-Pastor Erik Reed
The year is coming quickly to an end. 2012 has flown by and a new year awaits us. With a new year comes new opportunities, goal-setting, and a chance to make adjustments to what we have done in the previous year. One of the goals of every Christian should be to consume more of the Bible than we did the year prior. Our Bible intake should not just be consistent, it should grow. I know many Christians who do not read the Bible the way they should, or want to. I also know that most of those Christians are not using any type of formal plan to read their Bible. I believe the most successful way of ensuring you read the Bible throughout the year is to adopt a plan and stick to it.
There are several different Bible reading plans that you can adopt. This link can take you to some different plans that may work for you. I would recommend picking a plan and sticking to it. In 2012, I used the Robert Murray McCheyne (1842) reading plan. This plan takes you through the entire Old Testament once, and the New Testament and Psalms twice over the course of the year. I am excited as a I near the end of the plan and see that I only have days left before accomplishing this rewarding goal of reading the entire Bible in a year.
This coming year, I am taking a new approach. Ray Ortlund Jr., a pastor and theologian who lives in Nashville, encourages people to have a book of the Bible that they spend their entire life trying to master. He also challenges them to pick a new book each year to study for that year. He recommends buying, or borrowing, some commentaries on these books and really spending time studying and becoming familiar with that particular book. He does not recommend this over reading through the entire Bible, but as an additional way to go deeper into the Word of God.
So my approach this year is going to be reading the Unity of the Bible plan, which takes me through the Old and New Testaments once through the year in a chronological order. I am also going to study the book of Hebrews, in-depth, through 2013. I have already started pinpointing the commentaries I am going to use, and I am developing a systematic plan of study.
My encouragement to you is to find a plan. Do not just tell yourself that you want to read the Bible more consistently in 2013. Do it. Find a plan and stick to the plan. I can promise you that if you do it, and stick to the plan, you will not regret one moment of the time you will spend in God’s Word. May 2013 be a year of feasting from the treasure of God’s Word!
-Erik Reed
