Most Western
Christians don’t ever read the Bible
outside of church except perhaps in a moment of desperation during a personal
crisis.
Not surprisingly,
most Western Christians are shamefully ignorant of the contents of Scripture.
Their Bible knowledge consists of a few disconnected stories and random verses
picked up along the way in Sunday school classes or while listening to sermons.
That knowledge is second hand—not personal. It has been widely acknowledged
that the Bible is the least read bestseller in American publishing history.
Contrast this sad
state of affairs with what is typically the case with Muslim Background
Believers (MBBs). MBBs are Christians who grew up Muslims and then converted to
Christianity. On average, by the time a Muslim man has made the decision to
follow Christ as a baptized believer he has already read the Bible through not
once, not twice, but FIVE times.
Five times…
What about you? Have
YOU read the Bible through five times? Are you a regular Bible reader at all?
Are you a serious student of Scriptures? Have you ever read your Bible from cover-to-cover? If not, why not?
We are busy, busy
people leading busy, busy lives. One of the frequently offered excuses for our
failure to read our Bibles is a lack of time. But let’s look at this
scientifically. Just how long would it take you to read your Bible through?
We know the answer because somebody took the trouble to time
it. There are about 807,361words in the Bible (depending on the translation):
622,771 in the Old Testament and 184,590 in the New Testament. That means about
77% of your Bible—almost 4/5ths—is Old Testament, the part that Christians are
most ignorant of. It takes just 70 hours and 40 minutes to read the Bible
through—just under three full days. And that’s out loud. 52 hours and 20
minutes to read the Old Testament, 18 hours and 20 minutes to read the New
Testament. The longest book, Psalms, will take just 4 hours and 28 minutes. It
takes a mere 2 hours and 43 minutes to read the Gospel of Luke.
You can read the Bible through in a year in less than 12
minutes a day.
Can’t you commit to giving 12 minutes a day—30 seconds out
of every hour—less than 1% of your day—to
reading God’s word? Millions do so every year. My wife has done so every year
for nearly 30 years. And it shows. She KNOWS her Bible. On January 1, 1987,
when our son, Joshua, was 8 years, 8 months, and 13 days old, with no prompting
from Joyce or me he took it upon himself to read the Bible through that year.
Each night he set his alarm so that he would be up 15 minutes early so that he
could do his Bible reading before school. On December 31, 1987 he closed his Bible
after reading Revelation 22:21. Mission accomplished. A few years ago there was
a TV game show called, Are You Smarter
than a 5th Grader? My question to you is, are you as committed to
discipleship as this fourth grader?
I suppose it is a consequence of our fallen natures that
good habits are hard to cultivate while bad ones get started all too easily. At
Rivermont Avenue Baptist Church where I serve as senior pastor I want to help my
members develop the habit of daily Bible reading. Here’s how:
First, beginning January 1, 2014 I am encouraging all of my
RABC family to start a daily Bible reading program. While there are many ways
to approach this, I’m suggesting the easiest approach: Reading the Bible
straight through from Genesis to Revelation, about 3 chapters a day.
Second, daily Bible reading guides will be published in the
newsletter and on our website at http://www.rivermontavenue.org/.
Third, beginning Wednesday, January 8, I will lead a weekly
Bible based on these readings. The Scripture passage for each study will be selected
from among the chapters that we read the previous week. For example, since we
will have read Genesis 1-24 during the first week of the year, my study on January
8 will be a passage selected from those chapters. Each session will be a
stand-alone unit so you are not penalized if you can only attend sporadically.
Each class session will be videotaped and posted on our website.
Fourth and finally, daily Bible reading is not intended to
be in-depth study. But as you read, questions will naturally arise. If you find
yourself puzzling over a question generated by your reading, I invite you to
post those questions on this
blog and I'll try to help you find the answers.
We are trying to raise our congregation’s biblical literacy
in 2014! I encourage you to spread the effort in your own church.
It takes just 12 minutes a day.
Pastor Glen