Reflections on Reading the Old Testament in Twelve Weeks

Last weekend I finished up a goal I made 3 months earlier: To read through the Old Testament in 12 weeks.

The parameters were originally set as a means of testing the viability of such a reading plan for a Sunday School class for one quarter on a Survey of the Old Testament.

I quickly realized there was no way that that would fly (if we ever do a class like that, it will be at least two quarters of the year, not one), but having extra time in the final quarter of 2017 (or so I thought at the time), I decided to take the time to do the reading anyway for my own benefit.

It was not exactly the easiest Bible reading plan I've ever attempted. Depending on the week, I averaged somewhere around 10-15 chapters of reading per day. Amazingly, I managed to keep up with it and finished it on time to the day of my schedule (despite missing a few days along the way).

Since this kind of reading plan is a bit unusual, I thought I would write out a few thoughts that going through this 12-week plan brought to my mind.

• 1. Counter-intuitively, reading longer amounts of Scripture made me more likely to read carefully

Maybe most Christians aren't like me, but I find that I tend to rush through devotions too often. There are a lot of days where I read 2-4 chapters, but because I'm in a rush I take little benefit out of it.

Reading a longer section didn't make me less likely to rush - and there were definitely some days where I was guilty of this still - but I found that because it would take at least thirty minutes to read through a section like this I was more likely to stop, remind myself to slow down and read carefully, and then continue the reading.

The end result is that I found myself actually at times reading more carefully than I do normally on many occasions, despite reading quite a bit more than what is typical for me.

• 2. Having a clear schedule and a tight goal made reading a priority for me

I'll be honest, I haven't really used Bible reading plans much in recent years. I tend to just read through different books of the Bible over a week in addition to whatever books I'm studying at the moment.

But since I do read the Bible every day as part of my normal weekly study, it can be easy to miss days or use that as an excuse to put off separate devotional reading since my schedule from day to day tends to be somewhat irregular.

However, having this kind of goal and schedule set down for the first time in quite a while, I found that it helped me make the reading a priority - much more so than it is normally - even if that meant I ended up finishing all or most of it in bed at night.

As I noticed that, it made me wonder if I've been doing myself a disservice in recent years by not using a schedule or reading plan.

I can't say for sure how much other people have in common with me on that point, but I would suggest that if you find it difficult to 'find time' to read, the answer may be simply to make it a priority.

A lot of times, I think we can worry about whether we're reading the Bible just to fill an arbitrary quota rather than out of love for God and a desire to pursue him.

Honestly, though, I think that misses the point. We don't love God or delight in Christ at random times (okay, sometimes we do, but that isn't the lesson to get here), we love and delight in him because we give him our time regularly as we pursue him, just as we do anything else we love or delight in.

How do we feel love for God? By pursuing him. How do we pursue him? Through listening for his voice. How do we listen for his voice? By dumping all the pop-Christianity books whose authors claim God speaks to them and instead reading the only actual book that contains God's voice: The Bible.

I didn't fall in love with my wife by saying, "You know, I'm not sure I feel in love with Emily today - I think I'll wait till I feel like it to spend time with her." That would be utterly insane, but that is how we can tend to treat our relationship with God.

We don't pursue God necessarily because we always feel love for him, nor do we do so exclusively because we think we're supposed to; rather, we pursue God for the purpose that we may grow in love for him because he is the only One in this life who is truly worthy of being pursued and delighted in.

I don't pretend to know what anyone else's schedule looks like, but I would suspect that most look quite a bit different than mine. Find what works for you, but make sure that however it happens time in the Scripture is a priority for you. Ultimately, we find time for whatever it is we most value.

• 3. Reading large amounts of Scripture can be just as beneficial as reading small amounts

Much of modern Christianity, in my observance, has sort of lost sight of how to read the Bible. A lot of the blame goes to the heavy focus on individual verses, whether through bookmarks, Scripture memory, or whatever else.

