Introduction to Journey through the Bible!
Welcome to Journey through the Bible (JTTB) in one year! If you’ve used “God’s Word For Me Today” for the past year then you will find the format of JTTB quite similar. The major difference is that we will be starting in Genesis and reading and studying our way through the Bible over the course of the coming year, rather than focusing for a week at a time on Scripture passages related to the Sunday Scripture and Message theme.
The reason for the change of approach is that as I was preparing for the second year of God’s Word For Me Today, it became clear to me through much time in prayer and reflection that we all need to gain a greater under-standing of the whole Bible. That way when we read particular passages of Scripture, we will be able to see how they fit and relate to the whole of Scripture. We won’t be reading every verse in the Bible over the course of the coming year. In fact, we’ll skip several of the books altogether. As I prayerfully prepared the readings, I opened my Bible at Genesis 1 and started my way through it, looking at each book and chapter along the way to see what we ought to include and exclude in order to be able to make it to Revelation 22 in one year. Given that the Bible contains 1187 chapters, we would have to read very long passages of Scripture each day in order to complete the entire Bible in a single year. Thus, you will find that I leave out passages dealing with genealogies, and dietary laws, along with some of the minor prophets whose prophecies dealt mainly with nations other than Israel, but include most of the New Testament.
You are more than welcome to read ALL the passages in the Bible along the way. As you pick up your JTTB brochure each day, simply compare the ending point from the day before with the beginning point for the day you’re reading and read the missing chapters. Our Journey through the Bible is intended to give all of us a deeper understanding of who God is and how He journeys with us along the path we call life. Many folks prefer reading in the New Testament, and I understand that. After all, reading about Jesus is the most exciting reading in the Bible, since He is the Son of God who came to the earth in human form, to save us from sin and death, and offer us a new life! One quick suggestion for you as we make our way to the New Testament in late February—If you read a chapter of Mark each day, you will read through the book twice each month, and the life of Jesus will become much more real to you. Mark has 16 chapters, so on the 1st through the 16th of each month, simply read the corresponding chapter of Mark, then on the 17th of the month start again. This will mean that you will have to read three chapters on the last day of the months that have 30 days and two chapters on the last day of the months that have 31 days (and of course five chapters on the last day of February), but it is well worth it. I’ve been following this practice of reading a chapter of Mark each day for several years now, and the stories, situations and teachings of Jesus are now so familiar, that I can anticipate what each day’s reading will include.
Now I’d like to include some “nuts and bolts” for participating in our Journey through the Bible in one year that I’m borrowing from the introduction to God’s Word for Me Today, which was written last year:
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Before you start reading, pause and ask God to use the Holy Spirit to give you understanding of what you read, and also to give you the power to apply it to your daily life. Any time we read the Scripture our first step is to ask God to reveal His will to us through it. After all, God speaks to us most clearly through His written Word to us! My Prayer Today is offered to help us turn the process over to God as we start each day!
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Our daily readings will be from the New Living Translation of the Bible. While we will print Scriptures each day, you will gain the most from this daily study if you read from your own Bible. That way you can underline those texts that are most meaningful to you, or write reminders in the margins if you want to return to a text at a future time, or if you gained a particularly important insight from it. A Study Bible is always helpful in reading and studying the Bible. Twoexcellent study Bibles are THE LIFE APPLICATION BIBLE, which comes in various translations including the New Living Translation, and the NIV Study Bible which, as the name suggests is based on the New International Version translation of the Bible.
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Each day you will find one, two, or several verses in bold print and italics. These are the verses on which the text centers. You may want to commit these verses to memory. In fact, if your time is limited, you may want to focus only on these verses, remember them and ask God to help you live them throughout the day! After all, it isn’t how many verses we’ve gone through that’s important, but how many verses have gone through us!
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When memorizing a Bible verse, say the book, chapter and verse before AND after reciting the verse. That’s because the hardest part of a Bible verse to remember is its location in the Bible! For example if you want to remember John 3:3, say, “John 3:3 Jesus replied, “I assure you, unless you are born again, you can never see the Kingdom of God.” John 3:3
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Following the daily Scripture readings will be four types of questions: Questions for Reflection (which will get us thinking about the topic in general); Questions for Exploration (which will help us “dig” into the text); Questions for Understanding (which will help us see how the text applies to us, or impacts our lives): Questions for Application (which will help us apply what we’ve read to our daily lives!) One question in each group is highlighted for those who have limited time, or for those just getting started in the daily Bible training.
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When (not if, but when) you miss a day—it’s okay. Do the same thing you do when you miss a meal—take an extra helping at the next one. We all have days that don’t go the way we planned. Don’t let a missed day sidetrack this vital process. Eating is so important that if we miss it for a day, we don’t quit, we pick up where we left off! That’s an important analogy for taking in spiritual nourishment as well.
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Most important of all: the goal is to let God transform us! If this becomes just one more task to check off our to do list, we will have missed the true blessing of spending daily time in God’s word. If we know ten times as much Scripture at this time next year as we do today, will we be ten times as loving? Will we be ten times as forgiving? Will we be ten times more passionate about living for Jesus 24/7? The last thing any of us needs is one more thing to do, which will result in our feeling even more hurried, harried and harassed. The goal is TRANSFORMATION, not just increased information!
My Prayer Today
Heavenly Father, I dedicate my life to You this day and pray that during this upcoming year of journeying through the Bible Your Holy Spirit will be my Teacher and Guide. Open every word of the Bible to me as I read it that I may gain a deeper relationship with You and be equipped to share the new life of Jesus with the world one person at a time. In Jesus’ name I pray. Amen!
To get started on your Journey Through the Bible, visit the Bible Study Calendar.