{"id":5198,"date":"2016-12-27T16:22:11","date_gmt":"2016-12-27T20:22:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/pitmanumc.org\/wp\/?p=5198"},"modified":"2017-03-21T09:55:26","modified_gmt":"2017-03-21T13:55:26","slug":"bible-reading-plans-for-2015","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/pitmanumc.org\/wp\/?p=5198","title":{"rendered":"Bible Reading Plans for 2017!"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/pitmanumc.org\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/07\/Chapel-Bible-_0728041326-x600.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright size-medium wp-image-2803\" src=\"https:\/\/pitmanumc.org\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/07\/Chapel-Bible-_0728041326-x600-300x167.jpg\" alt=\"Chapel Bible _0728041326 x600\" width=\"300\" height=\"167\" srcset=\"https:\/\/pitmanumc.org\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/07\/Chapel-Bible-_0728041326-x600-300x167.jpg 300w, https:\/\/pitmanumc.org\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/07\/Chapel-Bible-_0728041326-x600.jpg 600w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #003300;\"><span style=\"font-size: 12pt;\">When the &#8220;publish&#8221; button was clicked for this post, we were in that Christmas Holiday gap between Christmas Day and New Year&#8217;s Day.\u00a0 The gifts were wrapped, placed under the tree, and then unwrapped. All of the Christmas cookies were baked&#8230; and most were eaten.\u00a0 All of a sudden we were about to wake up to the Mummers (in Philly, anyway),\u00a0 New Year&#8217;s Day will be upon us, and we&#8217;ll be thinking about New Year&#8217;s Resolutions.\u00a0 What can I do in this new year to make myself better for next year?<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000080;\"><em><span style=\"font-size: 12pt;\">In addition to loosing weight, stopping smoking, or dropping some other bad habit, many of us resolve in January to read the Bible.\u00a0 Sometimes we get overly ambitious and think we&#8217;re going to read the entire Bible in one year.\u00a0 We plan to stick with that daily reading plan that&#8217;s in the back of most Bibles. \u00a0 We start at Genesis, but by the time we reach all of that stuff about acacia wood and cubits in Exodus when they&#8217;re building the tabernacle, we loose interest.\u00a0 By the time we hit Numbers and Leviticus and all of the laws about sacrificing turtledoves and lambs without defect, we&#8217;re really behind schedule.\u00a0 By April or May, many of us are already thinking about making a fresh resolution for the next year!<\/span><\/em><\/span><\/p>\n<p>Rev. Marvin Guice (long time pastor of PUMC in the 1950s) once said&#8230;<\/p>\n<blockquote><p><span style=\"color: #000000;\">It&#8217;s not how many times you go through the Bible.<br \/>\nIt&#8217;s how many times the Bible goes through you!<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>So this year, slow down!\u00a0 Send some time in the Word and see if the Bible will go through you.<\/p>\n<p>Below are three Bible Reading plans; all of them cover only one chapter a day.<\/p>\n<div class='et-box et-info'>\n\t\t\t\t\t<div class='et-box-content'><p><span style=\"color: #000000;\">Here&#8217;s some Bible Trivia&#8230;<\/span><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><span style=\"color: #000000;\">There are 1189 chapters in the Bible<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"color: #000000;\">There are 929 chapters in the Old Testament. <\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"color: #000000;\">There are 260 chapters on the New Testament.<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"color: #000000;\">Hmmm&#8230; there are 365 days in one year.\n<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000;\"><\/div><\/div><\/span><\/p>\n<p>So&#8230; if you read a chapter a day from the Old Testament, you won&#8217;t finish the whole thing in one year.\u00a0 But if you read a chapter a day from the New Testament you&#8217;ll hit the last chapter in Revelation sometime in October.\u00a0 The plans below follow the &#8220;cherry pick&#8221; theory for the Old Testament\u00a0 and the &#8220;double up and slow down&#8221; theory for the New Testament.\u00a0 Here are the details&#8230;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<h3><span style=\"color: #800000;\">Old Testament Plan<\/span><\/h3>\n<p>The plan skips over the &#8220;begat&#8221; and &#8220;cubit&#8221; parts that usually drive a good resolution to a screeching halt.\u00a0It just hits the highlights in books like Exodus, Numbers and Leviticus. Not that the other parts aren&#8217;t important!\u00a0 But, the goal is to develop a habit and &#8220;let the Bible go through you.&#8221; It also brushes over sections of the prophecies.<\/p>\n<p>The plan is generally presented in Chronological order (using whatever information we have).