I'm not saying that those things are bad (many of them are very good), but unfortunately they have inadvertantly or otherwise led many believers into a way of reading the Bible that stunts our ability to read the Bible with any kind of depth.

The Bible is a book like most books: of words, written with mostly normal rules of grammar, syntax, etc. And yet, too often, we read the whole Bible like we read Proverbs: as a book of mostly unrelated verses that we can tear out of their context without damaged.

It is true that there is a spiritual dimension to reading the Bible, but that misses the point that the Bible is still largely understood the way we understand any other form of verbal communication.

The meaning of the Scripture is the Scripture. You cannot divorce what the Bible meant when it was written from what it means to you. The former must necessarily precede the latter or else the Bible has no meaning at all.

What am I getting at? Namely this: While there is much benefit to be gained from poring over a single verse in the Bible, the best way to study the Bible is through the natural thought/paragraph separations in each book.

Studying one verse is to zero in on one fragment of those thought sections. We can see more detail this way, but it can also be easy to lose sight of how it fits into the whole - and that is where the danger lies.

A verse cut from it's context and interpreted without consider the whole of Scripture more often than not leads to one of many false understandings of the Bible, such as moralism, legalism, anti-nomianism, etc. to varying degrees.

Conversely, while the problem of studying a very small section of Scripture has the benefit of giving more detail but the consequence of potentially losing sight of the whole into which it fits, pulling back and viewing a larger section - e.g. a chapter or a book of the Bible - has different benefits and potential pitfalls.

Reading a chapter, or especially a whole book, over a short amount of time, gives a very different - and often missed - perspective on that passage. It helps us to see how all the little details fit into the whole.

To understand the Bible, we must understand the message of the Bible as a whole. Likewise, to understand any of the books in the Bible, we must first understand why they are in the Bible. Secondly, in order to understand fully what we see in that individual book of the Bible, we need to grasp what the content of that individual book is.

While we often do Bible studies of small sections of Scripture, I think there is much benefit to be gained from reading entire books in one sitting (or as few as possible) before studying it more closely.

This is a benefit that, in my experience, is too often missed because we're so focused on the glory of the leaf or the tree that we miss the glory of the forest.

These are a few of the thoughts that came to my mind as I worked my way through the last twelve weeks of reading. Lord willing, I intend to read through the New Testament in six weeks, starting in January after taking two weeks off.

Studying with Study Bibles

This may seem an odd way to break my blogging extended break, but I've been thinking about a couple of posts I'd like to write up over the next few weeks.

I'm just finishing a Bible reading plan in which I am reading the entire Old Testament over the course of twelve weeks. It was originally an idea for a Sunday School class (sort of an Old Testament Survey), but I quickly decided it was unfeasible to try to do the entire OT in one quarter. But the process has gotten some extended thoughts on the Bible onto my mind.

After I finish my reading of the OT (after next week), I'll write up some thoughts afterward as I have time regarding what I learned from that process.

However, during the process of reading over the Bible that quickly, it occurred to me that there is a lot in the Old Testament that isn't necessary clear on first reading, either to the average believer or even, often enough, to those of us who teach the Bible.

There are any number of reasons for this, from the fact that much of the OT was written to an entirely different audience as us, we don't always have strong familiarity with the background of each book, and we're immersed in a culture that encourages us to take bite-size segments out of context without much thought of how it relates to what is written around it. But that's a problem for another day.

Frankly, most pastors (including me) don't spend a lot of time teaching on some of the more difficult sections of the OT - such as the law and much of the prophets. This isn't entirely a problem, except that we encourage church members to read the Bible through every year without necessarily equipping people with the means to understand a fair bit of what they're reading.

Enter Study Bibles. This is a resource that can be quite valuable when used properly. My first Study Bible, properly speaking, was a MacArthur Student Bible. I've enjoyed and been blessed by many of them ever since.

While I personally don't use Study Bibles while doing my normal Bible reading or listening to sermons, that is more of a personal decision. Basically, I find them too distracting because I spend too much time reading the notes.

