Reading the Bible

I'm not generally a very public person in regards to my spiritual life these days. This is because in conversing with non-Christians, many of them find Christians that present their faith out there on their sleeves as 1) pompous idiots and 2) not personally fulfilled in their spiritual life, so they have to make it seem bigger than it is. Neither of those things are what Jesus is about, so I want nothing to do with that.

I have however come upon something interesting in my spiritual life that I thought I should share with other practicing Christians and curious people. If that descriptor is not you, feel free to hit the X on this. (I'll never know and even if I did, I wouldn't be offended.)

I don't know about the rest of you, but I know I'm supposed to read the Bible daily. Have I done that throughout my Christian life of 8 years? Nope... not by half... not by a quarter either. I mean there are definitely more entertaining reads out there, let's face it. But are there better?

So I began this year by starting on a daily Bible reading plan as my entire new church is doing it. So they and I are doing the Life Journal Reading Plan (click the hot link to see that and some other neat stuff too.) The plan has the year divided up into 4 parts. The church is doing an incentive, where for each of the 4 parts you read completely, the church will donate $100 to one of list of charities or missionaries of your choice. I don't make actual money, so I'm counting this as my tithe this year. Hey, a tithe is technically a sacrificial gift to the works of God... I'm sacrificing my precious time and brain power when I could be studying... ok ok, I would probably just be reading an extra 15 minutes on some novel instead.

It has been interesting and truthfully, I think I've made a habit of it. I actually look forward to my daily reading, as strange as that sounds. As embarrassing as this is, I had never actually read through the entire New Testament. (My New Testament prof in college was awful, so if there ever was a desire to actually read it in me, he killed it.) I have read through the Old due to an amazing Old prof.

With that said, I started noticing a few weeks ago that the chapter and verse numbers and section titles are rather distracting from the flow of the text. So I went internet searching to see if I'm crazy. (Because we all know that there are only sane people and their opinions to see on the internet.) I found I wasn't alone! Actually, I just saw on Twitter that my own new senior minister, Chris Seidman, feels the same way! He linked to the following little video about why the chapters, verses and headings were put there and why they aren't necessary. The Whole Sweep Of Scripture (Click that hot link too.)

I also found The Books of the Bible (another hot link) from Biblica. It's the Bible printed like a novel would be without those annoying chapter and verse numbers and headings. It's the TNIV translation, which some things is a subpar translation. Eh, I've used it as a study Bible before and the only difference I can really find between it and the NIV is that TNIV uses gender inclusive verbiage, like "they" instead of "he" and "brothers and sisters" instead of "brothers", etc. However, I did also learn in my internet browsings that if you are so inclined the ESV translation people have no problem with you taking their translation from an online location, deleting all the numbers and headings out of it, and doing a self publish on say Shutterfly or something so long as you 1) put in the proper regards to their company and 2) do not sell even one copy (only make personal copies).

So I think I will continue on the current plan for this year, but next year I'm going to go with The Books of the Bible and the handy dandy reading plan they offer for free on the same webpage as the Book itself.

So my challenge to you is two fold: 1) read the Bible daily (it really is a different way of life) and 2) consider reading the Bible as it was meant to be read-- as a literary experience.