Howdy,
Quick note in regard to yesterday’s post: no offense to the wrestlers out there in their spandex (“stretchy pants!”); I just never pictured myself competing in those suits.
Today was the last day of Community Bible Study (CBS) for this season. A wrap: on ice until the fall, like a spring semester leading into a summer break.
But you don’t just stop reading and studying God’s Word as if it were a school subject. A completed subject. A grade. A credit. I hope not. Because that will never be the case.
I need to be alert and diligent not to let that happen to me, to slip into a habit, slipping out of the Scriptures, of not actively studying the Bible just because Community Bible Study is “out for the summer.”
Don’t get me wrong, CBS is a fantastic thing in Turlock and, it definitely seems, all over the nation and around the world, and I highly recommend it, but also it’s wonderful to reach the end of journeys (or even just stages of journeys), so there’s a freeing and accomplished atmosphere and attitude with the conclusion of this CBS study, Red Sea to the Jordan River. (Next fall is Romans, if you’re interested in going CBS Turlock. It’s great; do it.)
Nevertheless, the Bible lives, as continuous communication and instruction and the reading of it is active obedience and life. And, yet, like any habit, just a few days or opportunities away from it and a life-giving routine can too easily wither.
So, two things, right off the bat, that I am going to do to keep in the Word are:
1) Read one of the 31 Proverbs each day (the daily chapter number choice corresponding to the date of the month working nicely for this — you can always know where you are, and if you happen to miss a day or two of reading you don’t have to make the choice of beating yourself up and backtracking, of burying yourself in missed-chapters make-up reading to be on pace, as you can simply take to the day’s Proverb: May 3rd, Proverbs 3, and you stay at it month after month and you’ll hit all 31 Proverbs, multiple times, even if you miss your reading here and there). I have already started this (again), reading Proverbs, since Good Friday last month.
2) Professor Grant Horner’s Bible Reading System — and this one I haven’t attempted in a couple-three years, and I don’t believe I’ve ever completed a full cycle, even though the innovative and enterprising idea is that it is a Bible reading plan that can be ongoing infinitely with ever-changing cycles of fresh intermingling of texts, stirring interwoven insights. I realize some will be all about “The Bible Reading Plan” and others wouldn’t touch such a structure with a 39-and-a-half-foot pole, and I wouldn’t say that I’ve been stupendously or even notably (memorably?) successful with any one in particular myself, but I will say that in the time I have dabbled in Prof G Horner’s layout for attack this is a different sort of plan — and a good one. It does, however, push for turning pages, as its strategy includes 10 chapters from 10 different lists covering 10 different collections of Scripture.
On the thought that there’s no time like the present, I suppose I’ll start part two Friday morning — after I finish the commentary day of reading for my last, completed, CBS lesson, which would for one more day keep the rhythm of our Community Bible Study approach to daily being in God’s Word and studying it faithfully and seriously, with awe and appreciation and expectation, and with joy and hope for a lifetime.
—Billy
Reading. Writing. Living.
Word Count: 111,895 / On Pace: 109,450 / Year’s Goal: 200,000
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