As a Christian, we believe that the
Bible teaches justification by faith alone through the perfect,
complete work of Christ Jesus, through his death, burial and
resurrection. Through faith in Christ alone the Christian knows and
experiences the forgiveness of sin and the hope of eternal life with
Christ. Being brought into newness of life, it is important for the
believer to grow in their walk with God by constantly being in the
Word. But how many Christians make time for daily Bible reading?
And if asked by an outsider to the faith, "So, if the Bible is
the central book of your faith, how many times have you read it,
cover to cover?", could you give an answer other than just a
shrug and a response of, "Well, I've read a lot of it..."
The Bible is the perfect, inspired word
of God, and as 2 Tim. 3:16 teaches, "All Scripture is breathed
out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction,
and for training in righteousness". The love and study of the
Scriptures should be essential for the believer, and Christians
should strive to read the Bible in its entirety if they haven't.
"But I never have time. I've got
work, and this, and that, etc." Well, what I'd like to offer
here is a suggestion of how busy people can include daily Bible
reading, that the believer "may be competent, equipped for every
good work" (2 Tim. 3:17)
Since so many people are always on the
go, “listening” can be a good option for working through the
Bible. A good step is to invest in a cheap MP3 player (and NOT a
phone, since anything that will ring, beep, chirp, or otherwise
distract you isn't going to help...)
A cheap, simple MP3 player I've been
happy with is the Philips GoGear Vibe 4 MP3 player. No bells and
whistles, but works fine, and can hold most all of the spoken Bible.
I've seen it around $15-20 online. It comes with ear buds, but if
you don't like those you can pick up a cheap headset at Walmart for
$5.
Next step, get a FREE download of the
audio Bible. There are a number of translations available online
free. I'm partial to the ESV translation as I believe it's a sound
translation of the Greek and straight-forward English. You can
download it free from here: http://www.esvaudiobible.com. For those
who like the KJV translation, here's a site to download the MP3's:
http://www.harvesttimechurchoftyler.org/freemp3bible.htm
There are many other resources, and if
you prefer to skip the download, you could go to a place like LifeWay
and buy the MP3s of the Bible and transfer them to the MP3 player
from your computer that way too.
Finally, download a Bible reading
checklist and print this up, to mark off what you've listened to.
There are plenty of these online, but here's a simple example:
http://www.marshillchurch.org/files/misc/Bible_Reading_Checklist.pdf
Now, when you're working around the
house, cooking, gardening, riding your bike, etc, just put on the MP3
player and you're ready to go. If you prefer to listen to the player
while driving, you can get a mini-jack port at the Walmart
electronics department and hook this to your car stereo aux port.
Also, as you study the Bible, if you
find passages that you want to understand better or that could use
elaboration, there are many good commentaries. I would recommend
Matthew Henry's Commentary. He was a puritan who wrote a concise
commentary overview of the entire Bible. You can use the commentary
for free here to look up passages:
http://www.biblestudytools.com/commentaries/matthew-henry-complete/
Keep yourself in the Word, and be
blessed with growing in an understanding of God's inspired word.
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