Reading through the Bible

The summer of 2003, after my junior year of college, I was spending time in Moscow, Russia. It was there that I finally became convicted that I had never read through the entire Bible. I thought that as a Christian, I should probably read what I at least pretended to believe was the very word of God. I had studied a lot of the Bible at that point, but just studying allowed me to "conveniently" stay away from those parts of the Bible that many would consider boring, tedious, and difficult (pretty much most of the Old Testament).

Starting that summer I made a commitment to read through the Bible for the first time. And I was amazed by what I read and began to discover the truth of Romans 15:4, that "whatever was written in former days was written for our instruction, that through endurance and encouragement of the Scriptures we might have hope." I began to see nuggets of truth everywhere, but more importantly, I began to see in greater measure God's great story of redemption and how all of Scripture points to the person and work of Christ. I remember specifically that the idea of God's glory and God's sovereignty became so much more real to me as it seemed to leap out page after page after page.

Since 2003, I have continued to read through the Bible each year. It's been a very fruitful discipline. I've used a few different plans over the years, but I wanted to highlight my favorite one for those of you thinking you wanted to give it a go this year. It's the Discipleship Journal Bible Reading Plan by NavPress. Click on the link to download it. You read four sections of the Bible a day, and read through every book once. One of my favorite parts is that the reading stops on the 25th of each month so you can catch up if you miss days, or study something more in depth during that time. I finished 2009 this morning and plan on starting all over again tomorrow. Who's with me?

Also, Crossway has 10 other kinds of plans in case you're interested.