Entire Bible In 13 Weeks

The primary business I must attend to every day is to fellowship with the Lord. The first concern is not how much I might serve the Lord, but how my inner man might be nourished. I may share the truth with the unconverted; I may try to encourage believers; I may relieve the distressed; or I may, in other ways, seek to behave as a child of God; yet, not being happy in the Lord and not being nourished and strengthened in my inner man day by day, may result in this work being done in a wrong spirit.

The most important thing I had to do was to read the Word of God and to meditate on it. Thus my heart might be comforted, encouraged, warned, reproved, and instructed. - George Muller May 7, 1841

I read somewhere last week that George Muller was committed to read the Bible 4 times a year. I thought that was an ambitious, yet impressive commitment to time under the tutelage of the Lord. I know that the Bible In 90 Days is a popular resource, but I am also self aware enough that this program would fail the first weekend I started it. Our weekends are incredibly busy and we are often out till very late. I needed a program that was built on the 65 work days each quarter, so that I could make it a part of my daily regimen on the more predictable routine of work nights.

I searched and could not find such a program. So I decided that if this was a commitment I wanted to make, it was up to me to develop the resources. I developed a web page several months back to help us with our oldest daughter's reading. This page displays the Bible In Basic English combined with the Dolch word list. All Dolch words are highlighted green, while all other words are red. So I already had the underlying table data for the full text of the Bible. From here I divided the total number of verses by the 65 days. This method naturally broke chapters unevenly, and had no respect for distribution of the text, it was just a simple query. So from there I manually went through the 65 days and decided to round the "break chapter" either forward or backward based on where it broke in the chapter. In a few days I had to do just a little more massaging than that to even out a couple days over chapters that were particuarly long and fell right on the day breaks.

All of that is to say, that I invite you to join me in the 13 Week Reading Challenge. Already in the first three days I have completed God has spoken deeply to my heart. The first day I was inspired to greater reflection of becoming more like Christ through new insight into the difference between Abraham and Lot. The second day, I read about how God used his manifest presence as bookends to the time Jacob spent in Laban's house. I was reminded once again that part of God's destiny for us is filled in the monotony of the seasons of life. Last night, I was able to see how Joseph was for his brothers, and archetype for the greatness Jesus prepared for us when we fully realize our citizenship in the Kingdom of God.

I am so excited about the great truth, and inspiring changes God will bring in my life as Christ is formed in me, through the discipline of this challenge. This is not an excercise in academic accomplishment, but instead an invitation to see God's entire story unfold in all it's flowing glory. I hope you use this page, and are inspired to greater love and service in God's Kingdom.