I’ve just posted a review of this on Amazon (though it’s not shown up yet). I tried reading it for 6 months (which I think is long enough to give something a proper go), but have, after much debating in my head, given up on it. Not on the Bible, oh no! – just on this.
Why?
Well, firstly because of the way it treats the Bible and what’s in it: not as texts and stories to be read in their wholeness, but as verses to be chopped up and moved around to fit in with the extreme "chronological" approach the editors decided to take. So, for example, not just chapters but whole verses appear out of place and sometimes follow verses they’re supposed to immediately precede. The stories of Samuel and Samson are mingled up together, meaning you lose the plot of both of them (also, how chronological is that?). It’s quite easy to lose the thread of a story and have to go back and pick it up again when the editors decide to re-visit it. I don’t, actually, think this respects the Bible at all. I think it’s part of a modern view of the text that we can just chop it up, take verses out of context and do what we will with them, losing all sense of why they were there in the first place. It’s why proof-texts get thrown around all over the place to support people’s particular views on anything from the meaning of Christ’s death, through abortion to whether the UK should be in the EU (according to one letter-writer in the Baptist Times a few years ago, we should leave because the Bible clearly shows that a small country should seek God as its protection – huh?). It’s a poor way of treating the Bible,pays no respect to those who, under God’s inspiration, wrote these texts and makes for a frustrating reading experience. (Plus, it means that where parallel passages are put together, it’s easy to skip over the second passage as "I’ve already read that").
Secondly, the end-of-the-day comments for "thought and contemplation" really, really annoyed me. They rely on catchphrases and cliches, make no attempt to engage with the texts in any way and offer no illumination or any real food for thought. Some really rather tenuous links are made to Christ which do no justice to the OT texts themselves. The stories of Israel in the desert are nearly all accompanied by messages that can be reduced to "obey God – or else": is that really the God we serve? What might have been better was some kind of explanation of what was going on, especially for tricky books such as Leviticus.
Thirdly, the chronological approach means you have to wait for ages to get to the New Testament. Now I appreciate that most people’s knowledge and appreciation of the Old Testament (including my own) is not what it should be and a lot of people treat it merely as the bit before Jesus, trying to interpret everything as point to Him (which this book doesn’t help with). But as a different BT letter writer said, we follow Christ, who is found primarily in the New Testament. So in a way it’s natural that we should tend towards that part of the Bible. Many other Bible in the year plans pair OT and NT readings each day; this seems a much better way of doing it. I missed reading the New Testament (apart from my sermon preparation). Finally, I’m not sure about the whole concept of reading the Bible in a year. Yes, it’s good discipline and can help to bring to light parts of the Bible we’re unfamiliar with (which my 6 months in this book certainly did). But it can become almost a virility test, as if there’s something better about you for having done it. Plus, it can reduce the Bible to being the same as any other book, which we read from beginning to end.
But the Bible isn’t like that: it’s a book, not just to be read, but to be listened to. It’s a book to be savoured, like great food or wine. It’s a book to think about, ponder on, meditate on, argue with (!). We don’t just read it: we take it in, we make it part of our lives. We allow God to speak to us through it, something which can mean reading the same bit over and over again, for several days or even longer. The Bible-in-a-year format can work against that: in the pressure to get through the book within the time scale (particularly when the book concerned encourages you to catch up of you’re behind), you can easily read a passage just to tick it off; it’s easier to not spend time with the passage and really think about it as you’ve got to get on to the next bit.
There is a lot to be said for broadening our knowledge of the Bible and reading the bits we don’t know or don’t like. But this isn’t the best way of doing it (in fact, it provides a perfect excuse for skipping over those bits or only giving them a cursory glance, as you’ve got to "keep up"). God doesn’t judge us on how much of the Bible we’ve read, though I’m sure He’s disappointed that we don’t treasure it more. But treasuring it means more than reading it in a year; it means making it the very centre of our lives and living out its message. I don’t think this way of reading it helps do that at all. It took me a while to make the decision to stop reading it and it’s meant I’m left trying to find a new way of doing my daily devotions. But I’m glad – and relieved – I did stop!
