As you likely already know if you follow my ministry in writing, teaching, preaching, or podcasting, I am not a “fan” of the notion of new years resolutions. Nor am I a fan of anything that demands self-betterment without external end. The endless ladder that we climb to better ourselves, to improve ourselves, ultimately leads only to the realization that we will never be truly ourselves until we accept that we are not what we ought to be. The notion of self-betterment, continual or otherwise is a dead end unless it ends in the death of self and the resurrection of Christ The Perfect One within us by faith.
But perhaps you thought; well, Bible reading is a reception of the means of grace, not a true attempt at self-betterment but the fruit of realizing that salvation must be outside of ourselves. Therefore, Pastor Connor is a fan of all of the laity at the beginning of January jumping into a new (or reused) Bible Reading Plan to finally (or to once again) read the Bible cover to cover.
If that’s what think this article is then I’m sorry but you couldn’t be any more wrong. While I indeed do want more than anything a biblically literate laity everywhere and all over the whole world, I have some particular concerns with the Bible reading “plans” that most use to achieve that blessed and most beneficial end. I know, I know, “connor can you please try not to ruin literally everything by dragging total depravity into it?” I know. BUT, hear me out. Aside from the whole “we’re miserable sinners, will fail to read the plan, will fail to have a proper heart posture towards it, will turn grace into grief, and because of our sin everything is dark and depressing so just look to the crucifix” stuff (which I wholeheartedly believe teach and confess), my concerns are as follows:
1. Instructing too little or too much reading (Usually the former)
Let’s not waste time being reverent. You will not, never, ever, read too much scripture (It isn’t possible). Begin here, with that mindset. You may say, Connor why is it necessary to say this? Well, dear reader, you may not know this but in fact, if you go and read the preface to the reading plan for one of the most famous and most popular reading plans ever produced, especially used among the Calvinians, that of Rev. Murray McCheyne, which is basically a 3 chapters a day reading plan to read the Bible in a year, you will find him saying that he chose this amount of reading in part out of a fear that if we read too much scripture, we may become immune to it (insert eye roll). That’s right folks. If you get too much of the salvific Word it may stop working. Of course, I jest here (and I mock such Calvinian unbelief). For it is utterly impossible to read too much of God’s Word. You will not become immune to it. For it always works. And even dare I say, if McCheyne used his Reformed system of Doctrine (horrible as it is) properly, he should have said indeed you cannot become immune to it because you already are immune to it (and unaffected by it) unless the Holy Ghost enlightens your mind and opens your eyes to it.
Minimal as it is, this Calvinian plan, a 3 chapters day 1-year reading plan, is about the second most text-heavy reading plan out there, at least in common knowledge. I know of but one more that is better in encouraging vast reading; Professor Horner’s plan (another Calvinian, go figure). 10 chapters a day, 3-times-thru per year reading plan. You might say; but connor, if there are reading plans which instruct more reading, even rare though they be, then how is this a genuine gripe with reading plans? The answer is this; though there may be reading plans which encourage more reading than other plans, no amount of additional numbers on your plan or ambition goals will change the fact that in the end, any plan that you use will subconsciously discourage you from going beyond what is prescribed. Here remains the problem; there still remains always more to be read. And yet still, no matter how much is prescribed, it will be too much for one person and too little for another. And yet still, for a given person it may be too much for that month, week, day, hour, and in another, they will need vastly more. In essence, what I am pointing out is the fact that these plans have a bad track record for discouraging some, and legalizing others.
2. Failed canonical order
Here is a very serious issue. Perhaps you say; “well Pastor, surely you’re already aware that the Jews have their own canonical order aside from the Christians, and surely you’re aware that neither the Jewish nor Christian Canon is chronologically ordered.” Yes, indeed I am sure of these things. And that’s why I say to all of you, be very very careful, you who intend to “test out” the Jewish canonical order or the chronological order as some kind of fresh or new, or God forbid proper way of encountering God’s Word. Far from suggesting that the Christian canonical order is divine (though I am by no means unwilling to make that argument), I would like to remind everyone that context is key. Not only the textual setting horizon of the pericope, or the chapter, or the book, or the corpus, or even the Scriptural meta-narrative of Salvation history, but even that of the canonical list of books itself, serves to bear a huge, huge, huge impact upon our understanding of the text before us. It’s this point exactly that different Bible reading plans bank their legitimacy upon. Saying; “Oh if only you read our plan you’ll see how the OT fits into the new, if only you read our Bible plan, you’ll see how this theme runs through X corpus of books thematically” (issues picked up in points 3, 4, and 6). Yet what here is missed is the fact that the church has been reading a certain Canon for the better part of 2000 years, and as far as the O.T. Canon goes, far longer than that. So I ask you, why is your newly invented Bible reading plan going to better the canonical order of the apostles and early church? Why is your Bible reading plan going to better the greater liturgy of the church year? Why is your Bible reading plan going to innovate upon the order of Gen thru Revelation that the church, the apostate, and even the heathen view perceive and conceive of the Bible in? Answer; It’s not. I promise you. It’s not going to.
