Blogocentric Formulations

Bible Reading

"Take up Your Cross"  | Prompt for 12/19/2024 ▼

Have you read the entire Bible? What portion have you read? When do you read it? Is there something that motivates you to read it?

This is actually the first year in the past four years that I didn't read the entire Bible. I originally set myself a "read five different translations of the Bible in five years" goal for myself, but this year I kind of hit a wall and just couldn't continue on after successfully reading the NIV, ESV, and NLT in 2021, 2022, and 2023, respectively. This was supposed to be the year I tackled the KJV but I decided to give myself a break and take a year off, especially since it was a particularly tough year faith-wise with leaving our previous church and helping start a new one.

My favorite books of the Bible are probably Genesis and Acts, and I tend to read my daily pages either first thing in the morning or at night right before I go to bed.. My motivation to read all the different translations stemmed from a desire to better understand it. I figured with different interpretations, it might help me understand some of the nuances of the stories being told. It's been a really rewarding experience, but it's also at times felt a bit surface-level; the Bible isn't exactly a short book and you have to read a big chunk of text every day to get through it by the end of the year. I'm thinking about alternating between a "the whole bible in a year" pace every other year, and on off-years using that time to really focus and drill down into some of the sections of the Bible in greater detail, to appreciate the nuances of the language.

I think it's an important practice for all Christians to study and expand their understanding of their faith, and the best way to do that is to continue to read over and study scripture.