can suit your needs. Another great thing about YouVersion is that you can earn badges, which can serve as motivation, or even do it with a community of others who are reading too.

Just remember two things: 1) the Bible is God’s Word to us, and 2) our goal in reading it is to get to know God better. I say that because there are many that read the Bible in ways that do not promote growth or transformation in one’s life. Jen Wilkin wrote a great piece on this at the Gospel Coalition’s blog titled “Why Bible Study Doesn’t Transform Us” that I think is worth checking out as a follow-up to this series. However you decide to do it, just read the Bible & make it a part of your life.

Photo by bennylin0724

If left to my own efforts & memory, I know I won’t be consistent in my Bible reading. I realize that this was part of my problem in the past and the cause for all of my prior Bible reading efforts. What’s my plan now? Basically, I’m sticking with what works. I’m using the same tools that I used when trying to read the Bible in a year. I’m using Logos Bible software and their ability to create & manage reading plans; but, instead of an iPod Touch, I’m now using a tablet and smartphone.

What does my reading look like now? For starters, it’s nowhere near as ambitious as it was in times past. I’ve slowed down my reading pace so that I can soak in and apply what I’m reading, while also affording myself the opportunity to take notes & do deeper study as needed. So, instead of reading through the entire Bible in a year, I am now doing the following: 1) reading through the Old Testament chronologically in two years, and 2) reading through the NT chronologically once a year (although, I’m now reading through each gospel as its own unit, instead of as a harmony). I feel that this gives me a good balance of daily Bible reading that is both manageable and not overbearing, in the chance that my time becomes more constrained. Plus, I am still reading only Monday through Friday, leaving my weekends open. This also leaves me time enough to read through a daily devotion that provides a different look at Scripture, of which I’m currently reading John MacArthur’s Drawing Near.

Just recently, I also added a daily gospel reading to my daily Bible reading. So, not only am I reading the Old Testament & New Testament daily, but I’m also reading the gospels daily. This plan has me reading through each of the four gospels three times a year (basically one gospel a month). My first time through them, I read them individually, then as a harmony, and then individually again. Why did I add this? One of the devotions I read mentioned regularly reading through the gospels so that you can remain acquainted & continually learning about the ministry of Jesus; then, I also remembered my pastor saying that he reads a gospel every month. It sounded like a good idea & the readings were short enough that it made sense to add it as a part of my routine.

In all, my reading plans & devotion take about 30 minutes of my time each day. Out of a 24 hour day, I think giving a minimum of 30 minutes to my Lord is worthwhile. Not to mention, this does not include any in-depth studies that I might be doing, such as my current verse-by-verse study of 1 Thessalonians. One thing I also do as I’m reading is make notes. Think of it as digitally writing in the margins of my Bible. I have a file where I jot down questions that I may have as I encounter a passage and want to study it later or get help in answering it. I also write little commentary notes in another file, many of which provide inspiration for this site’s “Spare Change.” I even have a file for memory verses where I make small notes on why a verse is worth memorizing.

All in all, I am truly enjoying my time in the Scriptures and the more I read, the more I’m becoming acquainted with the Bible as a whole & able to make connections. For instance, I had read a passage in Deuteronomy a couple of weeks ago and immediately made a New Testament correlation, only to later find out that Paul had made reference to the passage in Romans. This is how you learn the Bible, and there’s really no other way to do it. You keep reading & studying it, and it will definitely come alive & make an impact in your life. If you don’t have a consistent Bible reading plan, I recommend finding one that works for you & do your best to stick with it. If you don’t know where to start, try checking out YouVersion.com, which I’ll talk about a bit more in part 3 of this series.

It wasn’t until a couple of years ago that I was finally able to accomplish my goal of reading the Bible from cover-to-cover. It took some determination, but I was able to do it. But, how did I do it? Well, I began by assessing the resources that I had available to me and laying out a plan that I felt was doable. In surveying my resources, I found that the greatest asset for accomplishing this task was my Logos Bible software, as it had several key components that I needed. Of particular interest were: 1) the ability to create a custom plan that suited my needs, and 2) a mobile app for keeping up with my plan on the go, since I had an iPod Touch at the time and was always near Wi-Fi. Since I always had my iPod with me, it meant that I was able to keep up with my plan wherever I was, even if I didn’t have my physical Bible with me.

