In this video, Senior Vice President of Theology and Communications for Lifeway, Trevin Wax, explains the importance of starting a Bible reading plan and how making Bible reading a routine, like brushing your teeth, it can benefit you and your relationship with God.
The entire video is above, and the complete transcript is below.
The most important reason that someone should consider a Bible reading plan is because you’re going to generally get farther with a plan than you are if you’re going to try to just read the Bible based on sheer will-power alone.
A plan gives you a roadmap so that you know where you’re going. There’s a built-in feeling of accountability to it because, you know, who wants to start out on a plan and then not see it through to the end, right?
I think the main reason I would give people for considering a Bible reading plan is not because there needs to be any legalistic reason behind it; it’s not because you want a feel bound to it like it’s just something of a drudgery that you’re going through. But it’s the kind of thing that will help you get farther faster.
I hate to compare Bible reading to brushing your teeth, but I want to do that for just a minute from the standpoint of a routine, okay? Because the habits that we have: the habits of getting up, taking a shower, brushing our teeth, things like that – those are really formative for the way that we live. And the thing about habits and routines is that it’s only through an initial sort of plan or discipline or regular occurrence that they eventually become ingrained and become second-nature to us.
One of the things that’s fascinating about the dentist trying to get you to use an electric toothbrush, for example, is not just because they’re cooler and they’re faster. But because they have these two minutes increments to where you will generally brush your teeth longer because there’s a plan attached, there’s some kind of something there that’s going to make this habit get more ingrained. And so the dentist is saying, “This is how you should brush your teeth. The toothbrush is going to help you do this better.”
Now, obviously to compare teeth-brushing to Bible reading – no one particularly, I don’t think, likes brushing their teeth that way that we are to delight in reading the Bible.
But there is something there about until that delight in Bible reading and that discipline of Bible reading becomes second-nature to us, it’s good to have a plan because it’s something that will keep you going, build in some accountability, and also help you have the roadmap to where you don’t have to wonder every day where you’re going to start or feel like you have to start over.
Click here to check out some Bible reading plans Trevin recommended in an earlier post.
