Want to Read the Bible this Summer?

June 16, 2009 at 7:29 AM · Filed under HopeNotes News, Practical Tools, Religion and tagged: Bible, bible reading, bible reading schedule, Christianity, God, how long does it take to read the bible, Jesus, New Testament, Old Testament, read bible, Religion and Spirituality

I’ve often wondered if I spent as much time reading the Bible as I did all of my other reading how quickly I could get through it. I know it’s not about how fast you “get through” the Bible and that’s where I always get stuck. I want to take notes on everything.

I have most of the Old Testament scriptures on little col0r-coded index cars with references to topics.

For example, even if a story told doesn’t have the word “temptation” in it, when I read it I saw that emotion and so wrote it down as a reference for later when  wanted to read more examples of temptation. It kinda slows a gal down, ya know?

But the truth is we spend a lot of time doing things that don’t have an eternal impact, and we know that when we read the Bible the result is that God always uses it.

I received an email awhile back from memory specialist, Wes Allen, about how long it actually does take to read the Bible. It’s something to reflect on and maybe it will jump start your reading this summer.

I asked permission to reprint it here and he was happy for me to share it with you! You can read more here.

He writes,

You can read the entire New Testament in just nine days. It contains 260 chapters. Read 30 chapters a day,
readings 6,7,8 are a little short of 30 chapters. I read the entire Bible in forty days. Below you can see the exact
amount of time it takes to read each 30-chapter segment. You can read the New Testament in 16 hours. I read the
entire Bible in 71 hours and 53 minutes.

If you will determine to dedicate the time to God that it takes to read His Word, you will be surprised at how He will reward you for it.  I just finished the Old Testament a day early and I will be reading the New Testament during this first week of June.  On June 9^th I will have read completely through the Bible 15 times.

Do you think God cares about that?  I know time is short and schedules are tight.  Everybody wants your time.  God knows about that too.  I didn’t start reading the Bible after retirement; I did these 40-day readings once a year for seven years while I was still working.  God gave me back all the time I gave to Him, many times over, for I retired 5 years ago at the young and tender age of 48.  Now I do this twice a year.  Usually in March and August.

I like the quote he has too!

A full Bible a year will fill you with cheer.
Drawing near to God every day gives you more time to play.

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