I did it. I’ve done it any number of times since then (indeed, I’m doing it again this very year), and I have recommended it to each of the congregations I have served in my thirty-eight years of pastoral ministry. Now I am recommending it to you.
The pattern I am recommending is slightly different from what was originally given to me. Since Sundays shift from year to year, this book is organized so that you will read three chapters daily, except for certain days—usually the third and the sixth—when you will read four chapters. Also, Psalms and Proverbs are scattered through your reading, in consecutive fashion. This plan is partly because these books don’t lend themselves to the kind of summary we’re seeking, and partly because by such an arrangement I am able to balance out certain readings.
The basic structure has tremendous benefits. Because it moves through the Bible in the biblical sequence, it gives you a chance to catch “the grand sweep” of the Scriptures—something we miss in most Bible studies, where we take up only a certain book or section of the Bible, and in those patterns of Bible reading where the daily readings are scattered throughout the Scriptures. Also, the readings for each day are manageable; even someone who is just beginning a serious devotional life need not feel threatened by the size of each portion.
By the time you have finished your year of reading, you will have a grasp of the biblical story from beginning to end. And with it, because of the daily discipline, a stronger devotional life. I have sought what may be an impossible goal—to give a faithful summary of each day’s reading, but with a devotional quality, so that you will gain warmth of spirit as well as knowledge of mind.
This book can be used individually or with a group. If you will covenant with one or several friends, or better yet with a group of ten or twelve, to follow the daily pattern, then meet at regular intervals to discuss and share, you will strengthen your faith enormously. Indeed, you will discover, as others have for nearly twenty centuries, that the Word of God is alive and powerful, bringing to our daily routine transforming glimpses of the eternal. I cherish for you, and for those who read with you, such a year in God’s Word.
—J. Ellsworth Kalas
GETTING THE MOST
FROM YOUR READING
Establish this daily pattern, setting aside at least thirty minutes each day for reading, reflecting, and praying without interruption:
1. Read the assigned Scripture passages first.
2. Then read the related commentary and prayer.
3. Reflect on the Scripture you have read and write the response called for in the space provided.
4. Pray for persons and concerns you identify in the section “Prayer Time” at the end of each week. This section suggests a focus for daily and weekly praying and invites you to identify persons and concerns for prayer.
5. On each Day 7, also read the summary commentary on the week’s Scripture, “How the Drama Develops,” and “Seeing Life Through Scripture.” Usually you will write responses in this section as well. “How the Drama Develops” summarizes the week’s Scripture and situates it in the ongoing biblical story. “Seeing Life Through Scripture” invites you to view life through the lens of Scripture in order to draw guidance and insights for living. Usually you will find some spaces for writing in this section. Sometimes the spaces follow a direct question; other times they are inserted as invitations for you to comment on what you are thinking and reading. Think of yourself as being in conversation with Scripture. “The Sum of It All,” in a verse or verses, sums up the week’s Scripture. Over the course of fifty-two weeks, the verses become a synopsis of the biblical story.
6. If you meet regularly with a group to discuss the Scripture you are reading, the reflecting and writing you do become your preparation for that discussion.
If you are studying individually, your written responses become a record of your conversation with Scripture.
As we read the Scriptures it is our privilege—
indeed, our calling—to find our place in the story.
Herein is a peculiar and dramatic difference in
reading the Bible. Those who read the Book in
faith become part of the plot.
—From A Hop, Skip, and a Jump Through the Bible (2007); page 16.
| GENESIS 1; PSALMS 1–2 | Week 1, Day 1 |
When Genesis draws back the curtain on the Eternal Drama, there’s only one Person on stage. God and Beginning are synonymous. Without God there is no beginning, and there is no beginning before God. So the drama begins, and God quickly establishes lighting (1:3) and time (1:5), then begins moving in scenery—waters, sky, dry land, vegetation.
Then there are creatures with a possibility of being more than scenery: birds, fish, animals, crawling things. At last, human beings (1:26-31), creatures who will play opposite God in this drama. They can fill this role because they are made in God’s image and are therefore able to communicate with God.
It’s an awesome picture, and all the more so because of the simplicity with which it is drawn. The writer sees no need to accumulate adjectives; it is enough that God will say, at intervals, Good! If God feels that way about it, what other word is needed?
I am impressed that the creation is such an intimate process. The Creator might be portrayed as a Master Engineer or the Ultimate Computer. Instead, Genesis tells us that God has soul; he wants to talk with someone. So the creation develops step by step on the framework “God said.”
Science speaks increasingly of a Big Bang at creation. Genesis tells of a big conversation. But, of course, science is talking about how, while Genesis is telling us about who.
PRAYER: Help me, O God, on this day of new beginnings, to have all my beginnings in you. Amen.
How will my attitude toward the environment be affected if I seriously believe in God as Creator?
| GENESIS 2; PSALMS 3–4 | Week 1, Day 2 |
Genesis 1 told us we are made in the image of God. That’s exciting, but from practical experience it’s also confusing. We don’t feel that God-like all the time; some days, we don’t feel God-like at all.
Genesis 2 helps by telling us more about ourselves. We are creatures of the dust, which is easy to believe. Our physical person will decay into dust, and our personality is earthy enough to suggest our origins. But into that dust, God breathes something of the divine. Here is both our dilemma and our glory—that we are a bit of sod and a breath from God.
Perhaps the best evidence of our God-likeness is that we desire, like God, to communicate. Genesis 1 pictured both male and female created at once (1:27), but this chapter uses a beautiful story to let us know that we human beings need one another. We are bone of each other’s bone and flesh of each other’s flesh. John Donne underlined the point centuries later by saying that when one person dies, every person is diminished.
The intimacy of
