04.04. Daily Bible Reading Program
The Bible is the main source of our knowledge about God. It is His inspired and authoritative Word that has the power to build faith, hope and truth into our lives. The following Daily Bible Reading Program will help you to work through the Bible systematically so that the Word of God dwells richly in your life and produces joy in your heart.
About The Bible The Bible was written over 1500 years between about 1400 BC and 95AD. The Old Testament is God’s dealings with Israel and consists of 39 books written and collected together over 1000 years from 1400BC to 400BC. Then there was a big gap of 400 years until Jesus was born. The New Testament consists of 27 books written between about 50AD and 95AD and is the record of the life and gospel of Jesus Christ. The Old Testament was originally written in Hebrew and Aramaic while the New Testament was written in Greek. Thus the Bible you read is a translation of these original ancient manuscripts which were very carefully preserved and translated. The Index /Table Of Contents
Because the Bible was written by many people over a long period of time, the books of the Bible are not arranged alphabetically but topically, chronologically and by the type of writing. It is a bit confusing at first. So most Bibles have an Index or Table of Contents in the front. This will give you the page numbers of the various books of the Bible. So if your pastor says to look up the book of Romans, you go to the Index and find it there, and then go to the page it indicates. The Structure Of The Bible: Testaments, Books, Chapters and Verses. When you open your Bible and look at it you will notice it is not structured like most other books, it is written more like a legal document in which everything is numbered. It is important to understand this structure. The Bible is divided into two Testaments, (a Testament is like a will or contract), the Old Testament which mainly details God’s dealings with the nation of Israel and the New Testament which contains material about Jesus and the Church. Each Testament contains many separate "books" which were originally bible scrolls written by various prophets and apostles. The Old Testament contains 39 books and the New Testament contains 27 books.
Each book is divided into chapters - which generally are about one or two pages long. Each chapter is then divided into "verses" which are short sections of Scripture, generally about a sentence or a paragraph in length. The verse numbers were put in there to help people find their place in the Bible.
Eventually people came up with a shorthand notation to refer to bible verses that describes the book, chapter and verse. The shorthand consists of the name of the book, followed by a space, then the number of the chapter, a colon, and then the number of the verse like this: John 3:16 or Rom 8:1
SoJohn 3:16 indicates the book of John, chapter 3, and verse 16
and Rom 8:1 indicates the book of Romans, chapter 8, and verse 1 So when someone says something like "please find Jas 3:16" this is what you do:
1. Go to the index and find the book of James (it is in the New Testament)
2. Go to the page number for the book of James indicated in the index.
3. Then turn the pages until you get to chapter 3
4. Then look down until you find verse 16 It is good to practice this for ten minutes or so until you get really used to it. A Bible Reading Method You Can Use
The following is the bible reading method developed by the Scripture Union movement that promotes daily Bible reading in over 120 countries around the world. It is very simple: Pray, Read, Think, Pray
Pray: Ask God to open up His Word to you. "Lord open my eyes that I may see wonders from your Word".
Read: Read a short passage of Scripture about ten to fifteen verses or a chapter. Start with the New Testament first and read it in order from Matthew to Revelation.
Think: Think about what you have just read and ask some of the following questions:
What does the passage say about God? What does it say about the Father, about the Son and about the Holy Spirit?
What does the passage say about life? Does it teach some important principles? Is there a command to obey, a warning to heed, some wise advice for living?
What does the passage say about your daily situation? Is there something you should be doing? Does it shed light on your professional life, family life or church participation?
Has Jesus spoken to you in a special way through the Bible today? If so what did He say to you?
Pray: Write out a prayer to God based on what you have learned from your Bible reading. Something like "Lord help me to love my neighbor as myself." or whatever lesson you have learned that day. Where To Start
Where should you start when reading the Scriptures? With the material about Jesus. That is the New Testament and especially the gospels. Here is my suggested order for reading the whole Bible. It will take about three years to finish if you read one chapter per day and one year to finish if you read 3 or 4 chapters a day.
Read the New Testament in order, starting with Matthew and going book by book until you reach the last chapter of Revelation. This will give you a good idea about Jesus, the Church and Christian living.
Then go back to the beginning of the Bible and read Genesis, Exodus and Deuteronomy which tells you how things began and God’s order for Creation, mankind and society.
The read the Psalms in order from 1 to 50 then take a break (there are 150 of them).
Read Isaiah 40-66, Daniel, Amos, Hosea, Jonah, Haggai, Zechariah, Lamentations and Malachi which should help you grasp the prophets.
Then read Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, Job, and Song of Solomon - known as the Wisdom Literature.
Joshua , Judges, Ruth, 1 & 2 Samuel, 1& 2 Kings, 1& 2 Chronicles - this will give you a good grasp of the history of Israel.
Then go back and read the New Testament from start to finish all over again.
Then go back and read another 50 Psalms (51-100)
Then tackle the Old Testament laws in Leviticus and Numbers.
More prophets - Ezekiel, Isaiah 1-39, Jeremiah these are the "major prophets"
Finish with some less known books Ezra, Nehemiah, Esther, Joel, Obadiah, Micah, Nahum, Habakkuk, & Zephaniah
Then finish the last 50 Psalms (101-150)