George Muller is one of my heroes. He was a pastor, missionary, and social activist in the 1800s. He was the founder of a number of orphanages in victorian England. He was adamant about the importance of teaching and learning the Bible. In fact, he founded a Bible teaching organization that became a worldwide phenomenon.

 

Muller was fanatical about keeping track of things. He kept track of how many dollars of gifts came to support his ministry among orphans as a result of prayer. He kept track of how many miles he traveled over the years in his missionary tours, how often he spoke, and how many people came to hear him. I don't think it was about pride ... he kept track of these things, and wrote about them to encourage others by his example. He wanted everybody to know how much God blessed and helped him.

 

George Muller died in 1898 when he was 92 years old. For most of his life he had a rigorous practice of scripture reading every day. Near the end of his life, he claimed that over the years he had read the Bible from start to finish over 200 times.

 

Muller is remembered as a man of prayer, and man of great faith. What may not be as well-known about him -- but surely as important -- is that he was a man who loved scripture. He diligently read and studied the Bible. He committed to spending time every day reading the Bible, and systematically read through it many times. This reading and studying informed and motivated his prodigious activism and service.

 

Muller is a hero and model for me. I want to be like him. I have no idea how many times I've read the Bible through over the years. Hearing Muller's story makes me wish I'd kept track. (It's way less than Mueller, that's for sure!) But ... consistent, systematic reading through the Bible has been a part of my own life for over 35 years.

 

Reading through long sections of the Bible -- including the parts of it that you're not familiar with -- is really important for your spiritual growth. God speaks to us through His Word. Psalm 119:105 says "Your word is a lamp to guide my feet and a light for my path."

 

Reading through the Bible in a systematic way helps you get a sense of the "big picture" of God's revealed truth. Over time this practice really helps you understand the specific passages you encounter, because you can see how they fit into the rest of Scripture.

 

I love how AW Tozer puts it:

 

“The Word of God well understood and religiously obeyed is the shortest route to spiritual [maturity]. And we must not select a few favorite passages to the exclusion of others. Nothing less than a whole Bible can make a whole Christian.”  - A.W. Tozer

 

Do you have a commitment to regular Bible intake? Do you have a plan for reading through the Bible? If not, let 2019 be the year you make reading through the Bible a reality.

 

 

If you want to do this, you need a plan. If you start simply reading the Bible in Genesis, and try to simply read it through from beginning to end, you will likely bog down and get discouraged after a month or two. I can't tell you how many people I know who "fell off the wagon" of their Bible reading commitment after spending a few weeks in Leviticus and Numbers!

 

There are a number of great resources out there ... people who've put together plans to read through the Bible in a year, but organized in such a way as to mix things up a little, and give you access to a variety of teaching every day.

Here are several that I recommend:

Classic Bible Reading Plan -- This plan has you read around two chapters in Old Testament, one in the New Testament, and a Psalm or Proverb each day. It's a great balance of Old and New Testament, and has the added benefit of keeping you regularly reading Psalms and Proverbs too. This is the plan I personally use myself, and I've even put it together in a format you can print out and keep in your Bible, so you can keep track of where you are.

        Check it out here

Old and New Testament Variation -- This plan takes you through the entire Bible -- Old and New Testament. It doesn't prescribe how many chapters you need to read on any given day ... it just has boxes to check for each chapter. What it does that's helpful is that is suggests a sequence that takes you through a number of chapters of an Old Testament book, followed by a few chapters of a New Testament book. You can decide how many chapters you'll read on a given day, but it helpfully puts together a strategy of alternating between Old and New Testament.

        Check it out here
 

 

Discipleship Journal Plan -- This plan comes from the venerable Discipleship Journal Publication. In it, you read around two chapters a day, plus either a Psalm, Proverb, or chapter from Isaiah. It's somewhat similar to the "Classic Plan" recommended above, but it only has you read two different passages a day (not three). The passages read alternate between Old and New Testament.

        Check it out here
 

Other Options -- If you don't like any of the plans I've suggested ... here's a web page that offers a bunch of different Bible reading plans, most of them are linked to reading plans that you can do online. Some are variations of ways to read through the Bible in one year, others are intensive plans for reading through the New Testament, or other sections of the Bible in 90 Days. I use the "classic" plan (noted above) to read through the Bible in a year, which has you read some section of the Old Testament, some New Testament, and a Psalm each day.

        Check it out here