Done with Deuteronomy!

Deuteronomy!  The "second law"  deutero --second..nomy--law.  We've read all this before.  If it sounds repetitive, it is.  If sounds repetitive, maybe God thinks it's important.

If you're with us so far, GREAT! Keep up the good work! If you are a little bit behind, add a page or two a day, until you have caught up. Are you more than a few pages behind? Set aside a block of time -- say on this Sunday -- to catch up. You'll be surprised at the impact it will have, even reading large quantities of text in one or more sittings.

Do NOT skip... for any reason, even. By definition, at the end you won't have read from cover to cover. Trust us, you'll want to have done this. Even if you are behind for the rest of the program and have to finish in more than 90 days, keep reading. Every word. From cover to cover. You'll be glad you did.

"God does not ask about our ability or inability, rather about our availability."--attributed to Mary Kay Ash, yes, THAT Mary Kay.

Daily comments?

Leviticus and Numbers!  Hard going!  Some of you have remarked that I'm not posting remarks every day.  True.  I know it is tempting to see what other people think about what we're reading.  I do it myself.  But I also want to encourage you to read the Bible for yourself, and not depend on someone else to tell you what it means.  Some of you have already told me about conclusions that they have drawn, because they are really thinking about what it means for them.
I also know that because the text is so foreign, we need some other people to help interpret it.  It's ok for you to read summaries or notes, but don't get in the habit of depending upon them.  God will give you insight as you read along.  Trust that insight.  God is still speaking.  The question that you might ponder every day is "Why is this in the Bible?"  God is faithful; the answers will come.

so far...so good...!

Bible in 90 Days...who would have thought? I keep hearing about people who are "joining" our little effort to read the Bible in 90 Days. Some are across the county. The "little church with a big mission" that is Church of the Covenant really does have a long reach. But then it's not our reach, but the "finger of God."

In class on Sunday, one participant remarked that it was surprising how little text is devoted to the story of baby Moses, when compared to the amount of text in Exodus devoted to the construction instructions for the tabernacle. I was pondering this. It seems that many of us have an impression of the Bible that was formed when we were children. Those childhood stories stick with us. Baby Moses in the bullrushes is a charming story, but it's not nearly the whole story.
Not many of us have re-encountered the Bible now that we're adults. Maybe we're 'stuck' in a pre-adult phase of our understanding, that came to us when other adults helped us hear the Bible stories for the first time. Now that we're adults, reading so much of the Bible is good way to put off our childhood impressions and see what the Bible really says!

OK, everyone...ready to tackle Leviticus tomorrow? Remember that if we get through this week, we'll have pulled through more of the difficult text than most people who try to read the Bible straight through.

What are we doing?

Why are you concerned about the church's intellectualization of the faith?

"The most important reason is because I don't read the gospels as intellectual treatises.  On the night before he died, with all the conceptual truths in the world at his disposal, Jesus asked his disciples to share food and wash feet—apparently trusting these physical practices to teach his followers what they needed to know when he was no longer around to teach them himself.  It is very hard to intellectualize food and feet.  When I ask Christians to tell me about their faith, 99.9% of them tell me what they believe.  Just once, I would love to hear someone describe faith in terms of how he or she lives." ---from an interview with Barbara Brown Taylor.

Taylor is so quotable. Many years from now, people will remember the words she crafts.
I thought about this remark, because it represents a challenge to us good Reformed thinkers.  The best of who we are as Presbyterians is represented by our deep engagement with theology; we really, really want to know what we think about God, and we really, really are good at thinking and writing theology.  But our gifts are also our weaknesses.  If this is the ONLY way we can encounter God--through our very left-brained rationality--then we are short-changing ourselves and our humanness.

All you BIND people--repeat after me...
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The mission is "to read, attentively, every word of the Bible in 90 days."

...not to understand every word, parse every word, even pronouce every word... just READ every word.  Let God be God for once, and enjoy your experience with the Bible.

Nearly half way through first week

My husband said last night that the book of Genesis is like a soap opera.  Even though he doesn't watch soap operas, he's hooked!  
Everyone doing well?  There are now four groups at Church of the Covenant, doing the BIND...that's the Bible In Ninety Days: Sunday AM at 9:45, Tuesday AM at 10, Wed am at 7:15, and Thurs eve at 7:30 pm [this group may just set aside this time to R.E.A.D, not talk] 
Feel free to leave a comment...

People tell us that it takes about three weeks for a new habit to become ingrained.

In order to help you before each reading session you might start  with a prayer. One of your own, or this one:

Gracious Father,
Thank you for the gift I hold in my hands.
May your Spirit fill me and interpret
your precious words for me as I read them.
In your Son's name I pray. Amen

Maybe you can write this prayer on a 'post it' note and use it as a versemarker as you read through the Bible.

We're off!

So is everyone ready to start reading?  Find the COTC reading schedule on the church's website: Your reading adventure starts tomorrow, but you can give yourself a headstart by picking up your Bible and starting today!  As I mentioned in the last post, we're giving ourselves permission to choose our own Bible.  I think we're fine to do that.

Another way that COTC is modifying the published curriculum is that we're going a bit  more S L O W-L Y!  I made up a reading schedule for the whole Bible that has us read 6 days on, with a 7th day rest.  So if you're trying to compare us to the schedule in the "official" Bible in 90 Days website, you'll notice that we're going to get "out of phase" very quickly.
We talked this morning in the Sunday AM group about some tips for completing the program successfully:
1) How do I make time for this? We're all busy people.  And the truth is that in order to do this, we'll have to re-order some of our priorities.  What are we going to give up?  All of us have different needs, but I can suggest a few things NOT to give up:  SLEEP or BEING WITH FRIENDS AND FAMILY.  Both of these are necessary for healthy minds and bodies.
2) What am I going to do if I get behind?  To get caught up, you can either read a few extra pages a day, or set aside a block of time on one day to catch up.  Do not skip pages!  If you do, it will be hard to say that you read the WHOLE BIBLE when you've finished.  Don't quit!  We can do this together.

COTC groups are meeting: Sunday am at 9:45-10:45, Tuesday am 10-11, Thursday pm 7:30-8:30--all of these in the COTC Library Lounge.  We even had a college student in Massachusetts 'Skype' in on Sunday morning!  If you're not meeting with a group, face to face, it might be harder for you to keep up.  But you could consider this blog group your on-line group.  Post a question, or comment, and let's be our own BIND blogging group.  That's  "BIND--Bible In Ninety Days"

Interview with Ted Cooper

Hear an interview with Ted Cooper, founder of The Bible in 90 Days. Podcast is catalogued at i-tunes through Haven Ministries.

The Bible in 90 Days...?

So...welcome to everyone who is rising to the challenge to read the whole Bible in 90 days with Church of the Covenant. Visit the church's website to see how our reading schedule will work.
We're doing things a bit differently from the published curriculum and I'll be sharing some of the reasons why as we go along.
First of all, we're giving you permission to use your own translation. The official folks at Zondervan [the curriculum publishers] want everyone to use the NIV. I know why they are doing this, and it's not just a cynical attempt to sell more bibles, although the sales goals of Zondervan might be helped by the effort. No, I believe the publishers when they say that they want people to focus more on the content of the text than the differences in translation. It's a worthy attempt, but I think it's wrong-headed from the get go, plus there is a whole scholarship tradition out there that has minor theological points of difference with the NIV. We won't force any one translation of paraphrase on anyone. So at Church of the Covenant [let's call ourselves COTC from now on] we're giving ourselves permission to use the translation most comfortable.
So go ahead and choose something that has the complete biblical text, both Testaments all the way through.
Ready...