Welcome to 'A Chapter a Day'. Here I'll be reading and commenting on the Bible one chapter at a time, from Genesis to Revelation. It'll take about four-and-a-half years, starting January 1st, 2013 and posting every weekday, assuming I actually stick to it. I'm counting on y'all to help me keep this commitment.
Why do this at all? I've read through the Bible before, in several translations, usually over the course of a year each time. Over the last couple of years, I've used a modified form of Grant Horner's plan, in which I read ten chapters a day from several parts of the Bible, starting each section over once I'd completed it. This was great in that I never read the same ten chapters together, and it really helped me get a good overview of Scripture and see how it fits together.
The downside of Horner's system is three-fold: first, ten chapters is a lot for most people. I'm always the first to castigate Bible weenies who can never find time to read, but even for a voracious reader like me it can become a chore to get through. Second, you're only reading pieces of a book at a time, rather than the whole thing, which can make it difficult to follow along. Third, and related to the other two, the Horner system is designed to be almost speed-reading, which means you can't really stop and meditate on any one passage for very long.
So this year I'm doing something different. I intend to go one chapter at a time, praying and thinking over what it says and writing down my thoughts as I go. I can promise you it won't be anything profound or world-changing; I've got a little ministry education, but I'm no ivory twoer scholar. Please feel free to tell me how wrong I am, too; I actually hope that we can use this time to discuss differences of interpretation between people and denominations, and maybe I'll even learn something from it.
So until January 1, may God's grace and mercy be upon us all.
-- Chris
