A Bible Reading Plan
This might change how you see the Bible.
I have read the Bible through more than ten times. Several times I found a reading plan online that specified which chapters to read daily to complete the reading in a year. I have used several different plans, reading in different orders: straight through beginning to end, chronologically, by theme, etc. The problem this can introduce is that the plan usually has just three to four chapters per day to space out reading to complete it in a year. Sometimes stories go on for more chapters than that and sometimes the chapter breaks are at odd places having you stop in the middle of a narrative causing context to be lost when coming back to continue.
The above is a quote directly out of my book Blessings & Curses: if my people… Now that I have some experience with this, I would like to offer my recommendation as to how to approach reading the Bible.
As with any book, the best place to begin is at the beginning, Genesis 1:1. I strongly recommend starting there. To me, it makes little sense to start a story other than “In the beginning.” There is another book of the Bible that begins with those very words, “In the beginning,” that is the book of John. Too often new Christians are told to start reading the Bible in either John, or Matthew, the first book of the New Testament. In order to help understand why this is not the best idea, let me again quote from my book:
“And this is the testimony of John, when the Jews sent priests and Levites from Jerusalem to ask him, ‘Who are you?’ He confessed, and did not deny, but confessed, ‘I am not the
ChristMessiah.’ And they asked him, ‘What then? Are you Elijah?’ He said, ‘I am not.’ ‘Are you the Prophet?’ And he answered, ‘No.’ So they said to him, ‘Who are you? We need to give an answer to those who sent us. What do you say about yourself?’ He said, ‘I am the voice of one crying out in the wilderness, “Make straight the way ofthe LordYehovah,” as the prophet Isaiah said.’ (Now they had been sent from the Pharisees.) They asked him, ‘Then why are you baptizing, if you are neither theChristMessiah, nor Elijah, nor the Prophet?’” John 1:19‑25 (ESV).The questions that the priests and Levites ask John are interesting. They ask, “Are you Elijah?” Elijah is a prophet. Next, they ask, “Are you the Prophet?” To which he says, “No.” They are asking if he is a specific Prophet that they did not name. They did not name the Prophet but apparently John knew he was not that Prophet. Are we left out of the story? What are we missing? The ones asking the question knew who they meant. John understood what they were asking. Everyone else that heard this exchange understood it. What is unspoken here?
If you begin reading in John, in the first chapter you are already at a loss as to what John the Baptist and the priests and Levites were talking about. I do explain this much deeper in my book. There is an answer and you will only find it in the Bible if you start at the beginning.
Now we know where to start. I highly recommend reading Genesis to Deuteronomy, the five books of Moses, also known as the Torah, five times through. Do this somewhat quickly so that the context stays with you; dragging it out too long and you can lose track of what you read earlier. Unless you are reading in the original Hebrew, I would also suggest reading a different translation each time through this since translation is interpretation and you might see things differently if you have several interpretations to compare and contrast. So, you might ask, “If I am not Jewish, why would I want to read the Torah that many times?” Interesting question. Without a good understanding of Torah, you will not really understand the dialog between Yeshua/Jesus and the Pharisees when you finally read the New Testament. We’ll get to that in a little bit.
Once you have finished reading the five books of Moses five times, it is now time to read Genesis to Malachi, twice! Don’t go to the New Testament yet, you are not yet ready for that. Pay particular attention as you read 1 Kings, 2 Kings, 1 Chronicles, and 2 Chronicles. You will find that there is a split after Solomon’s reign. There are now two kingdoms, the northern kingdom of Israel and the southern kingdom of Judah (where “the Jews” come from). This is the critical piece, you cannot conflate Jew, Judah, and Israel. Israel is a separate kingdom from Judah. In our time, we have Jews (Judah) living in a land called “Israel,” which leads to a lot of confusion. Israel is still scattered to the nations and has not yet returned to the promised land, but Judah is in the process of returning; a lot of Jews are already back in the land. I devote a significant number of pages in my book Blessings & Curses: if my people… to understanding all of this and where these people are today. You will not understand the prophets if you do not have a really good grasp of this.
When you complete this, you will have read the Torah seven times; hopefully it is sticking by that point. You will now have a good handle on who The LORD Yehovah is. Pay particular attention as you complete Malachi where in chapter 3 verse 6 we find:
“I
the LORDYehovah do not change. So you, the descendants of Jacob, are not destroyed.
The God of the Bible is gracious to tell you that He does not and will not change just before you are about to turn the page to the book of Matthew to begin the New Testament. Let that sink in! He. Does. NOT. Change.
