Among us it seems there are a few like me, who try and read through the Bible in a single year. I’ve tried various programs that valiantly try to keep me on track but always end up falling so far behind I either give up or begin to lie as I check off the squares. I can see myself standing before the Judge. “You indicate here that you read Isaiah chapters 1- 20 on Friday?” Yes. “When you fell behind in the schedule did you actually mark those chapters as read?” Yes. Did you fail to finish this program and did you give it up on the 15th of April? Yes. “Did you call your friend who kept it up and finished the year a compulsive idiot?” Yes.
I ended my efforts as an abject failure. I was consumed by guilt until I discovered a couple things. One. If you lived at another time in history when books in print either didn’t exist or were too scarce to afford, couldn’t you still be a lover of Jesus and a walker with God? Of course! Two. Nowhere in Scripture is our worth measured by how often you read through the Bible in a year. Three. It isn’t a moral issue. Not like lying or calling your friend a name. Four. You can begin a program any time of the year. January 1 is NOT sacrosanct.
I got it. So to help myself and anyone else who struggled in a similar fashion I developed the Bible Reading Program for Slackers and Shirkers. Click here to download the pdf. It is easy to use. No need to lie. If you can’t keep up, no problem. Read on the days you can and if you complete all the entries on that day before any of the others, move on to the day that still needs to be completed and check off those boxes one at a time. Once it took me four and a half years to complete the program. So what?
The reason I like to go through the Bible in a methodical way is because left on my own I tend to go to my favorite books over and over year after year. That means John wins. So do the Psalms. Reading them all gives a more complete picture of God’s relationship to man from Genesis to Revelation. It’s good. All good. Even the hard parts. And the parts I will never understand.
So here is the link to the program. It is an updated pdf file. My apologies for the old one that hung around until I FINALLY replaced it today. Alas, there were mistakes in it and thanks to Emily Van der Ploeg for her help in editing the new version.
This post came through on an email from another person I follow. I am very much one of these people. I have started in Genesis many times, end of last year I managed to get through the first 5 books because I was so motivated and then of course I moved on to other stuff as I get bored. This is a fantastic layout and because I have already read those first five books recently I have crossed them of this list already. Thanks for the layout. I’ll be sure to share it within my congregation I lead.
God bless.
Am very encouraged that you find this useful. Read on!! Margie