My personal use of Study Bibles comes in two primary ways: 1) When I come across a passage in which the meaning of a particular verse or paragraph isn't entirely clear to me; 2) When I want to understand the main thrust of a given book of the Bible (most Study Bibles will give a summary of the content of each book, as well as other helpful information, at the beginning of each book).

Now, given that there are different kinds of Study Bibles and varying types of content contained in each, it struck me it might be helpful to write up a post on some of my favorites as well encouraging people to get (as you are able to) and use Study Bibles.

With the rest of the post, I'd like to list the four Study Bibles I use most often and what I especially like about them. In no particular order:

The Reformation Heritage King James Study Bible

If you know me well, you know I don't really use the KJV all that much. My primary version is the ESV, but I can still appreciate the history, richness, and gravitas of the King James. Besides which, if you can afford it, I think most people would benefit from owning a King James Bible, even if it isn't your primary version.

If you're one of those who stick primarily to the KJV, you may have noticed there aren't a lot of good Study Bibles out there for you. A lot of the best ones - such as the MacArthur Study Bible - haven't been adapted to the KJV. Good news: The Reformation Heritage KJV Study Bible (General Editor, Joel Beeke) is a great resource.

In addition to the standard Study Bible features such as including introductions to each book and regular notes in each chapter, the RH Study Bible has some really excellent additions that set it apart and make it a regular resource that I turn to.

First, at the end of most chapters, the RHSB includes usually 2-3 devotional thoughts on the content of the chapter. While studying, my focus begins with understanding the meaning of the text, and it can be easy to quickly pass over practical and devotional considerations. I consider this inclusion to be worth the cost of the RHSB by itself.

Additionally, in the back of the Bible, the RHSB has a number of resources, such as:

- Three dozen articles (a page each) on 'How to Live as a Christian', with such subjects as: Humility, Fleeing Worldliness, Family Worship, and Godly Contentment
- A one page summary of each century in Christian history from the 1st century till today
- Nine creeds and confessions of the church, such as the Apostles' Creed, the Nicene Creed, the Heidelberg Catechism, and the Westminster Confession and Shorter and Longer Catechism - even for Christians who don't attend a confessional church (such as myself), it is helpful to understand what the Church at large has agreed are key and foundational biblical positions over the past two-thousand years.

This is a beautiful merging of theological and practical resources. Whether you use the KJV or not, this is a great resource and one I turn to regularly.

The one disclaimer I would give (as a Baptist): Since the notes reflect the Reformation and Puritan age of the Church, the study notes are slanted more in the Presbyterian/Covenantal direction. But this is the case with most Study Bibles - the notes reflect the theological positions of the author(s). That will be the case with virtually any form of teaching - including any of the Bibles listed below.

The New English Translation Study Bible

Called the NET Bible because it was released initially on the internet, this is one of the newer Bible versions out there today.

I will say right at the beginning that, while I really enjoy this Study Bible, it is not for everyone. The project was created under the premise that, in the pursuit of accuracy, the translation itself would not be as focused on word-for-word translation as some versions today.

Just to explain briefly: When translating from the original languages to English, decisions have to made regarding how literally to translate the language. While many often argue that we need the most literal translation we can get, this is not actually practical.

If you've ever looked at an interlinear Bible, it becomes quickly obvious that, at the least, the grammar needs to be re-worded at times to make the translation clear. Also, decisions need to be made as far as idioms that simply don't carry over from one language to another - do we retain the idiom word for word, despite the loss of clarity, or do we try to capture the sense of the idiom as we might say it in English?

The difference between the views are often labeled as Formal Equivalence (translations that lean more towards a literal word-for-word translation at the expense of clarity) and Dynamic Equivalence (translations that lean more towards a less literal thought-for-thought translation at the expense of accuracy). The range can be demonstrated on a graph such as the one below:

Obviously this is not a precise science, but it gives a rough sense for how the versions line up. On the far end of the left side is an interlinear Bible. Basically, this just takes the Greek and translates it rigidly into English, including the word order. On the far right we find paraphrases - these translations aren't particularly concerned about fidelity to the Greek, their primary concern is readability.

