Regular Bible Reading

Many years ago, I was speaking at a men’s conference from an evangelical church. At the first session, I gave each man a 3 x 5 card and asked them to answer three questions on their card, but not write down their name. These were the questions:

• How many years have you been a Christian?

• How many times have you read the Old Testament in its entirety?

• How many times have you read the New Testament?

After collecting the cards, I added up all of the years and all the times and then divided the total times into the total years.

If my memory is correct, the Old Testament was read once every 27 years, and the New Testament once every 17 years.

Since then, I have gotten averages of 7 ½ years OT and 2 ½ years NT.

If you are a very slow reader, you can read the whole Bible in less than 80 hours. How do I know? That is how long the audio Bibles are.

The first time I read the Bible through, I had been a Christian for about three years. I have now been a Christian for more than 70 years. I have followed several different Bible reading schedules.

If you do not have a schedule you are using already, here is one for reading the New Testament through this summer, along with thousands of other Christians in the #samepagesummer. Don't worry about trying to catch up - just start with today's readings. You can pick up the missed readings on your next time through. (There will be a whole-Bible reading schedule starting in the fall.)

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