Reading

Dear Friends,

So there I was, mid-morning January 1.  We’d made the black-eyed peas and turnip greens with bacon.  The cheese grits were baking.  What was it that I had forgotten?  Then I recalled.  During Advent, I’d been doing extra bible reading with a book of daily readings and devotions by Richard Rohr.  These were in addition to what I normally use in a day.  Well, here it was, a week past Christmas and I still looked for that extra time, laid out in a clear, reasonable, and understandable way.  Fortunately, I found a posting that had a simple plan.   There are 52 weeks in a year.  Two of our Bishops, Bill McAlilly and Ken Carter, according to what I read, were planning to read one chapter from the Gospel of Luke on the Sunday of each week and then one chapter from the Acts of the Apostles when they had gone through Luke. 

Those two books have (Luke 24 and Acts 28) chapters in them, so that will be a chapter a week of the great 2 volume church history.  I like the plan.  I also like spending time in the Hebrew Scriptures as well.  Thanks to one of my teachers at Duke, the late Fr. Roland Murphy, I especially enjoy time in the Psalms and Proverbs. 

Well, as it works out, Psalms has 150 chapters of wildly different lengths and Proverbs has 31 chapters of maybe not so wildly different lengths.  That is 151 chapters.  By starting the Psalms on January 5, the day for Luke 1, I can read through both book of wisdom twice in the year.  (Well, sure, the last chapter of Proverbs gets lost, but, hey, I’ll double up on December 31, 2014.)

So, there you have it.  If you want to join me in this plan, we can visit each Sunday for a while about what we might hear God saying to us in this way.  Whatever approach you use, remember, the Bible is a collection of books provided by God through human agency for our wellbeing.  Find a way to spend time with the words and you will find there, the Word. 

Grace for the Way,

Brad