While there's a place for both extremes, the ideal Bible for normal reading and study will be something in between, which is where you see most versions lining up. The NET is not listed, but would probably be around the NIV area.

There is no 'perfect' place on the line between readability and accuracy, however. At the end of the day, they're all translations of some kind, it really comes down to what each person is looking for in a translation.

One thing that is interesting about the NET, however: The study notes section includes 3 types of notes.

1) TC - Text-critical

The Text Critical (TC) notes are a really good resource for anyone who is interested in textual criticism, regardless of what side you fall on in the textual debates. They're not exhaustive, but they cover most variants worth mentioning.

The Translation Notes (TN) are surprisingly interesting as well, though. I noted before that the NET focuses more on readability than accuracy. The intent is that the study notes will explain what the text literally says where they make a significant departure from the Greek or Hebrew. While I primarily got the NET SB for the TC notes, I found the TN notes to be a fascinating addition, and one that I go back to quite a bit.

The Study Notes (SN) were probably the most surprising to me. These notes explain statements and practices that might not be clear to us do the culture gaps between today and Bible times.

In the back, the NET SB has a number of maps - there are some traditional maps like you'd find in most Bibles, but it also includes satellite images of the holy land that are quite stunning. They aren't what you get this Bible for, but they're a nice extra.

Also in the back, there's a number of information on textual criticism related to papyri, codex's, etc. It's the kind of stuff I enjoy reading about, but it provides a good primer on the subject to any who know little or nothing on it but enjoy that type of study.

All in all, the NET SB is not a Bible I'd recommend to just anyone like I would the RHSB above, but to any who found the contents intriguing, you might enjoy this one. And while the NET isn't my top choice for a translation, I use it a lot for comparison purposes.

The MacArthur Study Bible

The benefits of this one are pretty straightforward. If you're familiar with John MacArthur, you know you're getting notes that come from deep, serious study. While I don't agree on everything with Dr. MacArthur, what I love about this Bible is that it's a quick reference work and it includes extensive Old Testament notes that you can't get elsewhere since his commentaries only cover the New Testament.

An added benefit is that the MacArthur SB is available in four versions, which offers a nice flexibility: NKJV, NASB, NIV, and ESV.

While it doesn't have a lot of the extra, fancy stuff that the previous two did, what it does have is good, solid notes that you can feel a reasonable degree of confidence in using to explain the text to you.

Obviously, MacArthur is not perfect (no one is, after all), but as a general rule, his work is as good as anyone else out there. I'd probably recommend this one to just about anyone as a good one-volume commentary that is accessible on a fairly basic level.

The ESV Study Bible

It goes without saying that this is an ESV only SB. It's also a bit bulky with notes. It isn't necessarily one you want to carry around with you. I spend a fair bit of time referencing in this one, however, because of how extensive the notes are. The editors do a good job of explaining the different views on controversial subjects like eschatology and the ordinances, etc.

Whether you use the ESV or not, this still functions as a nice one-volume commentary, reference book. I enjoy it and it remains one of my go-to choices.

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Basically, the important thing for believers to be immersed in the word. Psalm 119, for instance, makes clear what the attitude of one who is united to Christ by faith will be in regards to the message of God. True believers delight in God's word and spend a great deal of our time reading it, thinking about it, and studying it, to whatever degree they are able.

The blessing, then, of Study Bibles, is clear: Wherever something is unclear - and let's be honest, there's a fair bit of this for all of us - it is helpful to have a resource(s) we can use to shed light on the text.

Even if you don't end up agreeing with the position in the Study Bible you use, you'll at least see a position on the passage that at least has a history of acceptance in the Church (which is more than we can say for our limited perspective on the text).

The more I study into the history of God's people, the more humbled I am at the gift we possess today in the riches of resources available to bring the word to us. If we love God, we should take advantage of it.