Welcome to the Chronological Bible

I'm a little late to the party, but I wanted to extend my heartiest welcome to those who will join us as we read the Bible in a year. Not to scare you off, but consider that the Bible is:

	OT	NT	Total
Books	39	27	66
Chapters	929	260	1,189
Verses	23,144	7,957	31,101
Words	596,063	180,551	776,614

Are you still with me?

It will be more manageable than you think. When you flip through the table of contents, you'll see we'll be reading about 4-5 pages a day, which is much less daunting. In fact, if you find yourself either somewhat new or completely intimidated by reading the Bible, this format is made for YOU--if you can find 15 minutes in your day, you'll be able to do this. Trust me.

I only have two pieces of advice, and take or leave them as you wish:

1. There's a Latin term, tabula rasa, which loosely translates to "blank slate." Those of us that have study Bibles that we refer to constantly and focus more on the footnotes than the Bible passage itself can get lost in all the details. If you're using the Chronological Bible, it doesn't have those copious and thorough notes we take for granted. It will cause us to be more open to the Spirit as to the true meaning of the Scripture we're reading. By all means, continue to use your references, commentaries and whatever else you use to understand God's word if you wish, but consider a leaner approach. Turn your mind into a blank slate (some would argue mine already is) and see what happens.

2. Keep some kind of notes. I said 'NOTES," not journal--the only journal I have any use for happens to have the words "Wall Street" in front of it. For example, since I'm on day two, I'm keeping daily notes, which total about 300 words so far--more like Hemingway than Tolstoy. Keep it factual and use it to contribute on Sunday, since that is an integral part of what we're doing--we need to SHARE what we're learning, since the Lord will speak to each of us in different ways.

That's it. A journey of 776,614 words begins with a single one, in this case "In." I'll do a spoiler and tell you that word 776,614 is "Amen." Stick around and read the 776,612 words that come between.

Scott Lindholm