Part way through March I decided to read through Luke's Gospel in preparation for Easter.
I worked it out that by reading two chapters a day, excluding weekends, I'd make it to the crucifixion narratives by Good Friday and could get to the resurrection by Easter Sunday. It seemed an achievable plan with a good outcome.
This week I was up to Luke 16. Fail.
I should perhaps make it clear that the reason I'm only up to chapter 16 isn't because I got waylaid spending extra time plumbing the depths of earlier chapters of Luke. No, it was just because I didn't manage to stick to my plan of reading two chapters a day; some days I only managed one (some of those chapters are really long!), and some days I didn't read my Bible at all.
Perhaps that's a confession from a member of the clergy that will shock people - or a confession from the Principal of a Bible College that will concern you. And perhaps it should.
I've often reflected on the order appointed for reading the Bible in Morning and Evening prayer set out in the Book of Common Prayer - the Old Testament would get read through once, the New Testament twice, and the Psalms would be read through once every month. Though not every member of the village would make it to church twice a day, at least the clergy would.
Which means that for someone like me who has been ordained for fifteen years, I would have read through the Old Testament 15 times, the New Testament 30 times and the Psalms 180 times!
It's not hard to imagine that after that sort of pattern an Anglican minister would be very familiar with the word of God. Reading through half of Luke's Gospel in a month is not much in comparison.
But is it simply the quantity of Bible reading that's the point?
We know that it can't be - the Pharisees were world champions at Bible study and yet Jesus rebuked them in John 5:39-40 saying "You search the Scriptures because you think that in them you have eternal life; and it is they that bear witness about me, yet you refuse to come to me that you may have life."
Just reading and studying the Bible isn't the point. The point is to "let the word of Christ dwell in you richly" (Colossians 3:16). And sometimes reading through the Bible can be helpful in that regard; but not always.
I've often embarked on reading-through-the-Bible-in-a-year projects in the past. They often began well, but all finished well before the task was achieved, and just after I'd spent an afternoon 'getting through' fifteen chapters of Deuteronomy, twelve chapters of Romans and six minor prophets just to get back on track. Suddenly the enterprise seemed to be less about hearing the Holy Spirit speaking and more about marking off my to-do list.
I heard a talk by Tim Keller reflecting on the parable of the prodigal son where he reflected on the attitude of the older brother - the brother who sinned against his father by doing the right things for the wrong reasons.
Keller challenged his hearers to think about how much time we spend contemplating God, how much time we spend just quietly reflecting on who God is and what he's done rather than rushing about doing the good deeds we've decided he wants us to do. His point was that older brothers don't spend much time in contemplation.
I wonder whether older brothers don't have time for contemplation because they're too busy trying to read the whole Bible in one year?