Now, only now, are you finally ready to read the Gospels: Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. These books (and Revelation) are where you will find the actual words of Yeshua/Jesus, what He said; these words are critical. You must go into reading this remembering that Yeshua/Jesus is God and that Malachi 3:6 says that He does not change!! That means that He will never contradict what was spoken in the Old Testament. Consider Matthew 5:17-20:
“Do not think that I have come to abolish
the LawTorah or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them. For truly I tell you, until heaven and earth disappear, not the smallest letter, not the least stroke of a pen, will by any means disappear fromthe LawTorah until everything is accomplished. Therefore anyone who sets aside one of the least of these commands and teaches others accordingly will be called least in the kingdom of heaven, but whoever practices and teaches these commands will be called great in the kingdom of heaven. For I tell you that unless your righteousness surpasses that of the Pharisees and the teachers of the law, you will certainly not enter the kingdom of heaven.
Yeshua/Jesus is confirming right here in the first book of the New Testament that He is not changing Torah! Why does it seem that Christianity says that all of this changed when in the course of just a few pages in your Bible both the Father and the Son say that isn’t going to happen? Don’t just blow by that question, it is not rhetorical.
One reason that we want to have a good handle on the Torah before getting to the Gospels is that as we read, we will find the “powers that be” accusing Yeshua/Jesus of breaking the Torah. If you don’t know Torah, you won’t know that they are making false accusations. Consider Matthew 15:1-3:
Then some Pharisees and teachers of the law came to Jesus from Jerusalem and asked, “Why do your disciples break the tradition of the elders? They don’t wash their hands before they eat!”
Jesus replied, “And why do you break the command of God for the sake of your tradition?”
In these verses, it is easy for a Christian that is not fluent in Torah to easily believe what these “teachers of the law” are saying is true; after all, they are the “experts.” Here we can see them questioning Yeshua about washing hands before eating. Now, if you know Torah, you know there is no such commandment. But these are Pharisees, and they teach from an “Oral Torah” which will be written down around the second century CE that we know today as the Talmud and the Mishnah. These traditions that He is being accused of breaking are part of this “Oral Torah,” not the Torah given to Moses at Mt. Sinai. That helps to clarify Yeshua’s response where he contrasts “their traditions” with the “command of God (Torah).” This is but one example of where Yeshua is accused of breaking “the Law” but He never breaks the Torah. If He ever broke Torah, He could not be our unblemished Passover Lamb; His sacrifice, if He had sinned, would be insufficient to restore the covenant, to pay the penalty owed for the breaking of the covenant.
Now that you know that there is an “Oral Torah” which are just traditions, consider Luke 11:46:
Jesus replied, “And you experts in the law, woe to you, because you load people down with burdens they can hardly carry, and you yourselves will not lift one finger to help them.”
Now you should know that these “burdens” that they are heaping on the people are their traditions, not Torah. This goes hand-in-hand with Yeshua’s words in Matthew 11:28-30:
“Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.”
Yeshua doesn’t say there is no burden, no responsibilities for the disciple. He says that His burden (Torah) is light and that is contrasted with “the burden that they can hardly carry” from Luke 11:46 (which are the traditions). This is not a new teaching, He is summarizing Torah, His Father’s words in Deuteronomy 30:11:
Now what I am commanding you today is not too difficult for you or beyond your reach.
As you read the Gospels, understanding Torah, you will realize that Yeshua is frequently accused of breaking “the Law” when He is only breaking their manmade laws and traditions, never breaking His Father’s commandments, that is Torah. Why does He always flagrantly break their laws and traditions? Because Torah says to! Consider Deuteronomy 4:2:
Do not add to what I command you and do not subtract from it, but keep the commands of
the LORDYehovah your God that I give you.
There you have it, manmade laws are not allowed!
Now that you have read the entire Old Testament and the Gospels, I would recommend reading Revelation. This is a book dictated by Yeshua Himself to John. These are things that Yeshua wants us to know about what is coming. You really should read the Gospels and Revelation several times and in several different translations before moving on.
Next up, Acts. The book of Acts is the story of how the Apostles began to take the Gospel of the Kingdom (Yeshua’s Gospel) to the world. When you start the book of Acts you must remember everything read up until this point. Remember that both the Father and the Son said that Torah would not change. Nothing in Acts (or any other book) can contradict Them!!
