Tuesday, October 11, 2005

Monday, October 10, 2005

Saturation Reading Chart

In general I find that people, especially Christians, want to know God's book. Some seek shortcuts to their determent but far too often I have found that people feel overwhelmed. They simply do not have the knowledge of how to go about this enormous task. Second, they have been convinced that a yearly reading of the Bible is a tremendous feat and that reading a chapter before bed time is enough to feed the soul. This has been done innocently in order to help people get started reading their Bible, but we simply cannot stop there.

In this scheme, the student is encouraged to read the Old Testament, as outlined, in order to first get an overall, "birds-eye" view of the historical setting. Having gained a clearer view of the history of God's people, a student is now ready to read the books of poetry and prophecy.

The New Testament is designed so that a student will read sixty-five (65) chapters a week for four weeks, thus reading the New Testament twelve times in a year as opposed to just once. This is accomplished with less than ten chapters a day.

The New Testament is divided so that a student will read one of the biographical accounts of the life of Jesus at the beginning of the each week. Subsequent books relate either in kind or in authorship, for example, after reading Matthew the student will read Hebrews. Both books were written to the Jews. Mark and Romans are placed together for this same reason. On the other hand, Luke and Acts are placed together as well as all the Johannine writings due to authorship.

Make no mistake, this method is not for the slothful Christian. It will take self-discipline. The discipline necessary for the Saturation Method is challenging. (See following post).

Written by Rick Popejoy