It's the time of year when the Christian internet is awash with Bible reading plans for 2022 and especially the type of reading plan where you read through the Bible in one year.
So here's my confession: I gave up on my read-the-Bible-in-a-year plan last year. It was the Murray M'Cheyne plan that works through the Old Testament once and the New Testament and Psalms twice in a year. I made it to the end of November and was basically on track, minus a few chapters in Acts. I only had one month to go and I would have been able to complete it within the year.
Let's be totally clear here: Bible reading plans are great and reading through the Bible in a year is a fantastic way to structure spending time in Scripture. It puts into action the principle that all of the Bible is God-breathed (even the minor prophets) and gives a breadth to reading and familiarity with the whole Word of God. Reading the Bible in this way has helped me to spot connections between books and passages that I wouldn't have otherwise seen.
But completing the assigned reading for the day was becoming more important to me than meeting with the Lord through his Word. When my time was limited, I would prioritise getting all of the reading done and ticking the box than reading less and making time to pray as well. And then the pride started to creep in. I must be doing well - I was going to complete this ambitious reading plan in what had been a crazy year and with three small children at home. These are dangers that Robert Murray M'Cheyne identified and they are real dangers. M'Cheyne thought that the advantages of reading the Bible in a year outweighed the disadvantages. I realised that for me, the disadvantages were outweighing the advantages. (This says more about me than it does about M'Cheyne.) So I stopped my plan and curled up in a Gospel instead.
If you follow Christ, you'll want to spend time reading the Bible. It's literally God's Word! It's our daily bread, it's the story of God's redemption plan, it's how we grow in our knowledge of and love for Christ. It is the authority for the Gospel we speak and the way we live our lives. Please, read the Bible. Read it through in a year if you want to. And as an aside, if you're a mum of small children, don't listen to the lie that you have no time to read the Bible. I'm very grateful to a friend who, several years ago, first showed me it was even possible to read through the Bible in a year when the days are full of small people and the nights are broken too.
But know this: you are not a better Christian because you read the Bible in a year. Jesus does not love you more because you completed your Bible reading plan. He does not love you less because you failed to complete the Bible reading plan, or took longer than planned. Ticking a box every day does not guarantee that you are growing in your walk with God. Reading the Bible in a year doesn't bring some extra-spiritual level of insight. Your salvation was fully achieved through Jesus' death on the cross and no completion of a plan, no streak on your Bible reading app, no sense of achievement at making it all the way through to Malachi, can ever add anything to Jesus' finished work on the cross.
A Bible reading plan is a great tool to read the Bible regularly and systematically. But it's only a tool. Don't make the mistake I did and confuse the tool with the end goal.
