There’s a lady in her late twenties in my small group. This past week she shared how just over a year ago her husband died of cancer. And shortly after that (to further compound the situation), her mom died of cancer.
In our discussion about finding contentment in God, she offered the following wisdom:
I prayed for healing. And the way I figure it, he will either be healed here on Earth or healed in Heaven.
Here is a person who has found contentment in death.
In elementary school, I remember riding the bus to a local Baptist church. I don’t know how long or how regular, but it couldn’t have been more than a couple of years and only semi-regularly at best.
But the bottom line was that I didn’t really have much of a church background growing up.
That was until my junior year of high school. I started attending the same Baptist church’s youth group because some of the guys from my tennis team attended and it was fun having something to do.
And plus they had a ping pong table (I’m serious, that was one of the reasons I went).
Although I was there for social reasons, I was also indirectly learning about Christianity and what Jesus was all about.
I learned . . .
After about a half year of being told about the life transforming capabilities of Jesus and how much Jesus loves me by the same people who did the things above, I had learned all I needed to know about Jesus and Christianity.
Christianity was nothing more than a label people gave themselves.
It was no different than me calling myself a jock or a band nerd.
So after about half a year of a lot of hypocrisy, the ping pong table and social venue wasn’t compelling enough for me to keep going. I had learned all I needed to know about Jesus and it wasn’t worth my time.
When Christianity became a label was the first spiritual milestone I can remember.
And it stuck with me for a couple of years.
Here is a diverse and pretty comprehensive collection of Bible reading plans. All of them are easy to follow and most include a printable copy you can keep in your Bible.
They range from two week commitments to year-long commitments, from reading straight through cover to cover, to topical readings, to a mixture of readings each day.
Let me know in the comments if you know of any other good ones.
Click on an image to view the plan or download the PDF (if available).
These plans do not go over every book/chapter of the Bible, however, they give the main people, topic and events of the Bible.
This one from Zondervan is nice because it doesn’t just give you the reading for the day, but also gives you the topic of what you’re reading. I consider that a nice cherry on top.
This reading plan walks you through key passages from every book of the Bible, from Genesis to Revelation, in just 61 days.
This reading plan introduces you to the major people and events of the Bible in chronological order, beginning with Creation, moving through the birth and history of the Israel nation, and ending with Revelation’s prophetic words.
Another one from Zondervan, this one goes a little more in-depth than the 60 day version.
The advantages of this approach include ease in seeing the story of the Bible and becoming acquainted with the entire Who’s Who of the Bible.
The plan offers a kind of bird’s-eye-view. The daily readings consist of 180 selected passages, including at least one chapter from each of he Bible’s 66 books.
Here is a diverse collection of different reading plans that take you through the Bible in a year.
It divides up your reading into the main types of Genres (literature) such as Gospels, Law, Narrative (History), Psalms, Poetry, Prophecy, and Epistles!
This plan gives you a good mix of reading an Old Testament book, a wisdom book and two New Testament books for each reading.
It is also structured well enough that you could shorten your reading for each day by focusing only on Old Testament, New Testament or some other variation.
Since you’ll have several “free days” each month, you could set aside Sundays either not to read at all or to catch up on any readings you may have missed in the past week.
Readings from two places in Scripture every day: an Old or New Testament book and one of the Old Testament wisdom books.
The One Year Bible daily reading plan consist of passages from the Old Testament, New Testament, Psalms, and Proverbs.
This is a pretty straightforward plan starting from the beginning of the Old and New Testaments and working its way to the end.
There are two types of readings in this plan: family and secret.
The family readings are meant for going over with your family, in groups or at a Bible study whereas the secret readings are for your own personal devotional time.
The problem with this is that there’s really no difference in the two types. You could just as easily read the secret readings in a group and vice versa. In fact, M’Cheyne even points this out when he describes the plan.
So, *shrug*.
The whole Bible will be read through in an orderly manner in the course of a year. – The Old Testament once, the New Testament and Acts twice.
This plan is based upon the historical research of scholars as it compiles readings according to the order that the events actually occurred.
This plan is founded upon the research completed in regard to the dates each canonical book was authored. The books in the Hebrew and Greek Bibles are not in the same order as in our modern Bibles, and this plan restores that original ordering of the scriptures.
The classic plan. Start at Genesis and end in Revelations.
These plans take no more than a month to complete and focus on a specific topic.
This plan takes a look at various topics (eg. life of Jesus, teachings of Paul, the Old Testament, etc.) and condenses them each into two week courses.
There are 10, two week courses.
This is a place to begin reading the Bible. These two-week reading courses take you quickly into passages every Christian should know. [...] they are frequently quoted or referred to elsewhere. Second, they are relatively easy to read and understand.
New to Christianity and never been through the Bible? This plans for you!
Take 30 days to go through the main themes in the Psalms and another 30 days to go through all the Proverbs.
Consider this a short biography on Jesus. ;)
These are some interesting stories that help make the Old Testament a little more fun to read.
In case you find the Old Testament dry and boring, you can focus on the New Testament instead. Just be sure you go through the Old Testament sometime. ;)
5 minutes per day, 5 days per week, 5 ways to dig deeper. Takes you through one chapter each day.
Get the New Testament, Psalms and Proverbs in one year.
