Reading the Bible in Chunks, 2

Now to make use of the listed I posted yesterday. My suggestion is first that you set aside up to 30 minutes per day for reading your Bible. You may say you don't have 30 minutes per day. My answer is, yes, you do. Give up that episode of Duck Dynasty or Honey Boo Boo. Or quit watching the news. Or take some time from your leisure reading.

Second, read as if you were doing your leisure reading. In other words, don't stop to try to understand difficult portions, or to wonder about apparent contradictions. The point of this approach to reading the Bible is to get an overview; to get a grasp of the book as a whole, not a grasp of the details.

Third, after you've done the reading, maybe make a couple of notes about things that struck you, so you can remember them. Then you can spend the day ruminating on them.

Fourth, don't feel like you have to spend all 30 minutes. If, for example, you've read 1 John, that should be enough for the day. This is not a race to see how quickly you can get through the Bible.

Perusing the list in the last post, you should notice that 37 of the 66 books of the Bible may be read in 30 minutes or less. I suggest you tackle these first, in whatever order you wish. Check them off when you've read them so that you don't repeat before you have finished the whole thing. With regard to the larger books, divide them into 30-minute (or less) chunks. Nehemiah, for example, should take around 42 minutes. Divide it into half. One day read the first six or seven chapters, and read the rest the next day. The longest books (Psalms, Jeremiah, Genesis, etc.) may be divided into, at most, six large chunks. Again, read these in any order you wish, but finish one book before you go on to the next.

Here's to happy Bible reading in the new year.