Sermon: Strategies for Escaping Babylon (Part Seven)
Knowing God Through Studying His Word
#1745
David F. Maas
Given 27-Jan-24; 60 minutes
description: After our John 6:44 calling and our betrothal to Christ after our baptism, which is a public declaration to Christ and pledge to live as a faithful covenant partner within the community of God's collective bride, the church, we are mandated and obligated to begin a lifelong reciprocal dialogue and relationship with God the Father and our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, a relationship which leads to eternal life ( John 17:3) as contrasted with flirting and committing spiritual adultery with the satanically-inspired Babylonish system, leading to eternal death. Like the animated conversations the patriarchs of old carried on with their (and our) Creator, and the conversations the 12 apostles carried on with Jesus while on the earth, today we have the same capability by using the reciprocal dialogue through Bible study and prayer. In this 7th installment of the Strategies for Escaping Babylon, we will focus on some practical techniques for augmenting our Bible study, gathering our daily spiritual manna.
transcript:
Greetings brothers and sisters from Colton, California. Let us turn over to John 17:3, the umbrella verse for this message from the High Priestly prayer of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ on His last Passover as a human being.
John 17:3 “And this is eternal life, that they may know You, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom You have sent.”
The Amplified Bible, Classic Edition adds the following salient details: “And this is eternal life: [it means] to know (to perceive, recognize, become acquainted with, and understand) You, the only true and real God, and [likewise] to know Him, Jesus [as the] Christ (the Anointed One, the Messiah), Whom You have sent.” Now, let us go back to the very beginning of the book to John 1.
John 1:1 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.
The Amplified Bible, Classic Edition adds several clarifying details to this passage: “In the beginning [before all time] was the Word (Christ), and the Word was with God, and the Word was God Himself.” In the Forerunner article, “Have You Had Your Manna Today?” the physical-spiritual connection between bread and God’s Word was firmly established, reflecting on the interchange between Jesus and Satan in Matthew 4:4, “Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God.”
John 6:48-51 “I am the bread of life. Your fathers ate the manna in the wilderness and are dead. This [that is, Jesus Christ’s instructive words and teachings] is the bread which comes down from heaven, that one may eat of it and not die. I am the living bread which came down from heaven. If anyone eats of this bread, he will live forever; and the bread that I shall give is my flesh, which I shall give for the life of the world.”
John 6:58 “This is the bread which came down from heaven—not as your fathers ate the manna and are dead. He who eats this bread will live forever.”
Then to verse 63 which connects the spiritual bread or spiritual manna with the words of Christ,
John 6:63 “It is the Spirit who gives life; the flesh profits nothing. The words that I speak to you are spirit, and they are life.”
The Amplified Bible fills in some additional helpful salient details: “It is the Spirit who gives life; the flesh conveys no benefit [it is of no account]. The words I have spoken to you are spirit and life [providing eternal life].” We are further reminded in the Forerunner article, “Have You Had Your Manna Today?” that
Jesus is the Word of God [referencing John 1:12]. Perhaps we have envied the people of the early first century who literally walked, ate, talked, and reasoned with Him. ‘If only Jesus could hear me today, and if only I could hear Him speak to me,’ we muse. But we do have access to His mind [as I Corinthians 2:16 tells us], His words, His thoughts, His advice constantly through His printed Word, the Bible. The Bible is the Word of God in print. Perhaps we could even say the Bible is Jesus in print!
Last Sabbath, Joe Baity sternly warned us that the deafening cacophony of fake news, mendacious misinformation, and propaganda emanating from the satanically inspired Babylonish system makes it difficult for us to stay focused on our calling and relationship with Almighty God. Consequently, we need to be far less distracted by or concerned about world events and more concerned about the relationship with our heavenly Father and our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Joe maintains that the key strategy to prevent losing focus is the first part of the Great Commandment mentioned in Matthew 22:36-40, and that is building a relationship and bond of trust with God through Bible study and prayer. When we neglect our spiritual exercise, our relationship with our Creator, like our physical muscles, will atrophy and become dysfunctional.
