R e v i t a l i s e t h e c h u r c h
A Bible-reading plan has a profoundly positive influence on those who follow it...
By Andrew Mackinnon
The positive influence that Bible study groups have on church members is second only to the profoundly positive and powerful influence that a daily Bible reading plan has on those who follow it. A church in which members are both attending Bible study groups each week in an unhurried manner and also reading the King James Version of the Bible (not the deliberately inaccurate New King James Version) for one hour each day by following a Bible reading plan such as the one above, is a church which will have no other option but to thrive and flourish as God intends the church of Jesus Christ to thrive and flourish. Church members can free up an hour each day to read the Bible by adopting the following morning schedule:
> 5:00
Wake up after eight hours’ sleep, having gone to sleep at 21:00 the night before.
> 5:00 to 5:15
Get ready to read the Bible.
> 5:15 to 6:05
Read the Bible for 50 minutes according to a nourishing Bible reading plan.
> 6:05 to 6:55
Exercise for 50 minutes, alternating from one morning to the next between muscular exercise and aerobic exercise, six mornings each week from Sunday to Friday. Saturday is the Sabbath day of rest.
> 6:55 to 7:45
Get ready for the day over the course of 50 minutes, including showering and eating breakfast.
> 7:45 to 8:30
Travel to the weekday’s activities, such as work, university, college or school.
The daily Bible-reading plan below is the kind of nourishing Bible-reading plan that will build in you the discernment that is necessary to protect your churches from imposters, not to mention enable you to grow in your faith. Without a nourishing, daily Bible-reading plan such as the one below, it’s challenging to obtain the spiritual growth that we all hanker after. A principle objective of this kind of Bible-reading plan is to provide nourishing, biblical material to apply to your life on a daily basis in order to grow. Reading the Bible and applying the Bible to your life on a daily basis is a powerful means of growing as a follower of Jesus Christ the way God intends. The combination of this kind of Bible-reading plan, together with invigorating fellowship with other believers at church on Sunday, makes it dramatically easier for Christians to grow spiritually and for the church to thrive. I question whether any Christian who has been dramatically transformed in their pursuit of God, has succeeded without a nourishing, daily Bible-reading plan, which causes the Holy Spirit to delight in jumping off every page at readers who display obedience to God in their lives. Fellowship with other Christians is also very important because the truth is that life is very dull and barren without it.
The Bible-reading plan I recommend requires five bookmarks marked with the letter “A” and five bookmarks marked with the letter “B”, dividing the Bible up into ten sections as follows:
You can make these bookmarks out of any durable cardboard, such as the cardboard out of which hanging filing cabinet folders are constructed. Good dimensions to cut these bookmarks to are 3 centimetres wide (1.25 inches) and 20 centimetres in length (8 inches). Once you’ve measured one out squarely and cut it out neatly, you can use it as a template to quickly trace out the remaining nine bookmarks that you need and cut them out also. You can obviously cut them out with scissors. If you cut them out with a metal ruler and a sharp knife on some kind of cutting board, you’ll get straight edges on these bookmarks that you’ll be using for quite some time. However, please be very careful that you don’t slip and cut your fingers while you’re holding the metal ruler and cutting with the sharp knife.
On five of the above ten bookmarks, do the following:
> Place the bookmark in front of you while you’re sitting at a table so that it’s pointing to you. On the end closest to you, draw an arrowhead neatly, like the letter “V”, but on its side, so that it’s pointing to the LEFT.
> With the bookmark above in this same position, on the end that’s furthest away from you, write the letter “A”, without the inverted commas around them, so that the bottom of this letter “A” is pointing at you.
> Turn this same bookmark above over in the following manner which is very important. Rotate it lengthwise towards you 180 degrees until it’s turned over onto the other side. Don’t rotate it to the left or to the right.
> With the bookmark above in this same position in front of you so that it’s pointing to you, on the end closest to you, draw an arrowhead neatly, like the letter “V”, but on its side, so that it’s pointing to the RIGHT.
> With the bookmark above in this same position, on the end that’s furthest away from you, write the letter “A”, without the inverted commas around them, so that the bottom of this letter “A” is pointing at you.
On the remaining five of the above ten bookmarks, do the following:
> Place the bookmark in front of you while you’re sitting at a table so that it’s pointing to you. On the end closest to you, draw an arrowhead neatly, like the letter “V”, but on its side, so that it’s pointing to the LEFT.
> With the bookmark above in this same position, on the end that’s furthest away from you, write the letter “B”, without the inverted commas around them, so that the bottom of this letter “B” is pointing at you.
> Turn this same bookmark above over in the following manner which is very important. Rotate it lengthwise towards you 180 degrees until it’s turned over onto the other side. Don’t rotate it to the left or to the right.
> With the bookmark above in this same position in front of you so that it’s pointing to you, on the end closest to you, draw an arrowhead neatly, like the letter “V”, but on its side, so that it’s pointing to the RIGHT.
