The title of the blog’s a little cheeky.

On one level I’m quite serious–in order to love God better, it’s a good idea to read your Bible this new year. Now, don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying that reading your Bible will silver-bullet style immediately kill sin and light up your heart for Jesus. I mean, the Holy Spirit could do that, but typically not so much. Instead, you might think of it more like a balanced diet or vitamins. Eating one good meal or taking 2 or 3 vitamins won’t help much if 99% of your diet sucks. Still, day after day, week after week, month after month, getting the right nutrients and supplements will improve your health.

In a somewhat similar fashion, daily engagement with the scriptures, starting with something like just 5-10 minutes a day will, over time, give you a greater appreciation for the story of Bible, knowledge of God, Jesus Christ, your sin, the power of the Spirit, the sweep of salvation, and the Gospel message that saves. And really, that’s what changes your heart, what fills it with love for God in light of who He is and what He has done–the Spirit applying the Gospel of Jesus to your heart as you engage with it. Diving deep into the Gospel, meeting Jesus, is what will save you from the million different ways you try to sinfully save yourself throughout the day (money, sex, power, busyness, etc.). Being daily reminded of his glory, of his patient dealings with Israel, the eternal scope of his love, the suffering and triumphant Savior, the falseness of idols in comparison with his matchless beauty–all of these things are what will, over time, overwhelm sin with love.

Now, many of us know this but we struggle knowing how to go about reading our Bible more each year. We start out thinking we’re going to read it through cover to cover, but right about the time the Israelites are wandering in the desert, dying of thirst, we give up, or wish we could join them. Leviticus seems like it was written as part of the judgment on that first sinful generation.

Part of the problem is that we don’t have a guide, or a good plan to lead us through the wilderness sections of scripture, or even to know what we should be enjoying in its oases. We want to, but we don’t know where to start, and when we start, we don’t know what we’re reading. The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak. O who will save me from this reading of death?!

Enter D.A. Carson
This last year my wife and I went through the first volume of D.A. Carson’s For the Love of God daily devotional based on the Murray M’Cheyne reading program and it’s been great. Robert Murray M’Cheyne designed a daily reading program that, at about 4 chapters a day, gets you through the New Testament and Psalms twice and the Old Testament once in the course of a year. So, for instance, January 1 begins with Genesis 1, Matthew 1, Ezra 1, Acts 1. It goes on from there. Originally the first two columns were labeled “family” intended to be read with the whole family, and the second two columns were “private” for personal devotion. It’s not necessarily the lightest program, but the arrangement is much better than most of the chronological reading programs or even some of the mixed year-long Bible programs.

With Carson’s devotional, you get a about a page of highly-readable biblical, theological, and pastoral commentary on one of the chapters by a top-notch theologian and scholar. Really, I compare the notes you get in this little devotional to the top-level commentaries sometimes and it’s amazing how he is quickly and, in an understandable fashion, making available the best scholarship and then moving to apply it to your daily life. I can’t begin to tell you how much I have enjoyed and personally benefited from both the daily Bible reading and Carson’s commentary. The arrangement of the chapters is helpful because it keeps you going through whole books of the Bible as they were intended to be read, instead of the “open and point” method that lands you reading a random chapter in Zechariah, leading you to think the prophet was on acid. Also, usually at least 2 of the chapters are in non-boring books, so you never have to truck through Leviticus all by itself.

No Sweat
Many of you might be intimidated at the thought of 4 chapters a day. Realize that’s only about 20 minutes total which can be broken up throughout the day if you have to. Still, that’s about 2% of the time you probably spend on facebook in a given day, so you have more time than you think. Also, you may choose to simply go through one book of the daily readings and whatever chapter Carson happens to be commenting on that day. Know that you might might miss a day. Or a week. Or a month. That’s fine, but just get back to it when you remember. When I asked my wife if we wanted to do volume 2 this year she said yes, because even though she didn’t get to it every day, she still had read more of her Bible this year than in any year prior. Sounds good to me.

Finally, if you’re worrying about dropping that 10 bucks on something you haven’t cruised through, or period, then you should know that D.A. Carson’s blog over at the Gospel Coalition is actually just his daily devotion. This last year they’ve been posting through volume 2, so next year will be volume 1 again. So, you can go check it out, or just use the blog as your daily devotional. You can even do it on your computer at work (on your break or lunch, of course).

The point of all of this is, for the love of God, read your Bible this year. It’s worth it and it just became a whole lot easier.

Soli Deo Gloria