My specific purpose today is to explore some spiritual exercises to keep our spiritual muscles from atrophying or becoming dysfunctional and that is by focusing on knowing Almighty God through studying His Word. We will focus on an emergent reciprocal dialogue between God’s chosen saints and God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ following the John 6:44 calling. I John 4:19 informs us that the dialogue was initiated by God who ardently desires a reciprocal relationship with His called-out spiritual children. As the patriarchs of old carried on a dialogue or continuous conversation with the Creator, we have the same privilege through Bible study and prayer.
In his Forerunner article “Praying Always (Part Six),” Pat Higgins insisted that the only way we build relationships is through conversation, spending time with people, and experiencing various activities with them. By that process, we come to know them better. Pat continues,
Is it any different with God? No! Talking to, spending time with, and experiencing life with God are how we get to know Him. Moreover, knowing God is everything, as John 17:3 (our umbrella verse) shows: “And this is eternal life, that they may know You, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom You have sent.
In an article, “What Does it Mean to Know God?” the editors of Precept Resources stated emphatically that knowing God involved three successive steps:
1. Studying God’s Word
2. Engaging in prayer
3. Walking with Him daily.
Back in the 1960s, we were all admonished that if we were not praying at least a half hour a day, we were not growing spiritually. While I am not by any means into yardstick religion, I wonder whether that half-hour suggestion on both sides of the dialogue (prayer and Bible study) was not lowballing the procedure. The apostle Paul recommended in his letter to the Thessalonians (I Thessalonians 5:16) that they pray without ceasing.
When I read this passage, the image of Tevye in Fiddler on the Roof comes to mind, carrying on a continuous dialogue with his Maker, even to the point of having a friendly lover’s quarrel, “Would it spoil some vast eternal plan if I were a wealthy man?” Establishing a relationship with our Creator and our Savior—indeed our Bridegroom—requires constant communication, not some rosary-like petitions once or twice a day.
Using the courting metaphor, can you imagine a couple content with a 20-minute phone call at the beginning of the day and another 20-minute phone call at the other end of the day? One would expect each partner to use a little more resourcefulness. God does His part—but do we? Are we assiduously looking for His feedback through the Scriptures, perhaps keeping a written log of answered prayers and His continuous blessings, even those things we thought were initially curses, but turned out to be blessings (Proverbs 16:9)? You remember the saying “good or bad, hard to tell.” (Debbie Young keeps reminding us here of that saying.)
The psalmist David, in Psalm 119:164, casts some focus on the interchange of prayer and Bible study, proclaiming, “Seven times a day I praise you for Your righteous judgments.” The New International Version renders the passage, “Seven times a day I praise you for your righteous laws”—revealed only through His holy Torah. Bible study and prayer are obligations mandated to the entirety of the body of Christ, to be carried out on a continual daily and hourly basis—not just on the Sabbath, where we assiduously take notes for the sermon, perhaps just mechanically listing the consecutive scriptures in the message. In the Forerunner article, “Developing a Mature Spiritual Appetite,” I made the case that we resist the state of spiritual dependency and spiritual immaturity described by the apostle Paul in,
Hebrews 5:12 For though by this time you ought to be teachers, you need someone to teach you again the first principles of the oracles of God; and you have come to need milk and not solid food.
The Amplified Bible throws additional light on this passage: “For though by this time you ought to be teachers [because of the time you have had to learn these truths] you actually need someone to teach you again the elementary principles of God’s word [from the beginning], and you have come to be continually in need of milk, not solid food.”
Most of us would agree that the pitiable state of spiritual dependency described by the apostle Paul in Hebrews and Corinthians seemed lamentable and disgusting. Yet, how many of us during the last ten, twenty, or thirty years in the church, especially before the massive split, became perhaps conditioned to wait for the minister to prepare our weekly bottle of Enfamil baby formula rather than ravenously devour God’s Word every day, perhaps seven, eight, or more times a day. Perhaps, God forbid, we have developed “baby-bird syndrome” in which we, in a helpless “take care of me” posture, open our beaks to get our weekly or bi-weekly worm. If Sabbath services were the only times we were spiritually fed, we would eventually starve to death.