As one example to consider when reading Acts, we need to look at Acts 15. This is one of many chapters that Christianity uses to say that the Torah has been done away with; that Christians do not need to concern themselves with it. This is terribly misunderstood. If we believe that, we say that both the Father and the Son are liars. That should be enough to stop us in our tracks, but unfortunately it is not. Read the whole story for yourself but I will point out the important stuff here. There is a dispute about “having to be circumcised to be saved.” We get into trouble by ignoring the “to be saved” part. Circumcision is still part of Torah and we will find in Acts 16, the next chapter, that Paul will circumcise Timothy. Acts 15 isn’t about circumcision, it is about keeping Torah (the Law) to be saved. We will find in this story that new believers are given four commandments in verses 19-20:
“It is my judgment, therefore, that we should not make it difficult for the Gentiles who are turning to God. Instead we should write to them, telling them to abstain from food polluted by idols, from sexual immorality, from the meat of strangled animals and from blood.”
Christianity like to stop there saying, “see there are only four commandments.” These commandments are all straight out of Torah! These are all things for people coming out of pagan religions; they are a starting point. You must continue reading because the next verse says:
“For the law of Moses [Torah] has been preached in every city from the earliest times and is read in the synagogues on every Sabbath.”
This verse communicates two things. First, it is expected that these new believers/disciples will be “in the synagogues on every Sabbath” Second, they will learn Torah when they are there every Sabbath! Sabbath is the seventh day; we call it Saturday. This is after the resurrection, and we find the Apostles expecting people to be in synagogue every Saturday! Am I saying to “become a Jew” and go to synagogue every Sabbath? No. I am saying to keep Sabbath as they were. 2,000 years ago, everyone did not have access to the Scriptures so the only place that they could hear it read and learn it was the synagogue. You have access in the palm of your hand to many translations. You can read every day; you don’t have to wait for the Sabbath.
One more thing to consider in Acts is Acts 17:11:
Now the Bereans were more noble-minded than the Thessalonians, for they received the message with great eagerness and examined the Scriptures every day to see if these teachings were true.
Paul considered the Bereans “nobel-minded” because they didn’t just believe what he told them, they “examined the Scriptures every day to see if these teachings were true.” They tested Paul. How did they do that? They “examined the Scriptures.” What were the Scriptures when this was being written? The New Testament did not yet exist. The only Scriptures that they could examine were what Christians call the Old Testament, the Tanakh. Think about this: they were able to validate everything Paul said with the Old Testament. He never contracted the Old Testament which would include the Torah.
Only after reading and understanding all of this are we ready to read the letters, most of which were written by Paul. I would recommend saving Paul’s letters for last. Study John’s and Peter’s letters before Paul. 1 John is hard hitting defining sin in 1 John 3:4:
Everyone who practices sin practices lawlessness [Torahlessness] as well. Indeed, sin is lawlessness [Torahlessness].
I fixed it. The “law” here is Torah.
Before moving onto Paul, you must take Peter’s warning in 2 Peter 3:15-16 to heart:
Consider also that our Lord’s patience brings salvation, just as our beloved brother Paul also wrote you with the wisdom God gave him. He writes this way in all his letters, speaking in them about such matters. Some parts of his [Paul’s] letters are hard to understand, which ignorant and unstable people distort, as they do the rest of the Scriptures, to their own destruction.
Do not dismiss this warning! Christianity uses Paul’s letters to say that Torah is not relevant to Christians. Most Christian churches preach more sermons out of Paul’s letters than either the Old Testament, which is twice the size of the New Testament, or the Gospels which contain the actual words of Yeshua/Jesus. They do that because they “distort” his writings. Consider what Peter says the result of this distortion is: destruction. Tread lightly.
Peter says that Paul wrote “with the wisdom God gave him.” Paul was smart. Paul was educated. Paul studied at the feet of Gamaliel. Paul wrote over most of our heads; mine included. Peter warned us. If we ever think that Paul is contradicting Yeshua or Yehovah, we misunderstand Paul. That is your first clue that you are distorting Paul which can have disastrous consequences. This is why I say that Paul must be read last. You must know what Paul knew in order to understand what Paul wrote.
Once you finish this, it isn’t the end. Studying the Bible is a lifelong endeavor. Every time that I read it I would swear there are new things in it that were not there the last time. I know that is not true, but it does seem like it. Keep going. Grab a Concordance and begin digging into the original language since our English translations can leave meaning behind.
I hope and pray that this helps people to really understand their Bible.
Please consider my book Blessings & Curses: if my people…
This book reveals who we are, where we are, and what we can expect in the near future. Those are big claims. Get your copy today at Amazon and test those claims!
Visit the book’s website here: www.blessingsandcursesbook.com
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Love this!