On Reading the Bible

I have heard, Bible is Latin for “The Book”. It is not just a book, it is Theeeee Book!

Starting not too long after I could read, I’ve read through the Bible in the following versions in the following order: King James, Revised Standard, NIV, Good News, Message (N.T. & Job,Ps.,Prov.,Song.,Eccl.)… and some others that I forgot and some repeats after that (mostly the N.T.). After getting married, I read through the Bible chronologically (that really helped me put messages in there places and time). March of last year I read through most of the New Testament of the Bible in a different way, my friend Mark Heffner said that sometimes he reads through a whole book (not the whole Bible, but one of the 66 inside) in one sitting. So I did that, and timed it just out of curiosity. I recommend doing it this way for many reasons, here are some: 1. is that it good to get the big picture once in awhile. 2. it is a good way to check whether something you have heard taught is right or not. Here are the times:

Reading Times

Book	Minutes
Rom.	86
I Cor.	64
II Cor.	50
Gal.	30
Eph.	27
Phil.	19
Col.	42
I Thes.	12
II Thes.	7
I Tim.	15
II Tim.	12
Titus	7
Phm.	3
Heb.	64
James	20
I Peter	23
II Peter	11
I John	33
II John	3
III John	3
Jude	5

I wrote this to encourage us all to read our Bible more. Hudson Taylor near the end of his life said to a young boy, "I have just finished reading through the Bible for the 40th time in 40 years. Hearing that encouraged me.  If you have 10 min. with nothing important to do… pick a book and read through it. Since I last read like this, I stopped… then started to read through the N.T. in Chinese. I have been reading it first in English, then Chinese with emphasis on pronunciation and lastly, just the Chinese without the pronunciation. However, I am returning to do more of this book at a time reading because of the benefit it was to me last time… now on to Acts.

Note: some of the really long times were split across a couple of days.