It is no state secret that God has not called the movers and the shakers of the world to help Him in His divine purpose. Turn to I Corinthians 1, verses 26-27 and I am going to read this with 3 different versions.
I Corinthians 1:26-27 God has not called many wise or noble, but instead the foolish of the world to put to shame the wise and the weak things of the world to put to shame the things which are mighty.
The New Living Translation renders this passage, “God chose the things the world considers foolish in order to shame those who think they are wise.”
The Amplified Bible reads: “For [simply] consider your own call, brethren; not many [of you were considered to be] wise according to human estimates and standards, not many influential and powerful, not many of high and noble birth. [No] for God (deliberately chose) what in the world is foolish to put the wise to shame, and what the world calls weak to put the strong to shame.”
Though we may occasionally be intimidated in the presence of the influential and powerful of the world, we need to be buoyed up by the knowledge that we are the stewards of the mysteries of God, as Mark Schindler cited the apostle Paul’s revelation in I Corinthians 2:7 of a mystery to which only the chosen of God are privy. Let us begin in verse 6.
I Corinthians 2:6-8 However, we speak wisdom among those who are mature, yet not the wisdom of this age, nor the rulers of this age, who are coming to nothing. But we speak the wisdom of God in a mystery, the hidden wisdom which God ordained before the ages for our glory, which none of the rulers of this age [the movers and shakers in high places] knew; for had they known, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory.
Back in 1960, Millard Bennett published a motivational book titled The Power of Inspired Salesmanship, in which gave some sage advice to a struggling young salesman who was successful at calling on small buyers but froze in his tracks when dealing with so-called big shots. Recently YouTube has posted a short three-minute synopsis of this discussion, titled “The 30-10 Power Formula, Millard Bennett, A Strong Habit for Success” speech. I would like to quote a portion of that speech. Millard Bennet states:
I was familiar with the fact that this man’s record showed that he did very well with small buyers but had little success with big ones. I probed into this a bit, and soon he was telling me that he had very little schooling, and that he felt a lack of confidence when he called on “big shots.” “Suppose it were possible,” I asked him, “for you to spend 30 minutes a day, every day for the next twelve months with the greatest thinkers of the world, past and present, would that give you the confidence you need to talk to these so called “big men” without fear?”
“Are you kidding?” the salesman replied “Why, I’d know so much that these guys could not help but respect me. They would be asking me to lunch. I wouldn’t have to be afraid of them as I am now.”
“I have been doing that for many years,” Milton Bennett said.
The salesman looked up puzzled and shook his head. “I guess I don’t understand what you are talking about,” he said. So, I took the time to tell him, and it went like this:
There is a hard way and an easy way to do almost anything. Over the years, I have tried many ways of acquiring and retaining knowledge. Finally, by trial and error, I hit on a very simple method. I’ve told a lot of people about it, and they have reported such spectacular results from it that I have given it a name.
I call it “The 30-10 Power Formula.” All that is required of you is 30 minutes a day: 10 minutes to read out loud, and 20 minutes to spend in further study. Thirty minutes a day spent in this way will absolutely be sure to increase your knowledge and to assure you of increased success.
For the past several years, Dave Maas has been experimenting with this 30/10 power formula, having a daily conversation, so to speak, with the man after God’s own heart (David in the Psalms), as well as the wisest man who ever lived on the earth (Solomon in the Proverbs)—or perhaps the second wisest man when we factor in the 33½ years our Lord and Savior lived on the earth as a fleshly human being.
In the past, I have used the metaphor or analogy of practicing spiritual scales daily (such as practicing piano scales), adding exponential value to our spiritual portfolio, continually cultivating our current skills, and adding new ones, striving to become a virtuoso in godly living.
In Proverbs 22:6, we read, “Train up a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not depart from it.” One important facet of this verse is the observation that mature spiritual or moral traits depend on a foundation of continuous discipline and practice. My mentor, Bob Hoops, back in 1973, told me about a young man that he had known for over 10 years, who in his late 20s demonstrated unusual wisdom and people skills. This young man had made a practice of reading aloud the Proverbs every day, focusing on one chapter a day, corresponding to the day of the month. Proverbs, of course has 31 chapters; most months have 31 days, but on the months containing 30 or 28 days, this young man would read one or two extra chapters so that he would go through the book of Proverbs once a month. Similarly, the Psalms can be chunked into 30 sections with five psalms per day.
