Devoting Ourselves to the Public Reading of Scripture

When Paul writes to Timothy during his absence, among a broader list of things including not neglecting his gifts, paying close attention to his teaching, and his perseverance in the faith, Paul notes, “Until I come, give your attention to public reading of Scripture, exhortation, and teaching….” (1 Tim 4.11–16). When Paul writes to Timothy during his absence, among a broader list of things including not neglecting his gifts, paying close attention to his teaching, and his perseverance in the faith, Paul notes, “Until I come, give your attention to public reading of Scripture, exhortation, and teaching….” (1 Tim 4.11–16).

When God called Israel out of the bondage of Egyptian slavery, he wanted to reform them and make them his. As God says, “Although the whole earth is mine, you will be for me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation. These are the words, Moses, you are to speak to the Israelites…” (Exd 19.5–6). God wants to make them priests and holy, and the way that he begins this in Exodus 19.6 is by having Moses speak God’s words to them. In fact, one of the primary reasons that they go to Mt. Sinai is to receive God’s words, which Moses reads to all of the people aloud, and to which they respond “All the Lord has said, we will do!” (Exd 24.3). The people were new, and they needed to be made new. God does this by recounting their history (there’s a reason that Moses is responsible for the Torah, the first time Israel would have had these ancient stories that many likely didn’t know in writing!). A people who has a past also has a future, and Moses wants the people to know both.

At Smoky Hill, we recognize that we have a New Year and a new opportunity be transformed by the power of God's Word, as well. So we're encouraging everyone to read along together and to make this part of our daily lives. We invite you to join us!

Reading the Bible Together in 2024

Reading the Bible is good to do. We all say it. We all know it. But it’s hard to do. Sometimes, we’ll make a big push at the beginning of the year and… fall off track pretty quickly (those who haven’t fallen off the wagon in February about the time we hit Leviticus should cast the first stone!). That’s because it’s tough to do in some ways, especially when we haven’t formed a habit of it, quite yet. But it’s a good habit for me to form and I think it’s a good habit for us all to form. Because God’s Word is powerful and it can piece our hearts, and interacting with it is one way that God can transform our lives.

So, for 2024, I want to invite you to read the Bible with me. In fact, I want us all to read it through, together. And I want to do some things to help make it more meaningful for us, as well. Here’s the plan.

• Reading: Reading the Bible is different from studying the Bible. Sometimes we emphasize study so much that we don’t emphasize reading enough! I want to ask you to do something that might seem pretty strange, though: I want you to read the Bible just like you read any other book. Most of the time (unless we’re reading a textbook!), we don’t study when we read. We just read, enjoy, and let the story change us. That’s what I want us to do with the Bible during our reading time! If we want to study more on top of that, that’s fine. But for our daily Bible reading this year, let’s focus on just reading it. This will make things quicker and will help expose us more broadly to God’s Word without getting bogged down in details for now! We’ll read through the entire Bible one time, in the order it is in our Bibles, from Genesis to Revelation. The specifics for that week will be in the View, and I’ll also put a QR Code and Link to the whole year’s plan for us in an email so you can follow along! Some folks like to just screen shot

• Meditation: In addition to reading from the Bible every day, each day we’ll go through just one Psalm. This means that, over the course of the year, we’ll have read the entire book of Psalms more than twice! This will help us see how often the Psalms overlap with the biblical story, as well as allowing us to have something in our minds that we can meditate on through the day. You can either read the Psalm first, or after your daily Bible reading. Some people like reading the Psalm in the morning and the reading at night, or vice versa! Find what works for you.

• Review: To help us review, once each month I will preach on the Daily Bible Reading! This will probably look a little different each time—it might be on that day’s specific text, or something from that week; it might be a review of a book we’ve just finished, or one we’re about to start, but it will be tied to what we’re all thinking about. In fact, this sort of interaction is something I’d encourage! If you’re leading a Wednesday night talk, you might find it beneficial to take something from what you’re reading for that day or for that week. If you’re leading a Lord Supper talk, you might find inspiration from the Psalms that you’ve been meditation on. I think as you get used to thinking about and working through Scripture like this, you’ll find all sorts of connections with your other Bible classes, as well!

• Suggestions to Make it Easier: But let’s try and make it as easy as possible. A few things that might help you! 1) Read from a Bible that looks like a book: if you have a Bible that is single column, and paragraph spaced… it’s just easier for our brains to read. If you have a Reading Bible that doesn’t have chapters or verses, it might be even easier! 2) Try and audio-Bible: there are a ton of audio-Bibles with excellent readers out there for free or very cheap. A lot of people I know have had success just making listing to it as they’re getting ready for work (or for bed) or driving to work helps them add it into what they’re already doing. 3) Try something different: maybe a new version, maybe a new Bible, maybe highlight or take notes in the side. Sometimes just doing something different will make it easier to get started.

• What if Something Goes Wrong: But we all have good intentions. It’s probably good for us to ask what to do if something goes wrong—life gets crazy and things fall off of our plate (I’m definitely not writing this bulletin article last second because of a hospital visit and solo-parenting….). Believe me, I get it. Things happen. Here’s the thing, don’t let that trip you up too badly. Don’t worry about “catching up” in the Reading Plan. Skip the days you missed and don’t worry about it. Just start over where you’re at. Don’t try and make up the days or the weeks you missed; just start new and just do that day’s reading. Believe me: grace is necessary and this way you don’t let the whole thing snowball on you!

So, let’s join with Timothy and Christians throughout time and space in listening to Paul’s exhortation: “Until I come, give your attention to public reading of Scripture….” (1 Tim 4.11–16).

The Reading Plan

We're taking our reading plan from the Bible Project. This plan lets us work through the Bible in the order of the Canon but alongside it to also read the psalms! If you want, there are videos or blogs to interact with if that helps motivate you!