Do you believe God wants to speak to us today, and that He has given us His Word as a means for us to get to know Him and His purpose in life? Do you wish that the life in all its fullness described in the Bible reflects the reality of your life as a Christian? Have you often thought how nice it would be to read through the Bible in a year, but have never been able to finish it? Do you want to deepen your relationship as a special and precious adopted child of our heavenly Father and grow in fullness of His love, so that we bring him honour and glory as part of his family? If any of these questions strike a chord with you, let me invite you to join me and some others from St Paul's Tervuren on an exciting, in-depth, all-in, adrenaline-charged, life-enriching, mentally stimulating, emotionally-engaging, spiritually challenging journey through the Bible from Genesis 1:1 to Revelation 22:21 in just 3 months!
How the idea came about
To paraphrase a popular saying, "good ideas have many fathers". In my case, our men's homegroup encouraged us all to set targets for the year, and last year I set my goal as reading the Bible in a year. I achieved this, finished at 11.15 in the evening on New Year's Eve. For 2007, I needed a new goal, and when travelling in Canada for work last November, I had bought a Bible in a bookshop which had a reading plan to cover the whole Bible in 90 days. The plan argued that to do so, you would only need to read 12 pages a day, which would take roughly 40 minutes. So my first target for 2007 was to read through the Bible in 90 days.
This I managed to do, although to do this I had consciously to set aside 40 minutes at the start of each day. The benefits of doing this were immense, as it brought home to me in such a clear way the continuity and inter-connectedness of God’s plan from the creation through the life of Jesus and into the perfect world to come, a place with no sorrow or pain or tears. I also found that the more I read the Bible, the more I wanted to read it and the more I felt God speaking to me as I did so. You can ask my wife, Miriam, if you want more detail on the effect it had on me.
Then in September, Chris Edwards arrived to be the new chaplain of St Paul’s Tervuren. Anyone coming into contact with Chris will quickly become aware of his passion for the word of God and his wish for it to become the foundation, inspiration and motivation for our lives. I therefore threw down the gauntlet for him to join me in reading through the Bible in 90 days. Ecclesiastes 4:9-12 says “Two people are better off than one, for they can help each other succeed. If one person falls, the other can reach out and help. But someone who falls alone is in real trouble. Likewise, two people lying close together can keep each other warm. But how can one be warm alone? A person standing alone can be attacked and defeated, but two can stand back-to-back and conquer. Three are even better, for a triple-braided cord is not easily broken.” (NLT). If more than one of us are in this together, we can encourage each other to see it through to the end.
What we are proposing
As of 1 November 2007, Chris, I and anyone else who would like to join with us will start off on the journey to read the entire journey in 90 days. The entire reading plan is available on the website of St Paul’s Tervuren here.
This blog will be available as an open discussion group for you to post observations, comments or questions arising from what you have read that day. The more questions, comments and people involved, the better as far as I am concerned.
It is achievable – there are 88 readings, with 2 days off allowed, and we shall move at a cracking pace (the whole of Leviticus in 2 and a bit days, Ezekiel in 5 days). It is a commitment of time, but much more it is a commitment to seek God seriously in his word and to seek his message in his revelation from the Alpha to the Omega.
It is going to be fantastic. Come and join us, and bring along your friends.
Give me an eagerness for your laws
rather than a love for money!
Turn my eyes from worthless things,
and give me life through your word (Ps 119:36-37 NLT)
2 comments:
This has been a discussion topic in our household for some few weeks now, if not longer, and although I see the remarkable effects this discipline has had on my husband I have to admit I have shied away from it, up until this weekend.
So, despite being one of the slowest readers I have ever come across, Adam's enthusiasm has somehow rubbed off and come 1 November I shall be looking once again at Genesis 1, attempting to get to the end of Revelation before February 2008 hits.
I shall also be encouraging members of the home group I attend to consider the idea! Some I'm sure will want to throw things at me, but others may well take up the challenge, either way, I love them dearly!
This sounded like a crazy idea when I first heard it. Then it occurred to me that the real 'crazy' thing is that I should be intimidated by the thought of reading through God's word as quickly as I might read through a John le Carre given half the chance.
Anyway Adam - great idea. I shall no doubt be thinking nice thoughts of you as I drag myself out of my bed at an early enough hour to get this done!!
Seriously, it is an exciting thing to be embarking upon - both for those beginning the 90 day programme and all those accompanying and holding them up in prayer. I am looking forward to seeing God's word from a different perspective than in offered by a one-year overview (the quickest one I have manged so far and that was a slog that ran a bit overdue frankly); to exercising my discipline muscles(as well as exorcising the excuse that such programmes are too close to legalism for comfort); and to seeing what God does with all this.
By the way for those, like me, who feel that a specially formatted 90 day bible might be helpful for the programme, amazon.co.uk have a good deal on one. They probably have a good line in alarm clocks too...
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