Some friends and I from church are reading the bible in 90 days.

My friend Andy who has set up the challenge said this in his introductory email:

The goal is to read, attentively, every word of the Bible in 90 days. Doesn’t mean that you have to remember or understand every word, just read it. And read attentively (so turn off the tv). Try your best to keep up but if you do fall behind it’s very important not to skip anything. Try getting in an extra page or two a day, and at weekends try and do some more. But try to stick to the plan rather than deliberately slacking off in the week and trying to catch up at the weekend.

When and how you read is up to you – morning, evening, one big chunk, spread throughout the day – whatever works for you. A quick prayer first wouldn’t be a bad thing. As you read you may want to note anything that strikes you -be that a new insight, a puzzling question, a surprise, whatever – and then bring those up in the discussions. Discussions will be very informal, I will be facilitating rather than leading as this is much my journey as anyone elses. We’ll talk about how we’re getting on with the reading as well as what we’ve learned.

I’m slightly embarrassed that my first thought when Andy invited people to join him was ‘oo, I can blog about that’. It just shows what a vain, arrogant person I am (my ‘look at me’ syndrome) so I am confessing that here now so that that thought will not dominate. Something I do like to do is share what I’m learning from God with others, so please take this in that spirit instead!

I have read the bible all the way through before but that time I did the ‘bible in a year‘ reading plan. That gives you an old testament passage, a new testament passage and a psalm or part of proverbs each day. This time I’m reading the bible literally from cover to cover over a period of 90 days. This will take me up to Christmas. (NB – this isn’t actually chronological order, I may try and do that some time, a chronological reading plan is here).

So this is my prayer:

Day by day,

O Lord, three things I pray:

To see Thee more clearly,

Love Thee more dearly,

Follow Thee more nearly,

Day by day.

– Richard of Chichester (1197-1253)