How Will You Read the Story?

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Photo by Ryk Neethling

Photo by Ryk Neethling

As we approach the new year many of us are thinking about New Year’s Resolutions. If you are like me, resolutions never work. I never keep them. I do, however, fight to make and keep goals. Goals and resolutions are very different. Smart goals are specific, measurable, attainable, realistic, and timely. Resolutions unfortunately usually never resemble any of those characteristics. One goal in particular I set each and every year is to read the Bible. The Bible is the Word of God. It is God’s message to his people. If the Bible is God’s personal message to us then it is really important that we take the time to read it, study it, and apply it to our lives. Reading the Bible in 2013 is going to be especially important for Vintage Church, as we walk through our next sermon series “Story.” As Pastor Rob and the other pastors preach and teach the story of the Bible, we as a church have the opportunity to read the Story for ourselves. Needless to say Vintage Church is going to be saturated in God’s Word.

The question is where do we start. Many of us want to read the Bible in a year but we have no idea where to begin or how to carry such a plan through. Thankfully many individuals and organizations have created plans that make it easy to walk through the Bible in 2013. Below are just a handful of plans you can use in 2013. Whatever you do, pick up your Bible and get in the Word.

  1. Reading God’s Story
    • This reading plan focuses on reading the story of the Bible as it unfolds chronologically. Instead of reading it book by book, you’ll read the story as it actually occurred in history. This plan consists of six readings a week so it also gives you a day to catch up on reading you might have missed during the week.
  2. Discipleship Journal Reading Plans
    • The 5x5x5 Bible Reading Plan.
      • This is a great plan for beginners of the Bible. The 5x5x5 plan will take you through the New Testament in one year. In this plan you read 5 minutes a day for 5 days. This allows you two days to recover and/or reflect on prior readings. This plan also provides you with 5 ways to dig deeper. These include underlining/highlighting, paraphrasing, asking/answering questions, capturing the big ideas, and personalizing the meaning.
    • The Discipleship Journal Bible Reading Plan
      • In this plan are four readings per day, 2 from the Old Testament and 2 from the New Testament. The other great thing about this plan is that in each month there are only 25 days of readings. So you’ll have five to six days off where you can catch up if you’ve fallen behind or use those days to study a passage that you’ve already read.
  3. M’Cheyne Daily Bible Reading Plan
    • In this plan you’ll read through the New Testament and Psalms twice and the rest of the Old Testament once. Another awesome feature of this plan is that it begins with four great beginnings or births of Scripture: Genesis (beginning of the world), Ezra 1 (the rebirth of Israel after her return from Babylon), Matthew 1 (the birth of the Messiah), and Acts 1 (the birth of the Church). A great resource to use alongside of this reading plan is D.A. Carson’s ‘For the Love of God’. This is a devotional following alongside the reading plan.
  4. Kingdom Bible Reading Plan
    • This is an excellent reading plan for several reasons. First, the Old and New Testament readings are proportionate to their length. So there are three Old Testament readings and one New Testament reading per day. Secondly, the Old Testament readings are arranged in the way Jesus would have read them (i.e. Law, Prophets, Writings). Finally, there are only twenty-five readings per month allowing for some flexibility.
  5. ESV Reading Plans & YouVersion Reading Plans
    • Here are two great resources for reading plans. On both of these websites are various different reading plans you can use if the ones above do not suit you. These reading plans can be emailed to you, placed on your mobile phone, or even sent to your calendar. Each one contains several different reading plans you can utilize in 2013.