Read the Bible this Year (make this your January 4th's year's resolution)

Get your Bible and read it. Just do it. Read the whole thing and read it soon.

1) Follow a reading plan if that would help you. There is a great collection of reading plans on Justin Taylor's blog. There is even a place where you can download a podcast audio version and just listen to it each day.

2) Or, print off a list of all the chapters in the Bible and check them off as you read them. And do it aggressively. Don Whitney has a list that you can print out and place in your Bible. This is the method I'm following this year.

3) Just treat the Bible like a book, albeit a big one, and pick it up and read it. Don't read many other things until you have finished it.

Reading the Bible is so important. If you are a Christian, understand that it is one of the primary ways that God communicates to you. If you are not a Christian, God also wants to communicate to you through it (but I know you probably don't believe me). Even if you don't believe that, you should at least care about it in terms of the impact it has had on history and your culture. If you think it is full of contradictions, fine, believe that, but read it and then let's talk about it. You are wrong to think that it is full of contradictions, but I can't prove it to you until you have read the whole thing. Plus, it is never a good idea to make general claims ("the Bible is full of contradictions") when you don't know anything about the subject. So, read it.

If you are not sure how to study the Bible, don't worry about it yet. Just read it anyways. There is a reason why you don't have to worry about that just yet, but you won't understand the reason until you have read the whole thing.

Alright, quit reading this and go read your Bible if you haven't done that yet today. That's why the blog is called "Take and read, take and read." For more of an explanation see the "About Me" in the sidebar.