This man, through daily practicing of spiritual scales, was systematically storing God’s Word in his heart (referencing Psalm 119:11) equipping him to be a virtuoso in life’s skills, something we should all be emulating. For example, in the reading for day 24, I read aloud Proverbs 24 for 10 minutes (either in English, German, Spanish, Italian, or Russian) and then listen to the cluster of Psalms 116 to 120, with the longest psalm (119) requiring 15 minutes by itself, reading it silently but listening to a professional voiceover from Bible Gateway or Word Project.
My choice for the Psalms is the NIV, despite the editor’s messing around with the usage and grammar to de-emphasize masculine pronouns. The soothing background music, and the sonorant quality of the narrator’s voice, Max McLean, makes it easy to focus on the content. I believe the combination makes a profitable investment in Millard Bennett’s 30-10 Power formula, focusing on the words of God’s messengers rather than pompous worldly philosophers or scientists falsely so-called.
The Word of God, the Laws, Prophets, and Writings—the whole counsel of God—cannot be compared to any other book on Planet Earth. In Psalm 119:96, as rendered in the Amplified Bible, we read, “I have seen that everything [human] has its limits and end [no matter how extensive, noble, and excellent]; but Your commandment is exceedingly broad and extends without limits [into eternity].”
One of the most valuable lessons that I have learned from our late Pastor Emeritus John Ritenbaugh is that when God fashions or designs a tool, such as wind, water, or fire, it usually has a multiplicity of uses, not just one. In his February 2003 Forerunner Personal, “The Offerings of Leviticus (Part One)” (which was our Friday night Bible Study last Sabbath), John declares,
The closer we scrutinize what God has made, the more perfect it appears. When we first examine manmade products, we may not see any flaws, but upon closer scrutiny, the imperfections become apparent. If we focus a magnifying glass or microscope on them, obvious imperfections leap out. The works of God are different. The closer one looks, the greater the magnification used, the more wisdom, beauty, and perfection are revealed.
Later in the article, he states,
Reflect for a moment on how adept God is at creating materials with multiple uses. At times, it seems as though everything God creates has more than one function.
After identifying the multiplicity of uses of air, supporting breathing, combustion, the propulsion of airborne and seagoing vessels, the transmission of fragrances, or music through the air, to name a tiny handful, John states that this
illustrates how lovingly providential and economical the mind of our great God is. By comparison, man is a vanity, a mere mortal likeness of the great Creator. Men must usually make one tool for each job he wants to do.
John declares that God’s Word, the Holy Scriptures, is like His other creations. Like air, it too has multifaceted uses. In fact, it seems as though its uses are inexhaustible.
It does not matter whether one lives in the time of Abraham, Moses, David, Ezra, Christ, or now. Its directly stated words or their spirit will apply. God’s Word is so infinite and pure that it is always valid, always true, always applicable, and always an inexhaustible source of guidance. Jesus says that God’s “word is truth” (John 17:17). Solomon adds, “Every word of God is pure” (Proverbs 30:5), and his father David writes, “The words of the Lord are pure words, like silver tried in a furnace of earth, purified seven times” (Psalm 12:6).
What makes the Holy Scriptures different from Shakespeare’s Othello or Dante’s Divine Comedy is that they are the inspired words of Almighty God.
II Timothy 3:16 All Scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness.
The Amplified Bible provides additional clarification: “All Scripture is God-breathed [given by divine inspiration] and is profitable for instruction, for conviction [of sin] for correction [of error and restoration to obedience], for training in righteousness [learning to live in conformity to God’s will, both publicly and privately behaving honorably with personal integrity and moral courage].”
