Dear all,
Happy New Year!
I trust this e-mail finds you all recovered from the excitement of Christmas and New Year and looking forward to what 2010 has to offer. This e-mail has the usual ‘upcoming events’ at the bottom, but is primarily to draw your attention to our plan to encourage as many people as possible to read the whole Bible in a year. We have published a reading schedule in the parish magazine that will enable you to read through the Bible a little bit each day. The schedule includes an old testament passage, a new testament passage, a psalm and a proverb each day. The readings for January are in the January magazine, and you can find the full year of readings via the website at http://www.stmarysnantwich.org.uk/one_year_bible To make it even easier for you to get started, I have included the readings for the first 16 days of January in this email!
There are a couple of other ways that you could choose to do this. The first would be to buy a ‘one year Bible’. There are a number around, and you will have no trouble finding one in a Christian book shop or on-line. You can even get children’s Bibles that contain 365 Bible stories! The other way that I would recommend to anyone with an mp3 player is to find an audio Bible or podcast. I use the podcast from www.dailyaudiobible.com, which you can also find on iTunes. It takes 20-30 mins per day to listen to, and you get some commentary as well as the reading itself – I can thoroughly recommend it. If you have children then there is also www.dailyaudiobiblekids.com which goes through the New testament in a year.
If you haven’t already started, then don’t panic – it is never too late! If you would like to join us then I would advise starting with today’s reading and take things forward from there, you can then choose to catch up what you’ve missed at a later date, of just carry on reading in January 2011 until you’ve reached where you started!
We are hoping to set up a couple of other things to help support you do this. The first will be a dedicated page of the website, where a few of us hope to ‘blog’ our thoughts while going through the Bible. This should be set up over the next couple of weeks. The other is monthly meetings for those who would like to attend to discuss what we have read and talk about how we are getting on. These meetings will probably take place at the same time as the homegroups ‘all-together’ meetings, and the first one is next week – Tuesday 12th Jan at 8pm in the Parish Hall. Come along to find out more!
I would very much encourage you to consider taking up the challenge – I can guarantee that if you spend time each day in the Bible, then God will speak to you through it.
Once again, Happy New Year, and I wish you well for 2010!
Jonathan
Readings for January 1st-16th listed here now:
0 1 Genesis 1:1-2:25
Matthew 1:1-2:12
Psalm 1:1-6
Proverbs 1:1-6
02 Genesis 3:1-4:26
Matthew 2:13-3:6
Psalm 2:1-12
Proverbs 1:7-9
03 Genesis 5:1-7:24
Matthew 3:7-4:11
Psalm 3:1-8
Proverbs 1:10-19
04 Genesis 8:1-10:32
Matthew 4:12-25
Psalm 4:1-8
Proverbs 1:20-23
05 Genesis 11:1-13:4
Matthew 5:1-26
Psalm 5:1-12
Proverbs 1:24-28
06 Genesis 13:5-15:21
Matthew 5:27-48
Psalm 6:1-10
Proverbs 1:29-33
07 Genesis 16:1-18:15
Matthew 6:1-24
Psalm 7:1-17
Proverbs 2:1-5
08 Genesis 18:16-19:38
Matthew 6:25-7:14
Psalm 8:1-9
Proverbs 2:6-15
09 Genesis 20:1-22:24
Matthew 7:15-29
Psalm 9:1-12
Proverbs 2:16-22
10 Genesis 23:1-24:51
Matthew 8:1-17
Psalm 9:13-20
Proverbs 3:1-6
11 Genesis 24:52- 26:16
Matthew 8:18-34
Psalm 10:1-15
Proverbs 3:7-8
12 Genesis 26:17-27:46
Matthew 9:1-17
Psalm 10:16-18
Proverbs 3:9-10
13 Genesis 28:1-29:35
Matthew 9:18-38
Psalm 11:1-7
Proverbs 3:11-12
14 Genesis 30:1-31:16
Matthew 10:1-23
Psalm 12:1-8
Proverbs 3:13-15
15 Genesis 31:17-32:12
Matthew 10:24-11:6
Psalm 13:1-6
Proverbs 3:16-18
16 Genesis 32:13-34:31
Matthew 11:7-30
Psalm 14:1-7
Proverbs 3:19-20