> With the bookmark above in this same position, on the end that’s furthest away from you, write the letter “B”, without the inverted commas around them, so that the bottom of this letter “B” is pointing at you.
The arrowheads that point to the left and to the right on each bookmark are what you’ll use to mark which chapter you’re up to in your reading, for each particular section of the Bible out of the ten in total that each bookmark is being used to mark.
It’s helpful to write the section of the Bible to which each bookmark relates on both sides of each bookmark underneath the letter “A” or “B”, according to the list of the ten sections of the Bible above as follows:
The Bible-reading plan is to read a chapter one day from each of the five sections above marked “A”, in the order that these sections appear in the Bible, and then to read a chapter the next day from each of the five sections above marked “B”, in the order that these sections appear in the Bible.
The following day after that, the plan is to read the next chapter from each of the five sections above marked “A”, in the order that these sections appear in the Bible, and then to read the next chapter the next day from each of the five sections above marked “B”, in the order that these sections appear in the Bible.
Et cetera.
The Bible-reading plan is to continue on this basis, alternating between the five “A” sections marked with the “A” bookmarks one day and the five “B” sections marked with the “B” bookmarks the next day.
Obviously you don’t just pick a chapter to read in each section at random. If you were reading
Genesis 1,
2 Chronicles 1,
Proverbs 1,
Matthew 1 and
Acts 1
the day before yesterday in all of the “A” sections of the Bible, then today you read
Genesis 2,
2 Chronicles 2,
Proverbs 2,
Matthew 2 and
Acts 2
in all of the “A” sections of the Bible.
If you were reading
Joshua 1,
Psalms 1,
Jeremiah 1,
Luke 1 and
Philippians 1
the day before yesterday in all of the “B” sections of the Bible, then today you read
Joshua 2,
Psalms 2,
Jeremiah 2,
Luke 2 and
Philippians 2
in all of the “B” sections of the Bible.
This obviously totals five chapters of the Bible to read each day, which takes about 50 minutes on average, which is do-able. There’s a big danger in trying to take on a Bible-reading plan that requires more time than this, because it’s highly unlikely that you’ll stick with it. Most people are busy and the truth is that God wants us to get out and participate in life, such as by enjoying relating to other people. He doesn’t expect us to sit around spending more than 50 or 60 minutes each day reading the Bible.
The principal strength of this Bible-reading plan is that every day you’re reading chapters from several different parts of the Bible, which makes for very interesting and very enlightening reading. It also provides you with a lot of motivation to stick at it each day because you’ll find it to be so enjoyable and enriching.
It’s important to read the accurate King James Version of the Bible, not the deliberately inaccurate New King James Version of the Bible, nor Eugene Peterson’s “The Message”, which is a satanic translation of the Bible and not the deliberately inaccurate New International Version (NIV) which is published by Zondervan, which is owned by HarperCollins, which is owned by Rupert Murdoch's News Corp (formerly News Corporation). Since you’re going to be spending about 365 hours each year reading the Bible, if you follow this Bible-reading plan, it’s best to read a good version.
Reading five chapters each day means that over the course of 365 days in one year, you’ll read 1825 chapters of the Bible. There are 929 chapters in the Old Testament of the Bible and 260 chapters in the New Testament of the Bible, totalling 1189 chapters in total.
Here is the complete list of books in the Old Testament, together with the number of chapters in each book:
Source:
greatcommission.com/BibleBookChapters.htm
Genesis - 50
Exodus - 40
Leviticus - 27
Numbers - 36
Deuteronomy - 34
Joshua - 24
Judges - 21
Ruth - 4
1 Samuel - 31
2 Samuel - 24
1 Kings - 22
2 Kings - 25
1 Chronicles - 29
2 Chronicles - 36
Ezra - 10
Nehemiah - 13
Esther - 10
Job - 42
Psalms - 150
Proverbs - 31
Ecclesiastes - 12
Song of Solomon - 8
Isaiah - 66
Jeremiah - 52
Lamentations - 5
Ezekiel - 48
Daniel - 12
Hosea - 14
Joel - 3
Amos - 9
Obadiah - 1
Jonah - 4
Micah - 7
Nahum - 3
Habakkuk - 3
Zephaniah - 3
Haggai - 2
Zechariah - 14
Malachi – 4
Here is the complete list of books in the New Testament, together with the number of chapters in each book:
Source:
greatcommission.com/BibleBookChapters.htm
Matthew - 28
Mark - 16
Luke - 24
John - 21
Acts - 28
Romans - 16
1 Corinthians - 16
2 Corinthians - 13
Galatians - 6
Ephesians - 6
Philippians - 4
Colossians - 4
1 Thessalonians - 5
2 Thessalonians - 3
1 Timothy - 6
2 Timothy - 4
Titus - 3
Philemon - 1
Hebrews - 13
James - 5
1 Peter - 5
2 Peter - 3
1 John - 5
2 John - 1
3 John - 1
Jude - 1
Revelation – 22
Using the Bible-reading plan on this web page means that every year you’ll read through each of the ten sections above the following number of times, rounded to one decimal place: