Why ‘reading the Bible in a year’ just isn’t enough.

I love how many online resources are offering help to read the Bible in a year. It’s a great goal and a good place to start – but I really want to push us to go further.

Reading the Bible in a year takes 15 minutes a day. That’s three 5 minute sittings. You could wake up, read a bit, sit on the loo, read a bit, and head to bed, read a bit, then feel pretty good about yourself.

I don’t want to diminish the goal, but we spend four times that amount of time eating and drinking, eight times that on social media, and at least ten times that watching TV.

When was the last time you binge-watched a boxset? The average boxset length is 15 hours per season. Four and a bit seasons is the whole Bible. Reading the Bible takes roughly the same time as watching all of Game of Thrones. If you race a Lord of the Rings, Star Wars and Harry Potter movie marathon against reading the Bible – you’ll finish the Bible first. If you did a 2 day Marvel Movie marathon, you would finish that first – but only just.

Many of us have a broad and repetitive media diet. I probably watch the West Wing and Stargate SG1 at least once through a year. I might watch all of the Simpsons, probably a lot of Masterchef, and a couple of new things each year (this year it was The Expanse, New Amsterdam, and His Dark Materials). As a movie fan, I’ll probably also watch at least two movies a week. That’s about a 1000 hours of TV – or fifteen times through the Bible.

I could have read the Bible 15 times in a year instead of watching TV! I could read it twice just by cutting 12% off my TV habits. Reading the Bible in a year takes only 6% of the time that I spend watching TV. Wow!

I’ll also read a few novels, books, and many blogs each year too. These are things I value – so I give them time.

If our time is spent on what we value – what does this tell us about how much we value the life giving Word of God? If we follow the most popular Bible reading study guides, most Christians only read a few verses, or a small passage a day. Doing this will take us between 65 and 85 years to read the whole Bible. Even after reading it in a year (which again, I don’t want to diminish), how much do we really value the Bible? Just reading the Bible or ‘knowing stuff about the Bible’ isn’t enough on its own of course, but the Bible is still God’s life giving word.

No wonder we’re always spiritually hungry.

No wonder the Church is so disfigured, polarised and confused.

No wonder we’re always unsure about who we are.

No wonder we don’t know how to treat people or the world around us.

No wonder our hearts always hurt and our heads are always muddled.

What if every Christian in the West read their Bibles once a year? I think the Church – and the world – would be in a much better place. It’s not the only thing they should do, but getting God’s Word in is a pretty solid start eh? So let’s go further!

Once a year is 15 minutes a day – or three 5 minute sittings. It’s not a bad place to start, but let’s dig deeper and reach further.

• If you read the Bible 30 minutes a day – three 10 minute sittings; waking up, loo break, and going to bed, then you’ll read it at least twice in 2020.
• If you read the Bible 10 minutes a day and also ‘date night’ with God once a week for 2-3 hours – you’ll get through it at least twice too.
• If you read the Bible for one episode of TV a day – you’ll read the Bible at least three times this year.
• If you read the Bible for one average TV series a month – you’ll read the Bible at least three times this year.
• If you read the Bible for one average Boxset a month – you’ll read the Bible at least ten times this year.

Imagine doing any of those for ten years? How much closer to God would you be? How much more effective a pastor would you be? How much more loving a partner would you be? How much more complete a human being would you be?

Sure – like I keep saying – this isn’t the only thing we should do spiritually. But it couldn’t hurt right?!? We place our time and energy in the places we most value. Let’s make this a thing we value. The more we do it, the easier it will be.

Let’s make spending time with the Bible a thing we value in 2020.

Photo by Rod Long on Unsplash