One of the reasons I particularly like the Lockman Foundation’s Amplified Bible is that it uses a plethora of synonyms from the Saxon, Norman, and Latin layers of the English language. We learn in Proverbs 11:14 that “in an abundance of counselors there is safety.” Dave Maas’s corollary to this verse is, “When translating the Bible, in a multitude of synonyms there is safety, and moreover, in a multitude of translations there is safety.” I personally do not feel that any English translation, whether King James, New King James, A Faithful Version, New International Version, The New Standard American Bible in E-Prime, or the Amplified Bible is closest to the original text in Hebrew or Greek. Back in 2010, I explained to a major Bible publisher that I most certainly believe in the inerrancy of Scripture, but not on the phonological, morphological, or syntactical level—that is, the sounds, the words, or the word order, but only on the semantic level-the meaning. Ron Kelly once accurately proclaimed that “the Bible does not mean what it says, it means what it means.”
And as Richard Ritenbaugh pointed out in his “Ask, Seek, Knock” sermon, the meaning in the Bible is multi-layered, ranging from simple to profound. A cursory, surface reading will not uncover all the essential nuances intended by Almighty God. Richard proclaims,
It is a shame really that so few recognize and respond to Jesus’ teaching style. And if I could put it in just a few words, it is that He packs profound wisdom in simple expressions and everyday illustrations, and they are multi-layered. You can go from simple to the most profound things by just peeling off a layer or two and seeing how it can apply in a deeper way, a more spiritual way.
Richard warns that
we do ourselves a disservice if we read it only in its most simple form, most simple understanding, because so much insight and wisdom lie beneath that surface explanation. We need to plunge into its depths with the assistance of the Holy Spirit and get the lessons that are there for the taking that will help our spiritual growth.
Jesus’ half-brother James instructs us to receive and welcome the Word which implanted and rooted [in our hearts] contains the power to save our souls (James 1:21). But implanting the Word requires a considerable investment of quality time, not a cursory once-in-awhile, hit and miss approach, crowded out by the overwhelming demands or cares of the world. Later in this epistle, after warning against divided loyalties and doublemindedness, James provides a fool-proof formula for purifying our hearts from spiritual adultery and the siren pulls of the Babylonish system, namely, to draw close to God and He will draw near to us (referring to James 4:8). It is axiomatic that the closer we draw to Almighty God, the closer He will draw to us, giving us protection against the stressing events of this current dangerous and volatile age.
I once had a discussion with one of my graduate school professors back in the fall of 1971, in Mankato, Minnesota, in which I complained that memories fade with the passage of time, prompting him to quickly answer back, “unless they are periodically reinforced.” I have documented how people over the years have memorized prodigious quantities of Scripture, from the lengthy Psalm 119 to entire chapters and entire books of the Bible.
One theologian, Dr. Andrew Davis, a Baptist pastor in Durham, North Carolina, memorized 42 books of the Bible and has published an inexpensive Kindle E-Book, An Approach to Extended Memorization of Scripture, explaining how he began memorizing Scripture, providing detailed instructions on the daily process of memorizing entire books. Personally, I have found this work to be extremely successful. Yesterday, I learned that this inexpensive e-book, as well as several other of Dr. Davis’s works, is currently distributed by Ambassador-International.com, headquartered in Greenville, South Carolina, and Ambassador Books, headquartered in Belfast, Northern Ireland.
An Approach To Extended Memorization of Scripture | Dr. Davis (ambassador-international.com)
Not surprisingly, large segments of Scripture were cast into acrostics, tailor-made for memorization. Psalm 119, Proverbs 31, and the book of Lamentations, to name a few, were cast into acrostics, in which each letter of the Hebrew alphabet begins either a verse or a stanza. When Almighty God created both the physical and spiritual realms, He used purposeful backup redundancy to protect and safeguard His creation. Every creature has been purposefully equipped with two eyes, two ears, two nostrils, two kidneys, two lungs, two arms, two legs, etc. The Word of God contains an Old Covenant and New Covenant, an Old Testament and a New Testament, leading philosopher Augustine of Hippo to proclaim, “The Old Testament is the New Testament concealed. The New Testament is the Old Testament revealed.”
