By the grace of God, I finished my commitment to read the Bible in one year, ahead of schedule, on December 23, 2021. If you haven’t already, you can read my previous blog posts on this commitment here and here and here.
The Process
Some days were very challenging; having to read up to seven chapters. Reading seven chapters and making notes and writing brief introductions to each biblical book added to the time required to keep up with the suggested daily schedule. However, with much discipline, and God’s grace, I was able to finish ahead of the schedule that I was following in the Good News Translation of the Bible. My actual reading involved a rotation of seven additional translations though, including: the New Revised Standard Version, the Revised English Bible, the Revised Standard Version, the King James Version, the New American Standard Bible, The Jerusalem Bible, and the New International Version.
Notes and Introductions
As I mentioned, I wrote brief notes on every chapter and wrote introductions to each biblical book. Some days it was a struggle to concentrate and write, especially when those days were filled with other commitments. The days I wasn’t able to read the required number of chapters, I spent more time reading to catch up on other days. Taking notes and writing introductions helped me to reflect more on the content than if I were only reading. Altogether, I filled nearly four spiral note books with my notes and introductions! I plan on consulting these from time to time in the future, and possibly even expanding on them for my own devotional purposes; as well as for Bible studies and sermon preparation.
The New Testament
I enjoyed reading the synoptic Gospels and the Gospel of John and noting some of their unique theological and biographical presentations of Jesus. Matthew presents Jesus as the Messiah who has come and fulfilled the Hebrew Bible messianic prophecies; Mark describes Jesus as the God/Man of action with a heavy itinerary of preaching, teaching and healing; and Luke sees Jesus as friend of sinners, seeker of the lost, and companion of the poor; John has a multi-pictured Jesus, including: the Word working with God the Father to create the universe, the bread of life, the way, truth and life, the true light, the Saviour/Messiah of the world who brings eternal life, and several others.
The Pauline epistles, of course, are most profound theologically, as Paul was likely “the” key early theologian and intellectual of the Christian faith, as well as missionary to the Gentile world. His message—which he was able to preach while considering the specific context of each audience—of salvation by grace alone; and his emphasis on responding to that saving grace through faith active in love; obviously appealed to many Gentiles throughout the Mediterranean world.
Many of the other New Testament letters focus on specific misunderstandings, divisions and troubles within the early faith communities: including false teachers and teachings, good works, illness and healing, prayer, worship, persecution, the meaning and implications for believers of Jesus’s suffering, death and resurrection.
The final Book of Revelation is a difficult one. Apocalyptic literature, often written in the context of persecution to give those persecuted encouragement and hope for the future, is hard to interpret. It lends itself to fundamentalists having a field day by coming up with outlandish scenarios of the end-times; and interpreting events that are described in Revelation as referring to present-day events, people and places. Such events described in Revelation are highly symbolic—most likely by design an underground language to avoid being censored by authorities hostile to Christian communities—and referred to events back at the time the author wrote Revelation, not events happening today. Because of the difficult nature of Revelation, Christians were reluctant to include it in the biblical canon. One wonders if, through the centuries, it has done more harm than good to its readers.
Final Thoughts
One thing I appreciated about this project was the opportunity to read many of the biblical stories in their larger context. I also appreciated reading some of the books that I hadn’t read for a long time. We all have our favourite books, as well as those we tend to avoid. All-in-all, I do believe that my faith has been strengthened by reading the Bible in one year—as has my appreciation for God the Author of the Bible, and for my ancestors, both Jewish and Gentile, who preserved, canonized, translated and passed on the Bible from generation to generation, right up to the present day. May the Bible continue to be a best seller, if not “the” best seller for generations to come! I would encourage readers of this blog post to commit to reading the Bible in one year—you will be blessed!
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