Yesterday I finished reading the entire Bible, cover to cover, in 90 Days. Today I feel a bit bereft after forming the habit of reading 12 pages a day. What to do? Start all over again?
Here are some of the plans others in the program have shared for their future reading. One is going to start again, using Eugene Peterson's The Message, and reading 12 pages every day. One couple plans to begin reading again but at a slower pace--maybe 3 pages a day in the same NIV Bible so that it takes a year to finish.
Right now I don't think that I want to start from Genesis again. On the other hand, I feel the need to continue the discipline of reading. So I think that what I will do is go back to the Epistles and read them through using my Access Study Bible. The reading I just finished raised some questions about how to distinguish between "false teachings" that should be resisted and "useless controversies" that should be ignored. Then I think that I will go back to the prophets, starting with Isaiah and do the same thing.
Rather than set a goal of reading a certain number of pages a day, I'm going to set a goal of spending at least 30 minutes each day in this reading. That way I can stop at a logical place and resume the next day. If that doesn't work well, then I'll set myself a page goal again.
They say you can't read the entire Bible and not be changed, and I do feel changed. I'm still experiencing that change and am not ready to try to define it other than to say that the habit of reading scripture every day has become too important to me to break.
As we begin winding up our groups this next week, I am collecting responses to the experience from some of those who participated and I will share those here when we're all done.
~applaudes~ I am proud for you!! You have done something that alot of people, I for one, have never even attempted!
ReplyDeleteOh Grace, that is wonderful! They say if you do something for 21 days, it's a habit. I would say after 90 days the practice would be thoroughly ingrained! Bless you.
ReplyDeleteCongrats on this! Very cool!
ReplyDeleteWhat they said! Good luck with continued reading.
ReplyDeleteGood job! Now you can start in on Calvin's Institutes. Hmmm. The Institutes in 900 Days. Think we could sell that??
ReplyDeleteWay to go Grace! You are an inspiration.
ReplyDeleteCongratulations.
ReplyDeleteHave you ever heard of lectio-divino. That is how the Benedictines read. In a nutshell it is not reading quantity but instead for quality. It is prayerfully reading. There are days that you may read a few pages and days you may only read a few sentences. The key is to read slowly and intentionally until you feel God speaking to you and then stop and meditate on where you're at.
You don't get as much read, but this could be a good practice after reading the entire Bible. Again, congrats.
Greg, I've heard of lectio divina--but didn't really know how to do it. Thanks for that suggestion. I'm going to try doing that as I go back through the epistles.
ReplyDeletethere's a good lectio divina walk-through at www.methodx.org, which I think would be a methodist site?
ReplyDeletelovely :)
ReplyDeleteblessings upon blessings !
I read a good book in seminary by Joan Chittister entitled "Wisdom Distilled from the Daily: Living the Rule of St. Benedict Today".
ReplyDeleteThis was the class where we learned about lectio divina. And this is a good book for any who would like to learn more.
Oops...I'm very sorry. I just got in my office and realized I told you about the wrong book. The Chittister book is a great read about living the Benedictine rule in today's world. But the book about lectio divina that I meant to tell you about was "Sacred Reading" by Michael Casey.
ReplyDeleteAgain. Sorry. But both are good books.
In the love of Christ,
greg
Thanks, Greg for the information. I ordered a copy from amazon. I would like some guidance in lectio.
ReplyDelete