Each year I attempt to read through the Bible. I’ve already gotten a head start on 2006. I’ve been using a reading plan from Discipleship Journal for the last several years. This particular plan has four daily readings from a Gospel, the Old Testament, an Epistle, and the Wisdom Literature. I’ve tried other plans, but return to this one eventually because I like the variety each day. It’s important to find something you like and allows you time for reflection on what you read. For example, the plan I use has readings for 25 days a month. The other days can be used for further reflection and or study. Reading through the entire Bible in one year is a big task and any plan will be difficult, but the reward of consistent and deliberate meditation on Scripture is great. Recall the words of Psalm 1:1-3:

Blessed is the man who walks not in the counsel of the wicked, nor stands in the way of sinners, nor sits in the seat of scoffers; but his delight is in the law of the Lord, and on his law he meditates day and night. He is like a tree planted by streams of water that yields its fruit in its season, and its leaf does not wither. In all that he does, he prospers.

If you have never read through the entire Bible I challenge you to do it this year. Listed below are links to a few Bible reading plans.

1. The Original Discipleship Journal Bible Reading Plan (PDF, MS Word, or MS Scheduler) - This is the plan I use.
2. The Book-at-a-Time Bible Reading Plan (PDF) - Also from Discipleship Journal. This plan has two readings each day. One from the Old or New Testament and another from the Wisdom Literature.
3. 5 x 5 x 5 Bible Reading Plan (PDF) - Another plan from Discipleship Journal. This plan takes you through the entire New Testament in a year. You read on chapter per day. This plan is new and I’ve not tried it. My initial thought is that a person should spend more than five minutes a day reading the Bible, but it’s a good way to build Bible reading into your routine.

There are also several plans available at the ESV website.

[tags]Bible reading[/tags]

Everybody’s doing it so I will too. Here is a graph (minus the numbers) of this blog’s hits throughout 2005. Can you guess at which point I was extremely busy and almost gave up blogging? Look carefully. It’s hard to spot!

I’ve decided to blog everyday for the next year and am interested in seeing what affect that has on this blog’s hit count. Of course, I need to provide something that’s actually interesting to other people or my daily blogging will simply contribute to the ever increasing drivel found on the Internet.

Above All Earthly Pow’rs arrived this afternoon. I spent a few hours this evening reading the introduction and first chapter. It’s certainly not a quick read. I’m nearly through chapter 1 and already feel an overwhelming disgust with the modern consumerist culture in which we live (not that this emotion is necessarily what Wells intends to invoke in the reader). Here are two quotes from chapter 1 on the sense of aloneness and drifting many who live in this (post) modern culture feel:

It is certainly ironic that the capitalism which has somewhat contributed to this situation as it has fueled change and mobility, also thrives on the fragmentation which it has, in part, caused. Those haunted by their own solitude, distracted, by their own sense of fragmentation, hurt by the absense of enduring friendships, of connections to place and family, their sense of being impotent to change so much that affects them, are often driven to the pursuit of affluence, in the hope that what is consumed might offer some solace for these wounds. (pp. 44-45)

In contrast to the “melting pot” culture of 19th century America Wells writes,

…consumer society produces only brief, fleeting connections and no bonding in the melting pot. The more descriptive image of the postmodern experience would be not the melting pot but the cocktail party. This is the place of brief encounter where those who may be strangers perform the ritual of instant, but evaporating community, one that springs into being as the sun sets and is gone before the moon arises. The modern self, as a result, has grown very thin, insubstantial, and distracted. It lives in a world of fleeting experiences and constantly shitfting images, images which we create and by which we sometimes even pass ourselves off as something we are not. In this world of images and shadows, the only constant is not the self behind them, or the self consuming them, but the corporations which create and exploit them. (p. 45)

This book looks promising and I’m interested to see how Wells applies his observations about the culture we live in to the Church’s confession and proclamation of Christ. I’m hoping to be near the end of the book when I return to school in about two and a half weeks.

[tags]David Wells, postmodernism, evangelicalism, consumerism[/tags]

My friend Justin Crandall has convinced me to set a goal of posting everyday for the next year. Beginning January 1st I will begin a year of daily blogging. Don’t expect profound reflections on theology, culture, and the like. When I can I will write extended posts and other times I will simply post a few links to interesting things I come across.

I’ve added four new search plugins to the list:

1. AlbertMohler.com
2. Christian Classics Ethereal Library
3. Monergism Books
4. Reformation 21

They are available here.