Friday, February 20, 2009

Three Great Bible Reading Schedules

I was recently introduced by Tony Miano to Grant Horner's Bible reading schedule. Before you read further, I would encourage you to read Tony's exciting account by clicking here.

Like Tony, I do really like this system. There are three really wonderful advantages to it:
  • Every day you are reading from every section of the Bible (Torah, History, Poetry, Prophets, Gospels, Epistles). It's like eating a 6 course meal!
  • You will never read the same combination of chapters twice.
  • Saturating yourself in the Bible. You'll get to know it (and hopefully God!) really well!
After reading this, I made a couple of changes to Professor Horner's system and began using it myself. It has been a blessing to me already.

Rather than reading 10 chapters a day like Professor Horner recommends, I scaled mine back to 8 chapters, still including some from each "food group". Here's my schedule. I read one chapter from each group each day, using 8 index cards as bookmarks to keep my places.

Group 1 (Gospels)
Matthew, Mark, Luke, John

Group 2 (Torah)
Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy

Group 3 (Paul's Epistles)
Romans, I&II Cor, Gal, Eph, Phil, Col, I&II Thess, I&II Tim, Titus, Philemon,

Group 4 (Other Epistles, Acts, and Revelation)
Acts, Hebrews, James, I&II Peter, I,II&III John, Jude, Revelation

Group 5 (Poetry)
Job, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes

Group 6 (Psalms)
Psalms

Group 7 (History)
Joshua, Judges, Ruth, I&II Samuel, I&II Kings, I&II Chronicles, Ezra, Nehemiah, Esther

Group 8 (Prophets)
Isaiah, Jeremiah, Lamentations, Ezekiel, Daniel, Hosea, Joel, Amos, Obadiah, Jonah, Micah, Nahum, Habakkuk, Zephaniah, Haggai, Zechariah, Malachi

If this sounds intimidating to you (perhaps reading is difficult for you, or you have a really busy life), you might want to try the Bible reading schedule designed by the wonderful 19th century Scottish pastor, Robert Murray M'Cheyne. In his schedule, you "only" read 4 or 5 chapters a day, but that's still enough to get you through the whole Bible once and the New Testament and Psalms twice. Here's a PDF you can print of his schedule.

In any event, I hope this encourages you, as I have been encouraged, to become a person of the Book!
I am a creature of a day. I am a spirit come from God, and returning to God. I want to know one thing: the way to heaven. God himself has condescended to teach me the way. He has written it down in a book. Oh, give me that book! At any price give me the book of God. Let me be a man of one book. -- John Wesley

1 comment:

  1. Thanks Daniel! I stumbled up this myself, so it is great to hear that you think it is a great method to read the Bible.

    ReplyDelete