I used to read the Bible through every year. When I started over at the beginning of the year, I changed to a different translation of the Bible.
Anglicans read most of the Bible in a year by reading the daily offices (Morning and Evening Prayer) in the Book of Common Prayer, but I also like to read/study Scripture apart from worship.
In my yearly plans, I have read the King James Version, English Standard Version, New American Standard Bible, New International Version, The Living Bible, Revised Standard Version, and probably more.
One of my favorites was the Chronological Bible, which is arranged chronologically rather than in the standard order of books. Reading the Psalms alongside the events occurring in David’s life at the time he wrote particular psalms made an impact on me. You can also follow a plan to read Scripture chronologically in whatever Bible translation you prefer.
When I was caring for my husband at the end of his life and for the first year after he died, I couldn’t focus well enough to follow such a disciplined reading plan. Last year, I read the New Testament rather than the entire Bible.
This year I started following Professor Horner’s Bible Reading Plan. Professor Horner has ten lists of books of the Bible, and you read one chapter from each list every day. I’m following the plan on YouVersion, which makes it easy to stay on track. I appreciate that you can “catch-up” if you miss a day (or more). I try not to miss, but I have skipped several days when I took a trip, when I was sick in bed, and rarely when I am very busy and get sidetracked during the day.
I’ve completed one complete cycle reading the New American Standard Bible and started over with the English Standard Version. I’m seeing connections in the readings that I’ve missed in the past.
Professor Horner says this about his system:
Th e very best eff ect it has is rapid, broad-scale contextualizing across both testaments and all the di fferent biblical genres. Did you know about all the similarities between Ecclesiastes and 2 Corinthians? How about the relationship between Deuteronomy and Matt hew? It is like no other system that way, and it provides constant variety (which humans love) as well as consistent conviction (which humans hate). …
Since the lists vary in length, the readings begin interweaving in constantly changing ways. You will NEVER read the same set of ten chapters together again! Every year you’ll read through all the Gospels four times, the Pentateuch twice, Paul’s lett ers 4-5 times each, the OT wisdom literature six times, all the Psalms at least twice, all the Proverbs as well as Acts a dozen times, and all the way through the OT History and Prophetic books about 1 ½ times. Since the interweaving is constantly changing, you will experience the Bible commenting on itself in constantly changing ways — the Reformer’s principle of ‘scriptura interpretans scripturam’ — ‘scripture interpreting scripture’ IN ACTION!
Something else I’m doing is to share verses from my daily readings by creating quote images at Stencil*. Each day I look for verses that I want to share. My goal is to share verses from at least five of the ten chapters I read. Of course, I’m limited to short passages that will fit in an image, so I have to be selective. Also, I usually avoid repeating verses; otherwise, I’d probably choose the most well-known verses and overlook others.
At first, I shared images from my readings in the daily offices, then later I started to select the verses from my ten-chapter readings. Now I have created images of nearly 750 Scriptures, so I have to search a little harder to find something I haven’t done before.
Even though I’ve read the complete Bible numerous times, I have discovered verses I don’t remember as well as many old favorites. I try to include a mix of both popular and more obscure passages in my images, which I share on Facebook, Twitter, Google+, and Pinterest.
Here are just a few Scripture images I’ve shared:
Image of Bible: © Depositphotos.com/Forgiss
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