Many Christians resolve to read the Bible daily or might challenge themselves with another reading plan throughout the year. Here are five challenges for you to consider in 2024.
The new year is a great time to begin a new challenge. On January 1st, many of us make resolutions. Some resolve to break bad habits, while others resolve to pick up good habits. Others attempt to acquire a new skill throughout the year. Many Christians resolve to read the Bible daily or might challenge themselves with another reading plan throughout the year.
Here are five challenges for you to consider in 2024.
1. Read through the Bible in a Year
The most basic challenge is to read through the Bible in an entire year. There are 1,189 chapters in a typical English Bible. If you divide this by 365, that means you would need to read only a little over three chapters of the Bible each day to read through every word of the Bible in a year.
When you consider that some of these chapters are only a few verses long, that is not that daunting of a task. But where do you start? Is it good to start in Genesis and read three chapters of every book? That is one possibility, but my experience is that most people end up just like the Israelites. Lost in the wilderness in the book of Numbers. Many give up these challenges when they have to trudge through 1 and 2 Chronicles.
You can download many apps to assist with a Bible reading plan. Many of these plans will have the reader in one chapter of the Old Testament, read a Psalm or Proverb per day, and a chapter in the New Testament.
One plan that I have used in years past is the one developed by Scottish preacher Robert Murray McCheyne. You can access the McCheyne Bible Reading Calendar here. Bible Study Tools is also a great place to find different reading plans.
2. Devote Your Year to Wisdom
Reading through the Bible in a year can be incredibly rewarding. You often see things that you’ve never seen before. But that can also be a bit like taking a road trip through a state where you only see the state while driving 70 mph to your destination. You learn things and see beautiful sites, but you may not get the full impact. Wouldn’t you know a state better if you decided to live there for an entire year?
What if you decided to spend an entire year in a book like Psalms or Proverbs? Proverbs is helpful because there are 31 chapters. That corresponds to each day on the calendar. Look at your calendar, spot the date, and read that chapter of Proverbs. Do that for every day of the year, and you’ll be surprised at how much wisdom you glean from the Scriptures.
You can do the same thing with Psalms. There are 150 psalms. If you dedicate the 31st of each month to working through the largest Psalm, Psalm 119, then that means you have five psalms you could read each day. Simply take the day on the calendar and then add 30, 5 times. For example, if today is the 12th, you could read Psalm 12, 42, 72, 102, or 132.
3. Do Twelve 30-Day Challenges
This is the same concept as reading through Proverbs and Psalms. Yet, here you would find twelve different 30-day Bible reading challenges. Here you would challenge yourself to pick 12 books of the Bible and spend a month in each one. Or you could find a topical 30-day challenge and conquer it.
You could add something like a chronological New Testament Bible Reading Plan to this challenge. There is a great one at Bible Study Tools that you can use here. They also have a 45-day gospel challenge that you might find helpful.
4. Deep Dive into a Topic
This one will be more difficult to organize but might be one of the more rewarding yearly challenges. Consider picking a point of doctrine or Christian living and deep-diving into everything the Bible says about that topic. You could do several of these as mini-challenges as well.
Can you imagine how your understanding would increase if you picked something like justification and studied it in the Scriptures for an entire year? A few years ago, I did something like this with the attributes of God. I meditated upon a particular attribute of God every day of the year and used these attributes to preach the gospel to myself daily. It was incredibly beneficial.
If you decide to do this challenge, consider picking up a concordance to find out everything the Bible says on a particular word or topic.
5. Pick a Person
This one is not technically a Bible reading challenge, please forgive me. But I do think it belongs as a reading challenge for the new year. I encourage those I’m discipling to find someone from church history that will be their life companion. For me, it is John Newton. I read Newton’s writings frequently. His works have become a companion for life for me.
But I also suggest that you spend a year with a dead theologian. This year I spend the entire year reading through the works of Dietrich Bonhoeffer. It has been challenging and rewarding. It allows me to try to get into the mind of this departed saint, and it challenges my own Bible reading. This upcoming year I think I will spend with Francis Schaeffer.
Conclusion
The goal of doing these challenges isn’t to simply have another thing in your already busy life. The goal is to saturate your mind and heart with God’s Word. I would suggest knowing yourself well. If you have never read through the Bible, perhaps break your goals down into manageable chunks.
Let’s say that you read the Bible 35 days last year. You might be given the grace to read every day in 2024. That is certainly a goal. But it’s helpful to know ourselves and to celebrate growth as well. As you start January, challenge yourself to accomplish a 30-day reading challenge in the month of January and February. Set smaller manageable goals for yourself and build off of that success.
Your standing with God is set based upon your relationship with Christ. If you are in union with Christ, know that God is pleased with you, whether you read one day in 2024 or 365 days. Yet, it is important for our spiritual growth to be students of God’s Word.
But also know that reading God’s Word and engaging in spiritual disciplines is a bit like taking a shower. You can turn a shower on, but it doesn’t do you much good unless you get under the water. God’s Word is like this. When we read God’s Word, we are washing in the water of His Word. We will grow. Consider one of these challenges to assist your growth in 2024.
Photo Credit: ©shironosov
Mike Leake is husband to Nikki and father to Isaiah and Hannah. He is also the lead pastor at Calvary of Neosho, MO. Mike is the author of Torn to Heal and Jesus Is All You Need. His writing home is http://mikeleake.net and you can connect with him on Twitter @mikeleake. Mike has a new writing project at Proverbs4Today.
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