Didn't realize how hungry I was.

Soon after my conversion to Christianity at around age 16, I started reading the Bible cover to cover. I did this for many years, using the classic four chapters on weekdays and five on weekend's approach. This way you read through the entire book cover to cover in one calendar year. A few years later John Stott introduced me to a little gem of a calendar originally organized by Robert Murray M'Cheyne, a pastor from the nineteenth century. This program was a bit more rigorous. If I remember correctly it covers the Old Testament once a year, the New Testament twice. This was a bit better than the old school approach (going straight through Leviticus is a bit of an acquired taste) in that it starts with the four great beginnings of the Bible; Genesis. Ezra. Matthew. Acts, and then follows these story lines simultaneously. Eventually Chuck and I adapted this for use at River Rock Church.http://ow.ly/2s1LV
Our focus here was to let the reading program follow the narrative arc of redemptive history. This was inspired in part by the work of Michael Goheen and Craig Bartholomew in their fabulous "The Drama of Scripture."

Somehow, about four to five years ago, after almost two decades of fairly regular reading, I got out of the habit of reading the Bible systematically and comprehensively. This is something I've often regretted, but rarely attempted to fix.

Fast forward to last Friday. My brother Paul sent me a copy of Dr.Grant Horner's Bible reading system. Horner, a college professor at the Masters Seminary in California says to try it for thirty days. It's even more rigorous than M'Cheyne's. Ten chapters a day. Every year you read through all the Gospels four times, the Pentateuch twice, Paul's letters 4-5 times each, the OT wisdom literature six times, all the Psalms at least twice, all the Proverbs as well as Acts a dozen times and all the way through OT History and Prophetic books about one and a half times. It's not aimed at in-depth study of course, but at understanding the larger scope and context of the story and to let your mind begin to deeply understand the God-centered patterns and structures of the scriptures. Horner says "in a month it will be a habit, and in six months you'll wonder how you ever survived before on such a slim diet of the WORD." This caught my attention and I decided to give it a go.

I'm only 7 days into this, so it is early to tell, but I already know, I've never had this much fun going through the Bible as I'm having now. I can't quite put my finger on it yet as to why this feels different. I know I must have been starving. I guess I didn't realize how hungry I was for something solid and good. On some days, I find myself even wanting to double up on the reading. If you would have told me a week ago that I would happily read up to twenty chapters of Bible a day, I would have been skeptical to say the least. So far it has been nothing short of amazing. Of course, I had to recommend it to others, which I'm now slowly starting to do. Jason is in. Paul and Bethany are in and we're tracking progress through the handy YouVersion. http://ow.ly/2s1CK. There's also an Iphone app which allows me to update progress and find out what's on the schedule. If you are interested, check out Dr.Horner's facebook page to see how the program works: http://ow.ly/2s1FP
I'd love to hear if you end up doing it, so let me know!

Shalom,
Tim