"I just read the New Testament. You know, being raised by TV and movies made me think that Jesus just walked on water and told people not to have abortions. But the real Jesus was way cooler than that. He was like E.T., Edward Scissorhands, and Marty McFly combined."
- Abed from the TV show Community
2010 - Season 2, Episode 5: "Messianic Myths and Ancient Peoples"
+++++
As I neared the end of my journey through the New Testament (with all my note-taking, I was up to about three hours a day), I started to get a little sad. I knew that I wouldn't be able to keep this pace of reading up indefinitely, especially since I still needed to prepare a sermon every week and, you know, actually hang out with people and stuff.
But I figured I could do it just once more. Since I was already spending about three hours a day reading, I decided that if I removed the note-taking and just read through, I might even be able to finish the New Testament again in one week. I was so jazzed on all that I had been taking in, that I just needed to try it.
But I had to cheat a little. I told the church that the next week, my sermon would be a survey of the entire New Testament. This bought me about ten hours extra in my week, because all of this reading was now part of my sermon prep. My notes for the following week would be gleaned from the notes I took my first time through, plus whatever more I learned from my one week blast.
So I put down my notebook, and closed my computer, and just started reading through. In order to stay engaged, I decided to stop after each book and write a quick summary of my thoughts. But other than that, I was just going to hunker down and read.
Here's the plan I used. I decided again that I didn't want to split up books, but I also didn't want to split up authors, either (The New Testament has a few different ones). This seven day plan had me reading the same authors books each day, more or less.
Sunday - Disciples and Family
Matthew
James
1 Peter
2 Peter
Jude
Monday - Paul 1
Romans
1 Corinthians
2 Corinthians
Galatians
Ephesians
Philippians
Colossians
Tuesday - Paul 2
1 Thessalonians
2 Thessalonians
Philemon
Wednesday - Paul 3 - pastoral letters
1 Timothy
2 Timothy
Titus
Thursday - Luke
Luke
Acts
Friday
Mark
Hebrews
Saturday - John
John
1 John
2 John
3 John
Revelation
The funny thing is that for some reason I got confused on Tuesday, and read ahead to the end of Wednesday's reading. I ended up finishing a day early.
The next Sunday I spent over an hour surveying the entire New Testament. Yeah it was long, but people loved it. There was smiles and laughter during the entire thing, and I got several thankyous when it was over.
You can listen to a recording of it here.
No comments:
Post a Comment