With the technology in place, I now had to create a reading plan that would give me the best possible chance of getting through the Bible. In times past, my plan had been to start in Genesis & start reading until I reached Revelation. That didn’t work before, so I knew I needed something different this time around. After looking through several plans, I finally settled on a chronological Bible reading plan that knit the different pieces of the Bible together in a cohesive narrative. The particular plan I used had Job coming before the Abraham narrative in Genesis, the Psalms & prophets placed at their point in the narrative so that what was being spoken by the prophet was in the context of the happenings of the children of Israel. For the New Testament, I put together a harmony of the gospels so that all four gospels were read simultaneously as the events occurred, and the epistles read in their given timeline in Acts.

Knowing that the Old Testament can get difficult to read in parts, I made the decision to split my reading so that I was reading both the Old Testament & the New Testament each day. Since I was strong in my New Testament chronology, I felt comfortable that I would still be able to get the whole story if I read them together. Plus, I knew that it would give me the push I needed to read the Old Testament each day, if I had something lighter/easier to read after making it through the day’s OT reading.

Now, with my reading in place, I had to decide how long & on what days I was going to read. I was feeling quite motivated, so I felt that I could accomplish this in a year, so I set my calendar for a year. But, I knew reading every single day would be difficult and I wanted a buffer to catch up if needed, so I chose to read Monday through Friday, leaving my weekends open for rest and/or catching up if I missed a day.

With my plan created in Logos and syncing on both my desktop & iPod via the cloud, I was ready to begin. I started my plan in November 2009 and I was quite successful in keeping up with my reading. Using my iPod, I found it very easy to read large chunks of Scripture, so I started to get ahead in my plan, sometimes reading two or three day’s worth of reading at once. Surprising myself, I actually ended up finishing my plan in a little over six months (finishing in early May 2010).

It was a great feeling to say that I have actually read through the entirety of the Bible. What’s more, I’m glad I used a chronological reading plan because it allowed for the Bible to come to life in ways that it never had before. Not only was I able to grasp the big picture of the Bible, but I also walked away with a much greater understanding of the Old Testament, particularly in how it relates to the New Testament. While I had read the Bible before in chunks, I truly feel that this was the event that allowed me to make the Bible a meaningful part of my everyday life, instead of just a verse or two that I might read from day to day.

considering buying a new print Bible… yes, a print Bible… thinking it’ll likely be a new thinline ESV w/2011 text updates

As the day went on, with the thought still on my mind, I wondered if the local Lifeway store had any 2011 ESV Bibles in stock. Then, as I thought about it some more, I was thinking, “Oh, I need a nice ‘preaching’ Bible too, to go with the thinline as my everyday ‘handy’ Bible!” After a while, I finally paused and asked myself a question. If I do all of my studying of the Bible digitally, why should I have a Bible that I only use for teaching? Shouldn’t the same Bible I study with be the same Bible I teach from? The answer was: why not?!

As I thought through this some more, I wondered what this would look like for me. Preaching from a tablet is nothing new and has become more popular in the last couple of years, so it’s not like I’d be breaking new ground or anything; yet, there could be something that better suits how I do things. In my thought process, I quickly realized that the way I teach requires lots of “page flipping” because I typically cross reference a lot of Scriptures. How could I leverage a tablet to my advantage? Right now Logos is my primary tool for study, but their mobile app doesn’t support a split screen of Bible & notes; so, that wouldn’t work. Then, I remembered that I have Olive Tree, which does & can also sync with Evernote. Having Evernote means that I can simply copy/paste or dump my passages or notes into an Evernote note and sync it with Olive Tree quite easily. Then, I can have my notes split with my Bible, and tap to open a reference. Now that could work! That would completely eliminate the need for a print Bible & printed notes.

So, let’s take this further because now I’m thinking about completely getting rid of my laptop from the pulpit. This proves tricky because that’s how I run my PowerPoint slideshow for the congregation to follow along. If you’re asking, yes, I usually run my own PowerPoint. Then I started thinking that this is somewhere that Logos could come back into play. They recently released Proclaim Church Presentation Software and it is built for this kind of thing. So, I just get a computer, any computer, connected to the overhead projector (whether it be my own or the one in the sound booth) and load it up; then, I can use my phone (or the tablet) as a remote to progress the slides as needed. Now that would be cool!

I could really see myself teaching in that fashion, and it’s right up my alley. I’m a digital guy, so working in this fashion keeps all of my notes accessible to me from multiple devices and I’m not in a jam if I ever forget or lose my print Bible. Plus, there’s always the freedom of being able to switch translations on the fly, which is nice. I also feel that technology is at a point now that it is fairly reliable, especially in terms of battery life, where no real red flags are raised for me anymore. I truly think that this is the route that I’m going to go in the future, however the Lord sees fit for that to happen.