A Year of Scripture- A lesson in discipline and relationship (And how I plan on studying the Bible this year)

Have you ever had that moment where you are sitting there where you realize that maybe you know of God that you don’t know God. Or that maybe you are doing all the “right things” but really it is just going through the motions.

This moment for me was almost 3 years ago, while I sat in the conference room of a hotel listening to a speaker while attending my first leadership congress. But things did not change overnight. Well somethings did, but a lot did not.

Since that night I have learned that while you can live with someone, you cannot have a relationship with them. The only way to have a relationship with someone is to be intentional, while meeting someone may start “by accident” the relationship itself is intentional. Your best friend did you learn her favorite color, or song, or tv show, by osmosis or did you ask her questions (intentionally learning about her) I’ve learned the same applies to our relationship with God. He is always there, walking with is ready to save, listen and guide us, but we have to be intentional and ask questions to learn more about Him, to build a relationship with Him.

And I just want to say, I’m no expert in this I have not read the whole bible, I have not been to seminary, I do not know Hebrew or Greek. The whole not being an expert in things is kinda the whole idea of this blog. But all that being said, I am still learning, and struggling, my flesh still wins more often than I would like to admit, I struggle with worry, anxiety, lust, jealousy and a lot more. But one of the goals of this blog is to make someone else out there feel less alone in their journey, and encourage them, another is to push myself outside of my comfort zone and be honest.

So here is my thoughts, and plans when I comes to studying the Bible.

There is a difference between Studying and Reading…

And while this seems like a “Duh that’s obvious” but it is important because it makes a difference. You need to have honest with how much time you are spending on reading or studying your bible, and your expectations.

If you just want to read your bible you can easily do it in less than 30 minutes a day for a year, and you have read the whole Bible. But you are not going to be able to read through, then highlight and color code, while doing a bible study, and writing our a prayer, and complete the whole bible in just 30 minutes a day for a year. This is why expectations are important.

But you do not have to pick one or the other, you just need a plan. My plan looks something like this

1) Read whole Bible

2) Study Parts of the Bible- in a way that makes sense to me

3) Write down my prayers.

My plan is not complicated. When you break it down to these few rules. So set your expectations, you can set a time line and while I would like to finish reading my bible by the end of next summer, I don’t know if that will happen. But completing a book by a certain date, has never really worked for me. If I read it great, but did I learn anything? Did it change me? This is the Word of God, if it is not changing me, I’m not reading it, I’m checking boxes on a chart.

Select a Reading Chart

I started a chart, that my church had available. The One Year Bible Reading Plan by Rose Publishing that you can order here. There are three different options with this one. Option 1- Old and New Testament, Psalms, and Proverbs, or Option 2- The Seven Biblical Sections and Option 3- Beginning to End

I really liked Option 2 The Seven Biblical Sections. it breaks the Bible into seven sections Epistles, The Law, History, Psalms, Poetry, Prophecy, and Gospels. You read one section each day. So an example week would look like

Sunday - Luke 1-2

Monday- 2 Cor 9-10

Tuesday- Ex 25-28

Wednesday- 2 Sam 15-19

Thursday- Psalms 57-59

Friday- Job 39-40

Saturday - Jeremiah 37-41

And you can just follow the chart as is, not changing a thing, or because I'm also studying the books of Matthew, (chapter by chapter at church) and the book of Luke (with my younger sister and mom) and Psalms at Community Bible Study. I marked the chapters we’ve read and studied in those settings (when they are completed.) But if I get to a day I’ve already marked as done, then I go to the next one. So I don’t study History every Wednesday. Also because we are jumping around a lot in Psalms I skip those entirely, and when I compete my psalms study I will see if we missed any and I will read those and mark what I’ve completed.

There’s not really a wrong way to use one of these charts, you just need to find one that works for you. You can find them on Pinterest for free, or just a few dollars and maybe I will make one and link it on here one day.

So now you have a chart, let’s talk Bibles.

What Bible do you use?