\u00a0 It weaves some of the prophetic books in with the history books (1-2 Kings &amp; 1-2 Chronicles) so you can read them in the historical setting.\u00a0 It also skips over parts that seem to duplicate themselves (for example, 1-2 Kings and 1-2 Chronicles).\u00a0 It follows Kings to pick up the history of the Northern Kingdom, and then switches over to Chronicles after the Northern exile.<\/p>\n<p>Here&#8217;s the link to download the Old Testament Plan:\u00a0 <a href='https:\/\/pitmanumc.org\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/12\/Bible-Reading-Plan-2017-_OT.pdf' class='small-button smallblue' target=\"_blank\">Old Testament Plan<\/a><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<h3><span style=\"color: #800000;\">New Testament Plan<\/span><\/h3>\n<p>The New Testament is generally divided into the Gospels, Acts, Paul&#8217;s letters to the churches, Paul&#8217;s letters to individuals, letters written by people other than Paul, and then Revelation.<\/p>\n<p>The New Testament plan pretty much follows the order established by the traditional cannon.\u00a0 There are a few exceptions though&#8230;<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Instead of reading all four\u00a0Gospels (Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John) in succession at the beginning of the year, \u00a0the Gospels are &#8220;spread out&#8221; so that the accounts of Jesus&#8217; life and teachings will always be fresh in your mind.<\/li>\n<li>The books of Romans and Hebrews (which can get a bit heavy in theology) are taken from their &#8220;normal&#8221; locations in an attempt to keep it &#8220;light.&#8221;<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>And, as noted above, one of the &#8220;problems&#8221; of reading the New Testament using a &#8220;chapter a day&#8221; format is that there are more days in the year than chapters in the New Testament.\u00a0 So- taking it slow- most chapters are allotted two days.\u00a0 Read half of it one day and finish it up the next.\u00a0 Or, read it through one day, then look up the devotionals and ponder what you read.\u00a0 Take a second look at the chapter the next day.\u00a0 Remember; it&#8217;s now how many times or how fast you go through the Bible.\u00a0 It&#8217;s all about opening yourself up to God&#8217;s Word and letting it go through you.<\/p>\n<p>Here&#8217;s the link to download the\u00a0New Testament Plan:\u00a0 <a href='https:\/\/pitmanumc.org\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/12\/Bible-Reading-Plan-2017-_NT.pdf' class='small-button smallblue' target=\"_blank\">\u00a0New Testament Plan<\/a><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<h3><span style=\"color: #800000;\">New Testament &#8220;Light&#8221; Plan<\/span><\/h3>\n<p>The New Testament plan takes you through the entire New Testament.\u00a0 But, it\u00a0 starts out with Romans and includes some heavy stuff along the way.\u00a0 Hitting Romans chapter 1 on New Year&#8217;s Day might not be the best way for many of us to get us started in our Bible Reading habit.\u00a0 So, a third alternative is available.\u00a0 This plan starts out with highlights from Genesis and other Old Testament passages and then eases you into Matthew.\u00a0 &#8220;Heavier&#8221; books such as Hebrews and Romans are interspersed with chapters from other books to help put the theological discourses in perspective.\u00a0 The middle part of Revelation is\u00a0 skipped over.\u00a0 All of scripture is important, and this plan won&#8217;t take you through the entire New Testament. But, any time you open God&#8217;s Word it can &#8220;go through you.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Here&#8217;s the link to download the &#8220;New Testament Light&#8221; Plan:\u00a0 <a href='https:\/\/pitmanumc.org\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/12\/Bible-Reading-Plan-2017-_NT-OT-mix.pdf' class='small-button smallblue' target=\"_blank\">\u00a0New Testament Light Plan<\/a><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<h3><span style=\"color: #800000;\">Print it Out!<\/span><\/h3>\n<p>Pick the plan you want to follow this year and then download it using one of the above buttons.\u00a0 The plan will open in Adobe Acrobat reader (probably?).\u00a0 Both plans consist of 11 pages.\u00a0 The lists on each page\u00a0are\u00a0sized so that they can be cut out of each sheet and\u00a0fit into a typically sized Bible.\u00a0 In other words, you can use the list as a bookmark and keep it in your Bible.\u00a0 If you have a printer that can print on both sides of the sheet, print out the lists double sided (and you&#8217;ll save some paper).<\/p>\n<p>A Check box is provided so you can keep track of what you have read.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<h3><span style=\"color: #800000;\">Ponder the Word<\/span><\/h3>\n<p>Included on the list are references to daily devotionals which feature a verse from the day&#8217;s chapter.\u00a0 The list shows the date(s) of these devotionals where the chapter is discussed.