The multiple repetitions in both the Old and New Testament testifies to God’s use of repetition—purposeful redundancy—as a practical tool to inculcate His divine plan and His Word deep into our nervous systems. We find repetition—purposefully redundant histories in the compilations of Samuel, the Kings, and the Chronicles, one set of accounts told from a historian’s point of view and a second from a priestly point of view. The gospel of John and the synoptic gospels of Matthew, Mark, and Luke represent another instance of some repetition and purposeful redundancy, in which different authors wrote from four different cultural viewpoints:
- Matthew to a Jewish audience,
- Mark to a Roman audience,
- Luke to a Greek audience, an
- John wrote for the followers of Christ, focusing on the signs, discourses, and teachings of Jesus.
Together, we arrive at a complete composite view, understanding that although each account may emphasize different details, the core message has been verified by four witnesses, twice the number needed to establish the credibility or reliability of an account.
The abundance of purposeful redundancy may not necessarily imply that we should memorize prodigious quantities of Scripture, but it might warn us that one excursion through the Bible a year might be shortchanging our spiritual growth and understanding. As we get closer to the return of our Bridegroom, we do not want to skimp on stockpiling scriptural manna, not just on a weekly basis, as we process the sermon or the Bible Study we receive on the Sabbath, but upon consuming significant portions of Scripture daily, even at times on an hourly basis—seven or more times as David suggests in Psalm 119:164.
David had earlier counseled us to hide the Word of God in our hearts, stockpiling it deep within our nervous system, challenging us in Psalm 119:11 to hide God’s Word in our hearts that we might not sin against him. Hiding God’s Word continuously and incessantly deep within our cerebral cortex will not only feed the spirit but will simultaneously starve the carnal nature to death. We must remember that nature abhors a vacuum. Those of us who have lived on farms realize if we do not plant corn, soybeans, flax, or some other row crop, the fallow ground will gladly yield cockleburs, thistles, and burning nettles.
Danny Hodges, in his June 25, 2019 article, “Get to Know God Through Reading His Word,” observes that too many people
try to read the Word, but they don’t have a plan. Their plan is to open the Bible and read whatever is in front of them. Occasionally, their eyes will fall on a particular verse, and it will be exactly what they needed for the moment. But—we should not depend on this type of random reading of God’s Word. Occasionally, we may just plop open your Bible and discover a timely word from the Lord, but that’s not the norm.
Hodges insists that a planned and systematic reading of the Scriptures will reveal the whole counsel of God rather than random bits and pieces, stating emphatically, “If your reading is planned and systematic, you will gain a better understanding of the whole counsel of God, rather than disjointed bits and pieces.”
In Judaism and nominal Christianity, there are cycles of Bible readings in the worship services, dividing the Bible into consecutive reading portions lasting one year or three years. For example, from Torahresource.com, we read, “traditionally, the five books of the Torah (Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy) are divided into “weekly Parashot” (portions or readings) so that the entire volume can be read in the Synagogue every Sabbath over the period of three years.” A second reading called the Haftarah, consisting of the rest of the Tanach (that is, the prophets) and the reading is read weekly.
In the Roman Catholic weekly Scripture readings, according to Pat McCloskey in his April 29, 2020 article, “How are Mass Readings Chosen?” appearing in Franciscan Media, offers this explanation,
On Sundays, the first reading is from the Old Testament and is coordinated thematically with that day’s Gospel. The second reading, a continuous one from the other New Testament books, is not coordinated with that day’s Gospel and first reading.
Further in this article, McCloskey makes the following admission:
The Lectionary cycles present 14 percent of the Old Testament and 71 percent of the New Testament In contrast , the readings in the 1963 Missal (or prayer book) used 1 percent of the Old Testament and 17 percent of the New Testament.
That means most of the Holy Scriptures are seldom or perhaps never explored.
Unlike the Torah and Haftarah readings in the synagogues which focus on an exhaustive beginning-to-end systematic survey of the law, prophets, and writings, the typical lectionary readings of mainline churches do not even attempt to cover or explicate the entire scope of the Bible, in effect ignoring the whole counsel of God.
If that is all the spiritual nourishment the average churchgoer receives, it is no wonder why the horrible anti-God woke agenda is replacing God’s holy and spiritual laws in the American Congress and the Canadian Parliament, along with the rest of the nations governed by the wayward children of Jacob, currently cursed by a devastating famine of the Word of God, as prophesied by Amos in Amos 8:11.
