The Pilgrimage

One of the great growth years of my Christian journey was 1991, when I read the Bible through for the first time. 

Like most people who grow up in a Christian home and a good church, I was taught the importance of reading my Bible from an early age.  Unfortunately, I was also like most in that my Bible had too often sat on the shelf collecting dust. 

But powerful – even radical - things happen when we actually get around to reading God’s Word.  That year was transformational for me.  In reading the Bible through, the Big Picture started to come together.  I started to see the tapestry formed by the major biblical themes.  I started to really begin to grasp the biblical principles that one sees over and over in reading the Bible from cover to cover.  Consequently, I started to think more biblically about all kinds of issues…which is the starting point for living differently. 

Something that helped that first time I read the Bible from cover to cover was that I had a partner to talk with about each day’s reading.  That was Melissa.  We were just dating at the time, and I was in North Carolina going to seminary and she was in Virginia.  Still, during our daily phone conversations we would take a few minutes to talk and sometimes pray about what God had shown us in His Word that day. 

Reading the whole Bible together had an incredible impact on us as individuals and as a couple.  It also helped hold both of us accountable.  If one of us slipped in our reading, the other could encourage.  Furthermore, in talking with one another each day about the reading, it drove what we were learning that much deeper into our minds and hearts.

I hope you will read the Bible through this year, using the bookmarks our church is providing.  What’s more, I hope you will take the journey with others, and talk about what you are learning.  Let’s make 2008 a banner year in our lives and in the life of our church family!