The Bible in a Year

I've challenged my churches to read through the Bible in a year in 2010. It's not going to be an easy task. It is going to take perseverance and dedication. Realistically, it's not that hard. It's rarely more than 3 chapters a day. The hardest part is persevering through Leviticus, some of Exodus and the genealogies in Numbers and 1 Chronicles. I want to update from time to time where I have been reading and what has come up during my readings. Hopefully, I can be disciplined about writing, as well as reading through the Bible this year.

I looked at several different reading plans, but finally settled on a canonical reading plan that goes straight through from Genesis to Revelation. Why did I do this? I felt like some reading plans that had multiple readings from various parts of the Bible would not be cohesive enough. It's hard to follow the story of Genesis if you're reading a chapter of it a day alongside chapters of Matthew, Isaiah and the Psalms. I think that by jumping around you do get some variety, but you don't necessarily get the flow of the narrative. And, when there are only 3 chapters to read from the same book, it doesn't seem as daunting as three or four readings from different books. It's mainly psychological, I know, but whatever helps.

The awesome thing about technology these days is the fact that you can read the Bible almost anywhere. I downloaded the mobile version of YouVersion to my Blackberry, and can follow my reading plan from my phone. It also tracks my progress and lets me tweet my readings after I finish them. It's been pretty handy so far.

Today, I finished Day 9 of the readings. So, to this point, I have read Genesis 1-29. This part of Scripture covers a lot of ground. The first 11 chapters focus on creation, the fall, the flood and the Tower of Babel. Once we hit Genesis 12, we get into the story of Abraham and his offspring. Perhaps what has stood out to me the most so far is the fact that Scripture does a lot of reporting, but not a lot of commentary on the events that took place. There are things that Abraham, Noah, and Jacob have done that we would think are just terrible. By reporting them, Scripture isn't necessarily condoning it, but giving us a window into what happened in a different time. And perhaps, in spite of all their shortcomings, the fact that God still chooses to bless the line of Abraham should give us pause to reflect on what it is that God can do for us, in spite of all our shortcomings.