3. NT supremacy or level canonicity
Here is a very fun one that’s spoken a lot by the Hinckley (Sarah and Paul) family. But where they only want to complain about the presence of NT supremacy and supersessionism, I want to take it both ways. In short; you’re looking at an issue that’s greater than “old and new,” that’s greater than Jew and gentile, and that’s greater than Law and Gospel. You’re looking at an issue as great as “this is how the world views the Bible/DIVINE REVELATION.” Properly understood, the Bible is not understood as binary, or as plurality (library), but as monograph, whether for good or for ill. Either way, as a matter of fact, it is what it is. That being said, whether you personally believe that the Bible deserves to have the NT predominate due to the prominence of the newness and fulfillment of all things in Christ, you will be seen (the reality of the world’s perception aside) by most legitimate theologians as wrong, antisemitic, supersessionistic, and reductionistic. On the other hand, if you lean upon the vastness of the O.T. (70% of the Bible, mind you) and claim that it is either the predominant or the equal equivalent to the NT, you will be seen (see above) as a dispensationalist, a crypto-Jewish-pluralist, and of course, let’s not forget a legalist. Whichever side of this discussion we lean towards, we will naturally be left in the predicament of falling somewhere between these two theo-cultural “no-no’s.” I’ll leave it to your own imagination where you and others might happen to have fallen upon that spectrum. But what really matters is whether you are capable of leaving the Word as it is, or not. Is God the legalist or are you? is Paul the supersessionist or are you? Are you the one perceived as tampering with the Word of God, playing textual favorites, or the one receiving the great apostolic and prophetic witness of YHWH wholeheartedly and open-handedly? Whether you can or not will determine whether you’re seen as the one at fault or not, and this my friends, is always for ill.
4. Failure to understand books within their context
In the same vein, a text understood outside of its proper place, either minimized or maximized unrealistically within its natural place in the metanarrative is going to be distorted. Have you ever looked through someone else’s glasses? It’s absurd, isn’t it? Either the object you’re looking at is far too big to really, truly see, or it’s too small to really, truly see. The texts of Scripture (and all literature for that matter) operate the exact same way. If you want to understand a book you must understand it as it presents itself. If that is in a series, the series is necessary context. If it is a chapter of a book, the context of the other chapters is necessary context. So far as Scripture is concerned, its place within the order of books that the church is/always has/always will (sorry evangelicals and Messianics) read the texts in is key. It’s in this order that these texts are understood by the world, the church, and even the heathen. Dare I say, if not by divine design, then by the matter and will of reality itself, this is the way it ought to be read, and this is the way the church always had read it. And it is, might I remind you, the church through this canonical understanding, and the chronological horizon within the textual horizon (sorry for those to whom this sounds like gibberish), has been understood and articulated as functional theology. To put it in plain English; when we put certain texts together say Romans and Genesis or in particular Gen 3 & 15 in tandem with Paul’s writings in Galatians on the promised seed and Abraham we are making theological claims. This has never been unknown to true theologians in the church, nor to the Jews of the O.T. Synagogal worship. What we read, when we read it, and in relation to whatever else we read carries with it great significance.