I can’t and won’t tell you which Bible translation to use, but I can tell you what Bible translations I use. My parents have always use NASB New American Standard Bible, so I have one of those, it’s a McArthur Study Bible which has amazing Commentary in it. And I have a message Bible (even if I know that one will get me some hate) but the one I use day in and day out and that I keep coming back to is New Living Translation. And I plan on purchasing a ESV in the future. And I know not everyone is a fan of writing in their bibles or books. But I love the idea of being able to go back and see how faithful God was in that season, or going back and flipping through old family bibles and finding notes from my great-grandmother or great uncles.

So I have a journalling bible. But I don’t copy notes, or drawings from online. (Use to I totally would have) I will write my sermon notes, study notes or even small quotes from commentary, but only the books I’m studying. The rest is for me to write prayers. And again this is personal preference. But I communicate better through writing than I do speaking. (Or at least I think I do) I find it easier to get my thoughts out on paper so I write out my prayers, (not all but a lot of my payers) but I also want to be able to see how God answered prayers, even the ones I don’t remember well.

If you are interested in purchasing a bible from hosanna revival like mine you can use this link and I will receive a credit for your referral (and I suggest you sign up for the program as well)

And last while digital bibles have there place, they are great when you can’t remember where a verse is found but I think we need to use physical bibles, but I know someone else can explain it better than I

5 reasons we need Physical Bibles back in the Church

1) Satan can’t distract you through what you’re reading

2) You develop a unique relationship with the weight, feel and touch of your bible.

3) You will do nothing with your bible but connect with God (Its a single use tool)

4) It grows as you grow- the highlights, notes, prayers, and tears cried on the pages

5) If it is how they read the truth in 70AD it should be satisfactory for us in 2021 (2025)

Charlie Kirk

What I use to Study the Bible…

Well I mentioned that we are studying Matthew at church so I’m listening to my pastor, while he preaches about each section. We are going chapter by chapter, and section by section. A lot of times, verse by verse.

And for the book of Psalms I attend Community Bible Study once a week, and while young adult groups are great, I love attending with various ages from college students to retired grandmothers.

But the resource I have used the longest is Balancing the Sword. The books we used in my homeschool years for Bible Curriculum. Now my youngest sister is using these books to study the gospels, with me and my mom.

And I’m sure there are various ways to use them but this is how we use them. After making copies of the pages from the book we are studying. So in this case Luke. I make copies the pages for studying Luke, I make 3 copies. We either spiral bind them or put them in a binder. We read the chapter, or listen to the audio book bible chapter. And answer the questions, and look up verses. Everyone knows what their verses are before hand, when we were younger, each sister got one verse and my mom would look up the rest, as we go older we rotated, starting with my sister, then me, then my mom repeat.

I love how it connects the bigger pictures, and shows you when things are repeated. But there are times we honestly don’t understand what a verse has to do with a question.

Highlighting and Colorcodes

I have been highlighting in my bible for years. And if you know me you’ll know that I love taking notes, (again hence this blog) and annotating is just another way of taking notes. I found a color code that I have been using for a while, changing it a little as I needed. Switching orange for tan when my entire bible was turning orange.

Purple- God, Lord, Holy Spirit, Messiah, Savior, words God spoke

Pink- Women, Households, family, Friendships, relationships

Green- Faith, Hope, Promises of God, Salvation, Obedience, Fruit, Fellowship, Repentance, Spreading the Gospel

Red- Love, Kindness, Mercy, Grace and if its underlined in red its words Jesus spoke

LIGHT Blue- Wisdom, Teaching, Doctrinal beliefs, and words of conversations.

Yellow- Worship, Prayer, praise, angels, prophecy, Miracles and Power of God

Tan- I joke that this is my noun color because its places, people, times, genealogies, vows and oaths.

Grey- Satan, Sin, death, Evil, false teaching, and God’s Judgement.

Photograph of my highlighters and color code

Recently I have added tabs as well, for certain prayers and passages. I just ordered annotating tabs from amazon. They have been helpful but definitely not required.

Writing my prayers in my journalling bible is something I have recently added, but I have already enjoyed looking back over the last few months and how I have grown and the prayers that have been answered. I think about like flipping through a family photo album but with my relationship with God.

And lastly, I want to remind you that what works for me might not work for you, take what advice you like and leave the rest.