Follow up to our Lent Course - Session 1
On this page, we have some items to help you catch up with the last session of the Lent Course and some additional material to help you go deeper.
What we covered on the night
We thought through how we can get better at finding focus to read God’s word as well hearing Jane’s experience of reading the Bible. Feel free to watch these back below.
We also had lots of thoughts on the night and afterwards about aspects of our Bible reading as well as plenty of resources to help us.
Advice from church members:
- Consider why we are we reading the Bible? "It's so important to know - what is our primary reason for reading the Bible. Is it to get to know the Bible better or to "understand and know" ( Jeremiah 9, 24) the Author better? If the latter, then meditating with God over 2 verses may be much more valuable than reading through 2 chapters..." Though some of us have found getting the broad sweep of God's word by reading larger chunks really helpful too!
- Try listening to the Bible being read or podcasts - "I have found the Timothy J. Keller free podcasts to be very useful when wanting to hear the bible being read and then the passage explained – usually topical over several sermons. There are also quite a lot of them – so plenty to choose from here
- Making notes or journal as you read - "I make notes and then the next year when I return to the passage I reflect on if I feel the same, have moved on ...or backwards." Or why not try journaling... or making notes in your Bible (there are lots of special journaling Bible available)
- "We all change over time and what works for us will change over time"
- Some of us find Bible notes helpful... others find them less so - find what works for you
- There's a battle going on - it will be hard - there's a spiritual battle at the heart of the world and our hearts everyone from the vicar to the oldest saint to the youngest Christian will have times when it's hard to read the Bible - so don't be discouraged and keep going!
books TRIED TESTED BY CHURCH MEMBERS
““For physical training is of some value, but godliness has value for all things, holding promise for both the present life and the life to come.” ”
Only Got 10 minutes, SOme paper and a Pen? Try the Swedish Method
Watch the video or read more about it here
NEVER READ THE BIBLE ON YOUR OWN?
Why not try Nicky Gumbel's - 30 days? Especially designed for those new to Bible reading or who have been away for a while. http://amzn.to/1vYQDkB
Books, commentaries and bible notes
Tom Wright's For Everyone series (London: SPCK) – covers the New Testament in an accessible devotional reading style. The scripture is printed and then followed by 2 or 3 pages of commentary. https://amzn.to/3dQAhYm
John Goldingay has also worked on an Old Testament version. https://amzn.to/2O5xqQk
There are a number of good Bible reading notes available.
For breadth of age and background, The Good Book Company has a number of resources - as well as notes for children, younger adults and adults. http://bit.ly/1pHWwNo
There are also resources available from Scripture Union, the Bible Reading Fellowship etc worth investigating.
Reading the whole Bible in a year
Bible in one year - use an app, daily email or the web to receive reflections on set passages for each day of the year which as the title says will get you reading the whole Bible in one year. http://www.htb.org/bioy Heavier content but in book form is available in Don Carson's - for the love of God (2 volumes). http://amzn.to/1tQRYeE
Daily Prayer
Common Worship Daily Prayer is available both as a book http://amzn.to/ZLMFPj and also as a daily service available on the web or your tablet or even smart speaker. There is now a companion volume providing reflections on the readings for the service either in paper or digital (app). https://www.churchofengland.org/prayer-and-worship/join-us-service-daily-prayer.
Multimedia
WordLive - Scripture Union produces multimedia daily bible notes and reflections for those on the go or on mobile devices. Available as email or webpage. www.wordlive.org
The go to app for many for their smartphone as an app is the YouVersion app https://www.youversion.com
Audio bible
There are a whole pile of audio bibles out there covering various translations and styles. Perhaps the most sympathetic is the recent David Suchet recording available on cd or for download. It is a rare recording in English without background music or dramatisation and is read from the NIV translation. http://amzn.to/ZQ00qq