5. Failure to understand the nature of the text
Is the Scriptural text something to be read once? I think (hope) we all know that it isn’t. Is it something to be understood once and the put away? While I am semi-sure that nobody consciously thinks that, this is often how we treat the Word. I have yet to see a bible reading plan that is measured in a lifetime, or open-endedly. In a way, this concern is similar to my first concern, in that I have never seen a Bible reading plan that does not stop. While this at first seems as though it’s a pragmatic necessity of a yearly plan, or a monthly plan, or a lifetime plan, or anything of any kind of sort. But that is exactly the problem. We live in a culture wholly swallowed by the disease of completionism because we can’t bear to accept that some kinds of things are daily rhythms. We thirst for the dopamine release of checked-boxes and “beaten” games, failing to notice that the only thing that is being conquered in the day to day is our own souls, by consumerism and slavery to our own neurological networking. The Word speaks again and agian and again. It cannot fully mind, it cannot be fully explored. It may very well speak the same word so far as the letter is concerned, but the Spirit thereof gushes endlessly forth. Again and again it speaks. Louder and louder it speaks. Now I ask you this; (and somewhat out of left field) is the text of scripture one that delivers propositions to be accepted or unreasonable proclamations to be believed which deliver grace and transform us from within without the cooperation of our will? Are the Scriptures a transformative force of God? Or are they merely the building blocks of dogmatic thesis proposals? In short, the answer is this; the Word of God is first and foremost performative. Though propositions there do indeed be, the purpose, the telos, the function of God’s holy Word is to be an actor upon us, not a document acted upon by us. It is not a book of ideas waiting to be vetted or affirmed. But a book of truths and graces which have been spoken in order to work upon you, indeed, to create life within you.
6. Failure to fit into the liturgical church year.
The church is a moving organism. A living body. And as such, it moves back and forth, it breathes, to the rhythm of the life, death, and resurrection of the incarnate, suffering, and crucified God! one of the greatest issues of evangelical (to excuse here liturgical traditions) Bible reading plans is an absence of the liturgical reality/history within the history of the church and its life. These reading plans tend to follow a pseudo-lectio-continua format which flies in the face not only of the weekly lectionary but of the daily lectionary too. It is devoid of any connection to the church’s yearly rythm which walks together with Jesus’ ministry of the life, death, and resurrection, and of any hermetical purpose of texts being tied together in the first place at all. For example, you may have a reading of Genesis, Job, Ezekiel, and Romans being read all together in your “devotions” with no legitimate reason other than just ’cause. Other issues in the previous points aside, this serves negatively to disconnect the Christian’s personal and private disciplines of piety from the public worship of the church, which is never a good thing.
What then do I propose?
I propose first and foremost that you understand scripture in and through the divine revelation of the church’s ministry, week in and week out. That means liturgically, that means as it is preached from the pulpit according to the lectionary, as it is taught in Catechesis and Bible study, and as it continually works upon you. Secondly, I propose that scripture be put forward as working together with Christ’s life, death, and resurrection, and in that, I proclaim that it does so with the Old Testament as its backbone, foundation, springboard, motivator, and source. And thirdly, I propose that you read it constantly, continually, and in heavy amounts. Saturate yourself with it. Don’t read it; eat it. devour it. Feast upon it. Listen to it preached. Listen to it taught. Study it. Equip yourselves with several translations, equip yourselves with audio bibles, memorize portions of it, listen to it sung, sing it yourself, in Psalms, Hymns, and Spiritual Songs, study the languages that it was written in, dive into its culture and context, let your life be consumed by it, let it birth you anew, let it inspire and guide all that you do, let not your hours with it be few.
It isn’t rocket science. If you want to read a book, how do you do it? Open the flap on the left side and read until you’re at the flap on the right-hand side. Would I be fit for human society if I suggested reading Harry potter in a yearly plan, first a page or two from chapter one, and then a page or 2 from chapter 12? No.
The matter of the fact is this, if you don’t care about it at all, a schedule will not help you. Order is great, sure, but you know what’s greater than order? Genuine care and interest. I don’t see anyone around me struggling to read Harry Potter, 12 Rules for Life, Live not by Lies, or any of the other vastly empty works that we blast out via ink onto mulched tree corpses. So why are we, who have the audacity to claim that the literal creator, sustainer, provider of all that is who became a man to live, die, and rise for us that we might be saved and not be found guilty on the last day in the final judgment Speaks now through these Scriptures – struggling so badly to read them?
The Word is alive and HE is active. Trust in Him. Trust in the church that He instituted here on earth to deliver Him to you. That is all.
to Recap; my proposed alternative to Bible Reading Plans is this
- Go to church regularly
- Believe that the Bible is God’s creative Word which acts upon you
- Care
God bless you all
Pastor Connor Longahie
PAX
