The Plan...

Several months ago, I fielded several questions about reading the Bible. Questions about reading the Bible can have a tendency to make me a bit nervous. The Bible isn't the kind of book that one reads straight through... rather I don't believe it is the kind of book one should read straight through, and I knowI am not alone in that camp. First of all, the Bible is more of an anthology, filled with many stories, in many voices. This story may lead you to on to that story, or back to yet another story. Starting with page one and doggedly continuing on has the capacity to rob a reader of a more organic and personal experience.





But beyond the mechanics, reading the Bible can be, perhaps should be, an act of faith. It requires a willingness to walk amidst the tensions of poetry and prose, fact and fiction. It invites the stuff of one's own life, of one's own world, into the warp and the weave of the text. I think it was Karl Barth who advised preachers to preach with the Bible in one hand and the newspaper in the other. I remember in Divinity School a fruitful discussion coming of the question of which newspaper that should be. But anyway...





So, when asked how to go about an intentional plan for reading the Bible, I did a number of things. I asked my friends... who were quite helpful as I suspected they would be. I wandered around on the internet... perhaps less helpful than my friends, but informative none the less. I perused my bookshelves, in search of things I thought I might have remembered. During my field education placement, I took part in the Disciples Bible Study. A wonderful program, theologically balanced, thoughtful, thorough... but also a HUGE commitment. A worthwhile commitment, but perhaps not terribly practical on a college campus. So...





I had an idea. Why not a blog? I found a lectionary based blueprint for daily readings. The link to Gloria's Lectionary Page is included. (The Revised Common Lectionary is what many churches follow in their worship planning... it is why there is a fairly good chance that the scriptures you heard in church yesterday were the same ones that I heard, and that your Aunt Myrtle heard, and so on and so forth.) I don't know who Gloria is, but I am quite pleased by what she has put together. I am going to make a commitment to the readings, and offer my thoughts and questions along the way. I invite you to do the same. I do ask that you play nicely. We may not always agree, but I trust we will be able to be respectful of one another. Let's see where this takes us!