Read the Bible in 2015

By Weylan Deaver

It is the only book God wrote. There is none like it. There is no substitute for what it says. The Bible’s take on every subject it touches is the truth. It will judge us all eventually. That being the case, we ought to be at least as acquainted with Scripture as we are with sports, movies, music, entertainers, hobbies, politics, local news or video games. It is vastly more important than all of those, combined. God’s book should not be a strange, unfamiliar object on the shelf. The New Testament has 260 chapters, and the Old Testament has 929 chapters, for a total of 1,189 chapters. If you begin in January in Genesis and read only four chapters per day, you will finish the entire Bible, with time to spare, before the year is over. Though Bible reading does not necessarily imply faithfulness to God, faithfulness does imply Bible reading. Or, put differently, a Bible reader may not be a dedicated Christian, but the truly dedicated are always Bible readers. It is, at least, a starting place. If you have not read it, you do not realize what you are missing. Regular readers know the Bible is never mastered, no matter how many times they have gone through it. God’s mind is deep, and his written revelation offers insights that are never exhausted. The Bible is given for our learning so that we might obey God. This makes it much more than just a collection of useful information. It is vital, essential, cannot-live-without-it information. We all owe it to God and our eternal well-being to study it diligently. So, determine to read the Bible in the new year. And, please visit us at the church of Christ, where the ancient word of God is always as fresh as this morning’s newspaper.