Have you ever read the Bible?

Most bible scholars I've read don't recommend reading it as if it were a single book cover to cover. It is a very diverse collection of 72 books. Each with it's own character, purpose, audience of the age, and they encompass a wide range of literary forms. There are a few history books. There are biographies. Law books. Poetry. Books of wise sayings and quotations. There is one long form song. There are prophetic books, and letters to various diocese of the early Church by the Apostles of Christ. Some of the New Testament was written for a primarily Jewish audience, and some for a primarily Gentile audience. But one thing that all the books have in common, is that they were found to be divinely inspired. So, anyway....I have read all of the New Testament, to be sure, actually more than once, but cover to cover only once. I have read each of the Gospels a number of times, and probably the Gospel's of John and Matthew the most often. In the Old Testament I've read Genesis and Exodus fully, as well as Job, Ruth, the Psalms, Esther, Ruth, the Song of Solomon, Judith, Isaiah, Haggai, Tobit, and Malachi. Over the course of the past three years, I may have read all but a few passage of the bible by going along and expanding on the daily lectionary readings of the Church. This has at minimum given me a good portion of all the books, and at least the highlights. We do a Psalm every day, as well as an Old Testament reading, and New Testament reading from the letters, The Acts, or the Apocalypse, and a Gospel reading. Then, what my wife and I will do is read the full chapter that the daily readings come from. We then look at study sources, discuss what the reading is saying, and break it down a little bit. This way, we're getting the proper meaning, learning something, and even finding out how it applies to our current lives. Everyone is different of course, but for us, we're finding this to be far more meaningful experience than just sitting down and reading the bible as if it were a Stephen King novel. I wouldn't be able to draw the richness, and meaning out of it that I get this way. Most people who start out with good intentions of reading the bible cover to cover, who I've spoken to, or on the occasions where I tried it myself, get bogged down in the begats, or alternately bored and disturbed by Levitical law, and that's that. It gets set on a shelf to collect dust.

Another way that's helpful, and I pick up a lot of Old Testament this way as well.....
At the bottom of each bible page, pretty much, is a list of cross references in the footnotes. So, for instance if you're reading one of the Gospels, (which I heartily encourage we all do daily to some extent), say The Gospel of St. John 4:16 - 26 for the day, then you can look at the footnotes, and it will direct you to the OT, in this case 2 Kings 17:24 - 41; Hosea 2:7; Deutoronomy 11:29; Joshua 8:33; Malachi 1:11 and Isaiah 2:3, (as well as some NT cross-reference). By going to the OT references, you are not only reading, and learning something from the OT, but connecting it with Jesus Christ. It will be scripture that He is quoting, or fulfilling, or both. It gives a historical continuity, richness and depth to the study, and links the covenants between God and man over the ages.

Blessings,

Steven