Why we're using a One Year Bible
The importance of reading and understanding God's Word cannot be understated. The Bible is our source of life and truth. Without the Bible we would have no knowledge of God. The Bible is our source of relationship with God. He has written it for us. The most important thing we can do for any person is to help them develop the habit of daily time in God's Word and to help them understand the Word and to follow the Lord. This is the most important and simplest thing we can do for people to have the greatest impact on their lives for Christ.
Most discipleship materials use the Bible as a source; that is, people look up verses to support ideas. The hope of every discipleship course is to interest people in becoming students or daily readers of the Bible. Yet even in this process, people are taught that the Bible is the support book. I have heard people say, "It takes so long to do the discipleship studies, and then you want me to be reading the Bible too? Even in trying to interest people in the Bible, we focus on teaching people "Bible study methods." Most people will not learn these methods, and fewer will be capable of passing them on to others. In the final event, most Christians will be more at home reading a popular author than reading the Bible. They will read a devotional guide for their quiet times, focused on someone writing about the Word, but they will seldom look up the verses that are cited.
I remember 35 years ago when my uncle asked me if I had ever read the Bible. I told him that I had started, but that I had stopped in the third book. I have found that this is the same with a lot of people.
As a pastor, I have read the Bible through every year for the past 19 years. The first two years were incredibly hard. It just isn't easy to read the Bible through. Then, someone in a home Bible study suggested the One Year Bible. We all got one and began encouraging each other to keep up. It became a lot easier to read the Bible through.
First, the book is self-contained. You don't have to find a reading plan or page through a Bible. It is all there. As tired as I have been some mornings, I can handle that.
Second, the readings always have something interesting somewhere. So it means that you can find some part of the Old Testament or New Testament that is meaningful to you.
Third, it teaches a kind of discipline and consistency. As a pastor I have never used my work hours for my quiet time. I get up early and I always thought I was very consistent. Maybe I'd miss a couple of days here and there. With the One Year Bible I began to mark the pages at the top with a number to designate the current year. I always knew if I had read a page or not. Imagine my surprise coming to the Bible one morning after having missed a couple of days and finding that I hadn't read for a week. Then I had to get caught up. Then it happened again. Now, after 17 years I seldom fall behind.
Fourth, after a few years you begin building on what you read the previous year. The Bible not only becomes very familiar, but there are some interesting surprises simply because it's the One Year Bible. For example, on February 13th you read Exodus 36:35 and Matthew 27:51. You notice that one is talking about the veil being made, and the other is talking about the veil being rent. I think that's pretty cool.
Fifth, if you are doing this in a group, the group provides accountability to help you to finish and to develop the habit of reading the Bible every year.
After all of these years I have heard many objections to the "chopped up-ness" of the One Year Bible. But after people try another way of reading the Bible through, eventually after a couple of attempts, the only way they ever read the Bible through is with the One Year Bible. It works, year after year.
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