It is up to us, the constituents of the Israel of God (Galatians 6:16), to take steps to protect ourselves from this devastating famine. We, as God’s called out saints, have been mandated by Almighty God to gather spiritual manna daily—not weekly, or seasonally, and certainly not annually—but daily.
Today, through the services of Bible Hub, Bible Gateway, and a plethora of other tools, there are elaborate plans to read the entire Bible through over the course of a year, which is 100% better than never blowing the dust off an unread family Bible. According to Wikihow.com,
It takes an average person about 67 hours and 18 minutes (a little less than 3 days of non-stop reading) to read the entire Bible at a speed of 200 words per minute. Start by reading the Gospels, then move on to the Epistles and Writings, and then read the book of Genesis to read the Bible in chronological order.
Most reading plans that I have seen break the project up into an Old Testament reading (from Genesis to Malachi) and a New Testament reading from Matthew to Revelation, like the previously mentioned lectionaries, but more inclusive than the lectionaries of the Catholic, Orthodox, or Protestant Communities.
Whether we choose to read the Bible through in three days, one week, one month, three months six months, or one year, in the words of Danny Hodges,
It doesn’t take a lot of time and if you will do it regularly, in just one year you’ll have read God’s word from cover to cover. Imagine reading through the entire Bible not once, but several times! Since we already know that the Bible reveals a living God, that’s a great way to know Him. All it takes is a genuine desire and a bit of discipline and perseverance.
In an instructive table provided by understandingthebible.org, in an article titled, “How Long Does It Take to Read the Bible?” the following results were reported. Here is how that breaks down if you wanted to read the Bible in:
- One Week: 10 hours and 38 minutes per day
- One Month: 2 hours and 29 minutes per day
- Three Months: 50 minutes per day
- Six Months: 25 minutes per day
- One year: 12 Minutes per day
We all have incessant demands on our time, making us feel like tormented slaves driven from pillar to post, or from a rock to a hard place. The Babylonish system’s demands for time often seem cruel and unreasonable. The late Karl Beyersdorfer once reminded the Duluth, Minnesota congregation that our time is our life, and much of that is out of control. The only thing he said we should be adamant about planning is our prayer and Bible study and let everything fall into place behind that. Consequently, each of us must plan how much time to devote to our reciprocal conversation with God our Father and our Lord, Savior, and Bridegroom Jesus Christ.
It is possible for all of us right now to greatly augment our Bible study, using the multiple Bibles on Word Project, Bible Gateway, Bible Hub to craft our own individual plans, going at the speed we can tolerate. Many of the versions, including the New King James, the New International Version, and the New American Standard Bible (which I am currently using) have professional readers to accompany the written pages. Also, when playing the audio portions, the editors have given to time values for each chapter, enabling the reader to cluster the cumulative chapters into 10-, 20-, or 30-minute segments, aiding us to set daily quotas.
Over this past year, I have made my own Bible reading plan—and, if you have a creative bent, you can make your own reading plan too. For myself, I have downloaded the entire NASB Bible onto multiple Word documents, with one verse per page, enabling me focus on that one verse, and then to scroll like a teleprompter, while listening to the sonorous voice of Dale McConachie reading a 15 to 18 minute segment every day, moving systematically and methodically through the entire Bible, which I expect to repeat at least twice this year, just as I have already been doing with the Psalms and Proverbs on a monthly basis, seeking immersion into the mind of Christ.
To wrap up this message, I would like to quote a portion of the Berean which appeared on the Church of the Great God website yesterday as John Ritenbaugh expounded on II Timothy 1:7:
Words are a large portion of the mind’s working material and therefore play a huge role in what the person produces with his life. It is no coincidence that Jesus is the Word of God, and the Bible, the written revelation of God and His purpose, is also the Word of God! God is trying to tell us something. He is concerned about our minds because what goes into them will determine what we produce with our lives. Will it be fruit leading to eternal life or fruit leading to death?
DFM/jjm/drm