Acts 17:11, speaking of the Bereans, says, “They received the word with all eagerness, examining the Scriptures daily to see if these things were so.”
1 Peter 2:2 contains a command from Peter: “Like newborn infants, long for the pure spiritual milk, that by it you may grow up into salvation.”
When Jesus is tempted in the wilderness by Satan, he retorts with Deuteronomy 8:3, “Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God.”
2 Timothy 3:16-17 proclaims, “All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness.”
Starting today, our church gets the joy and privilege of feasting on God’s Word together. While we are going to be reading on our own, we know that we are joining dozens of others at TCGS in going through the Bible at a quicker pace than many of us have probably done before: 90 days. I know this is a big ask! To be totally honest, I attempted this Bible reading plan in early 2020 and got through about half of it before falling away and diving into other Bible studies that covered less Scripture each day. But I am excited for this time because of having the accountability and encouragement of other brothers and sisters like you.
Why are we doing this?
Donald Whitney says, "There simply is no healthy Christian life apart from a diet of the milk and meat of Scripture.... In the Bible God tells us about Himself, and especially about Jesus Christ, the incarnate God.... None of this eternally essential information can be found anywhere else except the Bible” (Spiritual Disciplines for the Christian Life, 22-23). We want to be healthy Christians who gain a greater and greater understanding of this eternally essential information, not only for 90 days, but for the rest of our lives.
What are our goals?
1) Gain a greater understanding of the story of Scripture as whole
We are going to read fast. Hopefully this will allow us to make connections that we need to be reminded of or have previously not known due to slower study of the Word.
2) Form new habits
In spite of each of us having an abundance of availability to Scripture (copies on our bookshelves, every possible version on our phone or computer), many of us struggle to develop a habit of simply reading the Word. We all know it takes time to build new habits. I just googled “time to develop a habit” and the top answer was an average of 66 days. We are going to try to read the Bible for essentially 90 straight days. Hopefully we will see new habits form in our lives that will continue after the 90 days.
3) Learn to Read Big and Meditate Small.
We need to continue to grow in our understanding of the whole counsel of God, but my Bible is 1,547 pages long (it’s technically large print - I am getting older and it is easier to read!). In order to gain more knowledge of God (Col. 1:10), we must spend seasons ingesting larger chunks of Scripture. But we also want to avoid the pitfall that we have all experienced of just reading a chapter or two or fifteen (like we will do), closing our Bible, and having no clue of even one verse or idea that we just read in 45 minutes. My encouragement is to take 3-5 minutes at the end of each day’s reading and meditate on a phrase, verse or paragraph with a little more depth. If you read in the morning, the goal would be at the end of the work day, even if you may not remember all 13 chapters you read that morning, you know some of the big ideas and you could explain to a person how that phrase, verse or paragraph had an impact on you that day.
Aaron Markham
Discipleship Pastor, Arsenal Fan, Big Math Guy