The Weekly Messianic Taste of Hidden Manna #59
The Bliss and Benefits of Reading the Bible Through in a Year
The Bliss and Benefits of Learning to Read the Bible
One restful Sunday afternoon when I was a boy, my mother and grandmother handed me a children’s book of stories from the Bible. They told me to sound out the words and slowly try to read each page. With excitement, determination, and a little assistance, I eventually exclaimed: “I can read it”! Oh the bliss and benefits of learning to read, and how amazing to have my first introduction to the Bible! Later in my teen years after I had truly come to know Messiah Yeshua, some friends took me to the Heritage House in Brockton, MA (now in its 57th year) to gift me with my first Bible. What a treasure it was to me. I spent every available minute exploring it and experienced the bliss and benefits of reading the Bible. However, sadly, it was only much later in life that I was ever discipled into reading the Bible through in a year.
The Bliss and Benefits of Reading the Bible Through in a Year
Just a couple of years ago, I had the privilege of going to the opening of a local Shalom Center and Judaica Museum. A friend named Susan who was one of the benefactors shared the story of how she came to know the bliss and benefits of reading the Bible. She grew up with the blessing of reading and studying the Bible at the kitchen table with her mother. She then developed the habit of reading the Bible through every year. This, she emphasized, allowed her as a follower of Yeshua Messiah to understand the Scriptures from their own inherently and primarily Jewish perspectives from Genesis to Revelation. She learned that the overarching ‘story’ of the Bible is one of Jewish particularism with a universal horizon that involves all nations (see Messianic Taste of Hidden Manna posts #8, 9, & 10). Wondrous, yes? In fact, I now teach a micro course entitled: “The Biggest Picture of What God Has Only Ever and Always Been Doing in History: Jewish Particularism with a Universal Horizon That Involves All Nations”.
Which ‘Read the Bible Through in a Year’ Plan Did You Choose This Year?
My wife has faithfully followed the same Bible reading plan every year for decades. She has such a wondrous handle on the overall content of the Bible because of it. I’ve been choosing different plans in YouVersion for the past few years in order to read along with others in our own congregation. This year I am doing the ‘Eat This Book: One Year Bible with Daily Psalm’ plan with brother Jabari. We started a little late this year, but anyone can catch up and join others in any plan. The only plans I would avoid are those that artificially impose their own themes on the Bible and rob the reader from discovering the Bible’s own themes. Which ‘Read the Bible Through in a Year’ plan did you choose this year?
The ‘Eat This Book’ Plan and the World Messianic Bible (WMB) Translation
Interestingly, the ‘Eat This Book’ plan has the books of the Earlier Scriptures in the canonical order found in the Hebrew & Aramaic Tanakh. Thus, Chronicles ends the Earlier Scriptures and flows right into Matthew as the first book of the Later Scriptures. This is so beautiful, as the genealogy in Matthew 1 is intentionally derived from Chronicles! Also, for the second year in a row, I have chosen to read the World Messianic Bible (WMB) translation in the plan. It is easy to read, overall quite good, and adequately reJudaizes the names in the Scriptures. It was brother Cliff Berman that put me onto that electronic-only translation a few years back. He had been using it on the Bible app that he had installed on his phone, so we evaluated it together the first year that our congregation started to encourage shared annual reading plans on YouVersion.
The Bliss and Benefits!
Oh, that we all might know the bliss and benefits of reading the Bible through in a year with fellow Messiah followers. At the very least, it involves the actual knowing of YHWH God and Messiah, as well as what it means to live out the ‘way of the LORD’ by doing righteousness and justice (Gen 18:19)—now as a new creation in Messiah (2 Cor 5:17)! And, let us never forget that “whatever was written in earlier times was written for our instruction, so that through the perseverance and the encouragement of the Scriptures we may have hope”. (Rom 15:4)
In your service always, Henri Louis Goulet
Graphic courtesy of Ben White, Unsplash
Comentários