\u00a0 Look up the devotional article (links below) and dig deeper into the passage you just read.\u00a0 References to two popular devotionals are provided (if you don&#8217;t have these books, you can access the articles online):<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Charles Spurgeon&#8217;s &#8220;Morning and Evening&#8221; devotional includes two devotional articles (featuring two different verses) for each day.<br \/>\n<span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\"><strong><a href=\"http:\/\/www.heartlight.org\/spurgeon\/archive.html\" target=\"_blank\">Click Here <\/a><\/strong><\/span>to open the &#8220;Morning and Evening&#8221; archive.\u00a0 Scroll down and click on the date cited in the reading plan list.<\/li>\n<li>\u00a0Oswald Chamber&#8217;s &#8220;My Utmost for His Highest&#8221; devotional is also cited in the reading plan.<br \/>\n<span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\"><strong><a href=\"http:\/\/utmost.org\" target=\"_blank\">Click Here<\/a><\/strong><\/span> to visit the Oswald Chamber&#8217;s website.\u00a0 To find the desired article, click on the calendar icon (next to today&#8217;s date)- it&#8217;s right under the title of today&#8217;s article.\u00a0 Use the arrows on the calendar to navigate to the date shown in the reading plan.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Note:\u00a0 You can always find these devotionals by opening the &#8220;<a title=\"News Feeds and Devotionals\" href=\"https:\/\/pitmanumc.org\/wp\/?page_id=2573\" target=\"_blank\"><span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\">New Feeds and Devotionals<\/span><\/a>&#8221; page (under the &#8220;News&#8221; menu on the top of any of our site&#8217;s pages).\u00a0 A link to this post is also included on the &#8220;News Feeds and Devotionals&#8221; page so you can find this post throughout the year.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<h3><span style=\"color: #800000;\">Which Plan is &#8220;Better&#8221;?<\/span><\/h3>\n<p>If you&#8217;ve never read the Bible, it probably makes sense to start at the beginning- Genesis. Try the Old Testament plan this year and then move on to the New Testament next year. Explore areas in the Bible where you haven&#8217;t been before; or areas where you haven&#8217;t been in a long time.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<h3><span style=\"color: #800000;\">Talk it Over- Leave a Comment<\/span><\/h3>\n<p>As we go through the year, use the\u00a0&#8220;Leave a Comment&#8221; form\u00a0at the bottom of this post to share how the Bible has gone through you this year.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><span style=\"color: #003300;\">===========================<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000080;\"><em><span style=\"font-size: 12pt;\">Resolve to make this year a year where you commit to opening yourself up to God&#8217;s word.\u00a0 Don&#8217;t rush to go through the Bible, but daily open yourself up to the Bible and let the Holy Spirit take the Word through you.<\/span><\/em><\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>When the &#8220;publish&#8221; button was clicked for this post, we were in that Christmas Holiday gap between Christmas Day and New Year&#8217;s Day.\u00a0 The gifts were wrapped, placed under the tree, and then unwrapped. All of the Christmas cookies were baked&#8230; and most were eaten.\u00a0 All of a sudden we were about to wake up [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2811,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[58],"tags":[125,96],"class_list":["post-5198","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-eventreminder","tag-bible","tag-devotion"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pitmanumc.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5198","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pitmanumc.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pitmanumc.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pitmanumc.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pitmanumc.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5198"}],"version-history":[{"count":28,"href":"https:\/\/pitmanumc.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5198\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13502,"href":"https:\/\/pitmanumc.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5198\/revisions\/13502"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pitmanumc.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/2811"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pitmanumc.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5198"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pitmanumc.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5198"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pitmanumc.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5198"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}