This morning I completed the bible for the fifth or sixth time since beginning the use of the Discipleship Journal Bible Reading Plan. It’s an excellent plan and does a great job helping the reader to develop a discipline in studying the word. It also features a 25 day month which gives you several ‘free days’ each month so that you don’t fall behind.

I know a number of people who have found this plan helpful and therefore, as is my custom, here are some updated (from last year) resources in case you’d like to use this plan.

PDF

I’ve made a printable version of this plan available in PDF format. It can be double sided and folded so that it fits nicely in your bible.

iCal File

Two iCal files which can be imported into Mac’s calendar application. These will be good for 2010 and 2011. If someone feels like porting this to an Outlook compatible file, I’ll be glad to add it here as well.

Public Google Calendar

I’ve made a public Google Calendar with the daily readings through 2011. This can usually be imported to calendar applications, as well as mobile devices like the iPhone and Android phones.

Online

CRCurches.net has also made a web version of this calendar available on their site for browsing, if that’s your particular taste.

Thomas Watson, one of my favorite Puritans, writes this simple yet inspiring thought:

Read the scripture, not only as a history, but as a love-letter sent to you from God.

Some read the word solely as a means to understand and develop theology. Others, as a means to know what they should and shouldn’t do. Others, only to know what has happened in the past, according to Christian and Jewish tradition.

The intention of the Word isn’t less than these, but it is also a great deal more.

We should approach it, as Watson says, like a ‘love letter’. Not necessarily in the literal sense, but in spirit. What we read, was not only an intellectual work to be studied—a textbook. But it was intended for us so that we would be deeply affected and moved in the most sensitive regions of our soul. If we accept it as anything less than it really is, we miss more than we are gaining.

(Can’t see the video? Watch it on Youtube!)

Quoted in this video:

Ephesians 4:8-9:

Therefore it says,

    "When he ascended on high he led a host of captives,
   and he gave gifts to men."

(In saying, "He ascended," what does it mean but that he had also descended into the lower regions, the earth?

And, Psalm 68:18:

You ascended on high,
    leading a host of captives in your train
   and receiving gifts among men,
even among the rebellious, that the LORD God may dwell there.

There has been a lot of posts about what will happen to print material over the next several years with the introduction of the iPad and other already existing devices like the Kindle and Nook. Although my mother clings dearly to them, I know for me, it’s probably been a good six or seven years since I last opened an actual dictionary to find a definition.

Encyclopedias? I don’t think I stayed in school long enough to really grow accustomed to using them. The internet seems to do the trick nicely.

Well, today, as I was browsing the net, I came across this image on thereifixedit.com. It seems to serve as what might be a pretty accurate omen to the future of most print material.

The Encyclopedia Britannica, conveniently modified into a broom to brush away debris on the floor.

Having little higher education, and not having read too much up until about four years ago, I personally have no attachment to the printed medium of literature. Well, other than the fact that I don’t really want to sit in front of my computer screen to read. But, with the advent of a versatile digital media device like the iPad, I can foresee a time when I don’t have a single book shelf in my home and all of my books are consolidated into one little digital media portal. Not unlike the way we’ve ditched shelves and shelves of DVD and CD cases.

I have friends who decry this attitude of mine. Clinging to the nostalgic feeling of several hundred pages bound together to tell a story or communicate an idea.

But a post of Craig Mod’s blog seems to sum things up pretty nicely. Well, for the immediate future, at least.

He argues that a huge amount of our familiarity with the written word will be challenged. Nothing is necessarily sacred. Just because we have lived for hundreds of years interacting with books on a page-by-page basis, doesn’t mean we will continue to. In fact, a digital medium will explode the formatting potential of our literature. Hopefully, in a good way.

As someone with no attachment to the analog methods we’ve used for centuries, I say bring it on!

Meditating on God’s word is an ancient command and tradition. Joshua 1:8:

This Book of the Law shall not depart from your mouth, but you shall meditate on it day and night, so that you may be careful to do according to all that is written in it. For then you will make your way prosperous, and then you will have good success.

Of course, not everyone during Joshua’s time, or even Christ’s time would have access to their own personal copies of the scripture. The idea was that they would know it and remember it. It would be a constant reminder to them.

Today, we have the same need and command to remember God’s word. And our memory hasn’t gotten any better. In fact, with the instant nature of the internet and entertainment, it’s probably gotten worse.

This is why, even though actually reading the bible every day is not exactly a biblical command, we should do it daily. With our plethora of resources, it’s likely the best way we can fulfill the commands to remember God’s word.

There’s just no good excuse not to.

A woman in Massachusetts is being charged on murder and manslaughter claims of two children. Both were stabbed to death. That’s pretty hard to read. It’s pretty hard to write too.

Well, today was the annual March for Life in Washington DC where prolife supporters from all over the country come and show their disgust for the brutal legislation.

What does that have to do with a murderous mother of two deceased children? One of those children wasn’t even born yet!

What kind of a ridiculous double standard is this? A woman can walk into a doctors office and have her child dismembered and vacuumed out of her body. In a lot of places, your tax dollars will even help her do it. But, if she walked into her bathroom and plunged a blade through her abdomen into the child, she’d be convicted as a murderer.

Is there a reason our country doesn’t see the double standard? Ridiculous.

I’m not a fiction reader. When it comes to fiction, I prefer strong TV or a smart movie. But Paulo Coelho’s The Alchemist lives up to its hype and praise. I loved it.

The book is about Santiago (although his name only appears once), a shepherd boy who has a kind of spiritual revelation which sends him on a dangerous journey across the desert in search of his treasure at the Egyptian Pyramids.

The book is literally packed with new-age sounding spiritual jargon about the Soul of the World, the Oneness of everything, Personal Legends and the Universe’s benevolent prerogative. Frankly, read in a vacuum, it sounds kind of silly. Like the stuff you might make fun of hippies for. But lucky for me, I can’t read it in a vacuum and I was drawing my own correlations left and right.

The book is extremely simple. Finishing up just around 150 pages and no chapter breaks, it’s easy to sit down and not get up until you realize you’ve almost read the whole book… Or that you really need to visit the bathroom.

The story itself is simple as well. There are no complex character twists. Just a simple story of a boy going after his dream. Although Coelho’s way of introducing new characters tripped me up at first, I still blame myself for not being much of a novel reader. It was easy to get used to and in the end, I appreciated it.

Coelho also has this interesting way of tying stories from various religions into Santiago’s journey. Such as Melkizedek the priest or the centurion who pleaded with Jesus for his servant’s life.

The characters are clearly designed so that they can be related to. But nevertheless, the story, I believe, resonates so closely with our own desires that I found myself feeling as if Coelho was writing just for me. I’m certain most people will share this feeling.

The book was inspirational. It really does instill a sense of courage to go ahead with what you love and see it through to the end.

I’m sure you’ll love this book and think you should read it ASAP before the movie comes out in 2011 and inevitably fails to do the book justice. Plus, wouldn’t you love to get on the inside track now so that you can be that guy who says, “The book was better” so condescendingly and without being a poser? Yeah, me too.

Just read it.