Thursday, January 1, 2009

Welcome To 2009

As we begin the new year many people will have made resolutions to stop smoking, to lose weight, to exercise more, or one of countless other things. Among the resolutions that Christians make is often the resolution to read through the Bible in the new year. If this is something that you have decided to do I may have just the thing to help you; the folks over at the ESV Study Bible Blog have taken the yearly reading plan that is found in the back of the ESV Study Bible and the Literary Study Bible and put it into a bookmark form that can be printed and cut into four separate bookmarks that you can stick in your Bible and keep track of where you are each day.

You can print them here:
Bible Reading Plan Bookmarks
The thing that I really like about this reading plan is that you read a small section from each of four different sections of the Bible: Psalms and Wisdom Literature; Pentateuch and the History of Israel; Chronicles and Prophets; and Gospels and Epistles. The reason that I like this is because most times when people commit to reading though the Bible in a year they start out and everything is going well but by the time they get to Leviticus (or some other tough book) they give up because they are having a hard time reading several chapters of this or that particular book each day and they fall so far behind that they think they can never get caught back up, so they quit.

Unlike those plans that start in Genesis and just read straight though the Bible, several chapters a day, book-by-book, until you finish Revelation, this plan has you reading just one chapter a day from each of the above mentioned sections, so when you hit a tough spot in your reading the most you will have to read that day is just one chapter from that section.

So go over to the ESV Study Bible Blog, print out you bookmarks, and join me as we read through the Bible in 2009.

And as we begin 2009 we would do well to remember this quote from the great Puritan author and pastor, Thomas Watson:
The soul being so precious, and salvation so glorious, it is the highest point of prudence to make preparations for another world.
It is my prayer that each of us, myself included, would take this to heart and spend 2009 not worrying about what we become in this world that is passing away, but that we will make it our highest priority to prepare for the world to come.

Welcome to 2009!
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