Schedule to Read the Bible in a Year
There are a lot of Catholic stereotypes that don't brand a lot of sense to me. I've never understood the concept of Cosmic guilt when Catholics have a corner on absolution. Nor have I seen whatever Catholic worship an idol. But the accusation that Catholics don't read the Bible rings rather more true.
Oh, we hear the Bible, certainly — four readings every Sunday, and more throughout the liturgy. And we recite the Bible, though nosotros may not realize that'southward what nosotros're doing when we say our Hail Marys and Our Fathers. In fact, about everything nosotros do as Catholics is shot through with Scripture. Simply when information technology comes to reading the Bible, really sitting down with God's Word and letting information technology speak to usa — well, the vast bulk of u.s. exit that to our Protestant brothers and sisters.
But what a difference it makes! Reading past the cease of the affiliate to come across how it all connects, or stopping at a verse that strikes you or actually — gasp — memorizing Scripture so that what runs through your head is a little more Baruch and a fiddling less Beyoncé. It'south life changing.
Aside from daily Mass and a commitment to silent prayer, the well-nigh of import spiritual practise I've adopted as a Christian has been spending time in Scripture every day. Last week I finished my 14th time through the Bible. The side by side twenty-four hour period I began again, pencil in hand. It seems that the author of Hebrews wasn't exaggerating when he said "the Discussion of God is living and effective." I'm always finding new insights, being shown new connections and falling more in dearest with the Lord as I come to know him better. For me, it'southward not enough just to read the books that I enjoy or the readings offered me by the liturgy — I need to wrestle with the hard stuff and find meaning in the deadening stuff. And I need to know it all — not just so I can argue with it merely so I can live and exhale and dear it. The only fashion that's going to happen is if I'm in the Give-and-take every day. So that's what I do.
The get-go time I read through the whole Bible, I started at Genesis and read until Revelation. It took me five years. Every subsequent time, I've managed it in a year. The trouble with my comprehend-to-embrace approach (among others) was that I'd become bogged down in Leviticus or Ezekiel and it was hard to motivate myself to keep going. Y'all may have tried this yourself. Nearly everyone I know who'south picked upwardly the Bible at Genesis has put it down before Joshua. You need something to break up the cubits and begats, something to go on you lot going when Ezekiel's watching wheels in wheels or when prophets go on spouting oracles against various nations you don't know. Not that it's not all inspired; I'm only non in a place where I tin ever find it inspiring. What I need is a schedule, something that mixes in some of the easier books while notwithstanding leading me through the harder ones.
This schedule does but that. It takes you through the whole Bible in a year (and the Gospels twice), going chronologically through the Old Testament (more than or less) with New Attestation books, with fun books like Ruth and Jonah interspersed throughout to mix things upwardly. It also gives y'all a chapter of some poetic stuff every 24-hour interval along with half a affiliate of a Gospel.
Click here for printable schedule.
I will warn you lot: I didn't kickoff with the easy stuff. I can ease you into the Bible by giving (relatively) simple, pleasant stuff first. My arroyo here wasn't to leave the difficult stuff for the end but to put it in an order that made sense. So if you've never read the Bible earlier at all, you could have two days for each mean solar day on the schedule or start with only the Psalms and the Gospels. The important thing is to start.
I know we're a piddling late for New Year'due south resolutions, but at present'south as good a time every bit whatever to defy this stereotype. St. Jerome says, "Ignorance of Scripture is ignorance of Christ." This year, resolve to know him better past reading the love letters he wrote you. Whether it's your kickoff time through the whole Bible or your 50th, you'll find the Lord speaks dear and mercy and conviction and celebrity every fourth dimension you open this book. Scripture is, as Pope St. Gregory I tells u.s.a., "a river, wide and deep, shallow enough here for the lamb to go wading but deep plenty there for the elephant to swim." Let's dive in.
(If you impress this schedule double-sided, you tin fold it up to fit in your Bible. And when you print it, practice yourself a favor and print out my Bible timeline too. Information technology's i slice of paper that I continue in my Bible at all times — a quick explanation of how everything in the Sometime Attestation connects to everything else. And then when you're reading Hosea, you can take a quick await and see that Hosea was prophesying to Israel before the Assyrian Exile. And you can fifty-fifty run into that there are ii kingdoms in the One-time Testament, a fact that I missed until my third time through the Bible.)
Meg Hunter-Kilmer writes for her web log "Held by His Pierced Hands" and travels around the country speaking to youth and adults, leading retreats and parish missions.
Source: https://aleteia.org/2016/01/10/a-catholics-guide-to-reading-the-bible-in-a-year/
0 Response to "Schedule to Read the Bible in a Year"
Post a Comment