Five Tips to Read the Bible Consistently

I mentioned in a previous post that consistently reading the Bible is a discipline that can be difficult to develop. Here are a few thoughts have been helpful to me to begin reading the Bible daily.

  • Identify a time. – If you’re like me, then if you don’t schedule a time to read, you’ll come to the end of your day without having cracked open the Bible. So put it on your calendar. Make an appointment with God. And then keep it.
  • Identify a place. – The place where you read is almost as important as the time. Having a place helps build a routine that will create its own momentum. Find a place that is conducive to reading and reflecting. For me that is at my desk with a cup of coffee. But find out what works for you.
  • Read when when you want to. Read it when you don’t. – Habits are not hard to build when it is something you want to do. It’s when you stayed up too late and have the choice to either sleep in or wake up and read. The challenge of consistency is doing it when you would rather do something else.
  • Get a daily reading plan – There are a ton of different reading plans for reading the Bible chronologically, topically, canonically, etc. Just pick one. It takes the work out of choosing what to read. You can still break away and read other things, but when you do not know what to read, a plan will choose for you. BibleGateway and ESV.org have several reading plans you can check out.
  • Don’t beat yourself up. – Everyone misses a day. Sometimes they miss a few days. Don’t let that stop you from moving forward.

What do you do to develop the discipline of consistency?

Reading the Bible Consistently

I was recently invited to lead a small college bible where I was asked to answer the question, “how do you read the Bible?” It’s a simple question that can be very difficult to answer. “What version should I read?” “What book should I read?” “What is the point of Leviticus?”

The field of biblical hermeneutics (the philosophy and methodology of interpretation) is a wide area of scholarship that tries to answer the question, “how do I correctly read (and interpret) the Bible?”. So my answers were neither original, nor exhaustive. My aim was to be concise and practical to our college group.

I had four main points, that we should read the Bible consistently, contextually, prayerfully, and devotionally. In this post, I want to focus on the first point of consistency.

Being Consistent

Sometimes we Christians can define consistency in very flexible terms. After all, if I celebrate my wife’s birthday every year, I am being consistent, aren’t I? And we can sometimes approach the Bible the same way. For some, reading the Bible is an annual event, often spurred on by crisis. It’s that “apple a day keeps the crisis away” mentality, only our apple is the Bible and we are certainly not taking a daily dose.

The Bible speaks about a different kind of consistency. In Joshua 1:8, God commissions Joshua and tells him that he must meditate on the Book of the Law day and night. Day and night. God required that Joshua do more than give the Scriptures his distracted attention- Joshua was to meditate. And meditation, the deliberate processing of information takes time, and really it takes consistency.

Psalm 1 describes a person that is stable and strong, like a tree planted by a stream of water. The tree is sustained by a steady flow of water and bears fruit. The psalmist uses this picture of the tree to describe a person who delights in the word of God and who meditates on it day and night. There it is again, this idea of not just reading the Bible when it is convenient, but consistently reading and processing it all day, both day and night.

Reading the Bible consistently is a discipline we all must develop to grow in our intimacy with God.

Mental Case for iPad

A few weeks ago, I mentioned a great flashcard app called Mental Case. At the time, I was using the Mac OS X client as well the convenient iPhone version. Since that post, the great people at the Mental Faculty have released a version for the iPad. I’m excited to have a version on my iPad that is optimized for the screen size and that takes advantage of the additional screen real-estate. In the near future, I will post a review of the iPad version.

Mental Case for iPad is available in the iTunes store for $4.99.

Quick Thoughts on Invictus

Over the past weekend, I watched the latest Clint Eastwood film, Invictus. In summary, it is the story of how Nelson Mandela unified the apartheid-torn nation of South Africa around the game of rugby.

It is a very well-made movie, though the soundtrack had some of the strangest choices of music. But what interested me most was the poem that was quoted so often in the previews, titled Invictus:

Out of the night that covers me,
Black as the Pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods may be
For my unconquerable soul.

In the fell clutch of circumstance
I have not winced nor cried aloud.
Under the bludgeonings of chance
My head is bloody, but unbowed.

Beyond this place of wrath and tears
Looms but the Horror of the shade,
And yet the menace of the years
Finds, and shall find, me unafraid.

It matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishments the scroll.
I am the master of my fate:
I am the captain of my soul.

The poem is a powerful one. It was written by the 19th century poet William Ernest Henley. Google him. I would be a liar if I said that there is not something inspiring about Morgan Freeman patiently chanting the words, “I am the master of my fate: I am the captain of my soul.” Yet despite how stunning the imagery is and how powerful the analogy of a ship’s captain is, the worldview represented is wrong.

The Bible represents an all-together different view of fate and our souls. We are not the masters of our souls at all. Before Christ, we were all “following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air” (Ephesians 2:2, ESV). We were “slaves to sin” (Romans 6:17, ESV).

And after we are saved by Christ, we are still not our own masters. Christ is our Lord, our master. So in the end, my soul has never been “unconquerable.” It has just been a question of what has conquered it: sin? or Christ?

The writer of Psalm 121 says it this way:

I lift up my eyes to the hills.
From where does my help come?
My help comes from the Lord,
who made heaven and earth. (Psalm 121, ESV)

My help does not come from my own strength of will, but from the eternal God who created all that exists.

Tech Tuesday: The iPad

It is official. I now own an iPad.

There was a ton of speculation before the iPad came out and since then, there have been numerous reviews, both positive and negative. Tim Challies, a web developer and blogger, went from disappointed to simply underwhelmed, while others like Daring Fireball’s John Gruber were more impressed by Apple’s newest product.

Before I join the sea of voices, I have several caveats. First, I did not purchase the iPad. It was a generous gift from a family member. I think my impressions might be different if I had spent the cash myself to obtain it.

Secondly, I will admit that I can be a pretty big Apple fanboy. I played with Linux for a number of years, but just got tired of building kernels, choosing window managers and generally just tinkering with the OS just to get some apps to work. I also have been a systems administrator for Windows networks for a number of years. But, I just like Apple. I like how my iPhone talks to my MacBook Pro. I like how I don’t have to think about dependencies and I like how I do not (for the most part) need to worry about viruses. So for personal computers and devices, I am biased to like Apple. I admit it upfront.

With that awkwardness out of the way, I have to say that the iPad is more impressive than I thought it would be. At first, I thought it would be one of those devices that executives get that are shiny and new, but mostly just a pain for the IT department that has to support it, kind of like Sony Vaio laptops (I was disillusioned when I could not easily upgrade the RAM and hard drive for one). But I warmed up to the iPad when I heard some official details like the low price wifi version and the fact that iWork’s Papers would be available for it (Apple did not leave us with Notes).

But what really convinced me was just holding and operating one.

The Outside

The iPad is has a very sleek, clean design. In keeping with the updated MacBook Pro line, the aluminum and glass combination is extremely appealing. The display has a black edge, again, similar to the MacBook Pro line. The device is thin but feels solid in your hands. This is the kind of visual appeal that one comes to expect from Apple.

The User Interface

Apple prides itself on its user interfaces. The iPhone was revolutionary in its touch screen approach to the cellphone. The iPad user interface is similar though adapted for a bigger screen. With a home button, a power button, and two volume buttons, the iPad is very simple. It switches between applications quickly and smoothly, though some applications do lag when starting up (like Korg’s iELECTRIBE app).

Apple has been consistent with the iPhone, providing a similar “desktop” experience with the iPad. The only main difference here is that the higher screen resolution allows more apps to exist on a single page, and the app dock can support up to six apps as opposed to the iPhone’s four.

The only real challenging aspect of the iPad’s interface has been using the touch screen keyboard. Initially, I was not used to the touch screen. I kept accidentally grazing keys. Thankfully, the autocorrect usually fixes these problems, unless you are entering atypical strings (usernames, passwords, URLs). But as I have continued to work with the keyboard, I am adapting to it. I imagine that after a week or so with the device, I will get used to it as I did with the iPhone.

Overall Impression

I am very excited about this device. It’s much lighter and thinner than my MacBook Pro, and still is capable of handling a bulk of the tasks I do, while offering more screen space than my iPhone, which is great, especially for reading and writing. I wrote most of this article on my iPad. In the end, the iPad will become a constant tool for me, especially when I’m away from the office.