bondChristian

New, new, new, new, new.

First, a new year.

2009.

Amazing. 2008 is gone. No more Beijing Olympics in the middle of the night. No more Obama/McCain commercials in the middle of everything. No more economic meltdown. Well, I’ll leave that alone…

How’s it going? Do you have the first five verses down pat?

I don’t. I know all but 3 John 1:2. Once I have the Scripture reference, I can quote it fairly easily. But I have to think…

For the last few months, I’ve been particularly interested in memorizing Scripture because I don’t do it.

“That’s not a reason,” you say. Ah, but it is if I’m wanting to be a bondChristian…

Start with any verse you like. Use the cross-reference tool in your Bible to find verses that relate directly to that first verse. If you don’t have a cross-reference tool in your Bible, use a concordance or a cross-reference application…

Pick a place to start, any place will do. You probably normally read a chapter or few chapters in one sitting. Mass reading takes a different approach. With mass reading (not to be confused with Mass reading, which is Catholic by nature), you read many chapters in one sitting, usually ten or more chapters…

Note: This is the third in a series on unusual routines to read your Bible. Be sure to check out the rest in the series.
photo credit: timtom.ch
Unusual Routines For Reading Your Bible Series
Unusual Routines For Reading Your Bible (Intro)
3-Verses-From –3-Places Reading
Staggered Chapter Reading
Headings-Only Reading
Mass Reading
Cross-Reference Reading
Headings-Only Reading
How to do it: Most Bibles nowadays have headings [...]

Instead of starting and ending on chapter breaks like you’ve been trained to do, start in the middle of a chapter and read through to the middle of the another chapter…

You’ll need some Post-It notes for this one or something to mark your place on a page. First, select three different places in the Bible, and mark them with your post-it notes…

“Reading the Bible is boring.”

Have you ever felt this way? You try to rationalize it, telling yourself you’re actually enjoying it. But you’re lying.

Of course, there are many ways you can get around this problem. In this series though, I’d like to show you how to slash boredom by reading in unusual ways.