Christian Living

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I’ve been a born-again Christian for over 35 years now, but I can still remember what it was like to read the Bible as a new Christian. Everything seemed fresh, vibrant, and potentially life-changing. But after about 3 years things started to seem a bit… well… stale, if I’m honest. Looking back now, I understand why.

It wasn’t that the Bible was less of a feast to my mind and spirit than it used to be. It wasn’t because I’d stopped caring about Jesus, or he about me. If you’ll allow me to keep using the image of a feast, it was because I’d drunk my milk and eaten the nibbles, but I hadn’t been taught how to recognise and use my spiritual cutlery. It would be some time before I also learned that just as cutlery can be made in different sizes and with materials and finishes of varying quality, the same is true of spiritual cutlery.

So what do I mean by spiritual cutlery? I’m referring to the Bible study materials and tools which have been written (or developed and produced) since the nineteenth century. You can dive straight into the Bible without any of them (think of it as the spiritual equivalent of eating with your hands). But just as you probably wouldn’t eat a steak dinner in a restaurant with your fingers, it’s fair to say that some parts of the Bible and the Christian life don’t lend themselves well to this direct approach either. Let me introduce you to what I might call your spiritual table knife: a Bible Reading Plan.

If you want to grow up as a Christian, there is no substitute for actually reading the Bible. You can have all the Bible helps and tools imaginable, but if you don’t start by actually opening a Bible and reading it purposefully, attentively, prayerfully, and in a structured way, neither your copies of the Scriptures nor any of the items of spiritual cutlery I’ll describe in later articles will satisfy your spiritual survival need to know and understand the God you say you love and worship.

What’s more, I suspect you already know this is true. If a few random verses each day in a typical postmodern devotional were already enough to meet your needs, you probably wouldn’t have read this far. Please understand, I am not rubbishing all devotionals or those who write them. The best of them are positively outstanding. I love to engage in proper acts of Christian devotion, and I am certain the Lord delights in anyone who does. But to grow to Christian maturity, you’re going to need more than the scattered crumbs of spiritual comfort typical of far too many devotionals today.

Instead, I urge you to get hold of a Bible Reading Plan. Such a plan divides the feast which is the whole Bible into digestible portions you can read according to a fixed daily schedule. It offers you practical, easily understood answers to questions which often intimidate new Christians. Questions like “Where do I start?”, “In what order should I read the books of the Bible?”, and “How much should I read each day?”

Some Christians, including Christian leaders, warn people away from Bible reading plans. From what I can gather, they are trying to shield new Christians in particular from traps which await the unprepared. What if a reader misses more than a day or two at a time? On the other hand, what if someone sticks rigidly to the schedule but starts to become spiritually proud and develops a legalistic attitude towards reading the Bible? Or what if a reader starts to feel bored and discouraged because “the Bible just isn’t speaking to me”?

Well, OK then. If you think sitting down to eat your meals at a fixed time of day is bad for you, I guess you could always scrap meal times and just try to eat when you feel hungry. How would that work for you? If you are more than about ten years old, I think you know very well that doing this would mess up everything from your moods to your ability to get things done before deadlines fall due.

And why isn’t anybody worried that Christians who don’t plan to read their Bibles will be spiritually weak, ignorant of the truths of the faith, and increasingly apathetic towards the things of God? Can anyone disagree that many Bible-neglecting Christians end up exactly as I’ve just described them? Does that sound like an improvement on perhaps experiencing the need to repent of a bit of pride and legalism while actively seeking to know the truth as it is in Christ Jesus?

But what about the risk of getting bored? Don’t be afraid of it; count on it happening at least some of the time. Are you excited by every single meal you ever eat? I think not. Does this mean you push your plate away and refuse your meal every time you’re not excited by what’s on offer? If it’s so desperately important never to be bored, and gratifying an immediate, personal sense of pleasure is your highest good, why not? Because you’re smart enough to know that eating isn’t just about personal pleasure. It’s an essential activity to get yourself ready for the next part of your life.

In just the same way, it’s helpful to remember that God’s thoughts are not our thoughts, and his ways are not our ways. This means he doesn’t always seek to apply every part of the Bible we read to our lives right then and there. There are times when God simply wants us to equip ourselves to better minister to others, or to worship him in ways he finds more pleasing. There are other times when, just like a soldier eating field rations, the top priority is to keep up our strength and stay alert to our surroundings, rather than to find our food delightfully interesting.

There is no such thing as a microwavable relationship with the Lord of heaven and earth. It takes time, decisions, actions, and self-discipline to grow our friendships and family relationships. So why should our side of our relationship with the Lord Jesus Christ involve any less? Besides, Christianity isn’t primarily about you and me. It isn’t even primarily about other people. The Christian gospel is that God has revealed himself in the Person and Work of Jesus Christ to offer us the only way back to our God-ordained but secondary place in God’s everlasting kingdom, instead of leaving the entire human race forever shut out of it.

If you decide to start using a Bible reading plan, it will take you about 2-3 weeks to get into the habit of reading your planned passages, but it’s well worth having and using a structured, planned method to help you read through the whole Bible in a given time period. As the old saying goes: Fail to plan, plan to fail. If you do fail to do a reading along the way (as you might well once in a while!), much depends on when it happens and how you respond.

If it happens early in your plan, just concentrate on getting on with the reading next day. Your primary goal isn’t to read through the Bible in a fixed time period (a year, for instance); the goal is to read through the whole Bible rather than to either pick at it or ignore it. If you miss a day or a reading later in your plan, you won’t need to beat yourself up about it. You will miss reading your Bible the way you might miss a meal. The chances are you will feel a need to do your next Bible reading as soon as you can.

If you want to grow to Christian maturity, you need to read your Bible purposefully and therefore in a structured way. Having a spiritual hug with your heavenly Father will always be precious. You will never be too big for God to want to hug you, or to actually do so. The point is to cultivate your ability to converse with your Father, whether he seems a million miles away, or even while you sense his gentle yet mighty arms around you. Jesus confirmed that the first and greatest commandment is that we are to love the Lord our God with all of our minds, as well as with all of our hearts, souls, and strength. Sticking to a Bible reading plan can help you do all of this.

© 2015 by Christopher Bevis. A Licensed Lay Minister in the Church of England, a Christian for many years, and an avid reader for even longer, Christopher is a UK-based writer who has long-standing friends and contacts in the USA. Christopher is available to research and write for hire on Christian matters via the Faithwriters.com website.

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