A 31 Day Experiment | SermonIndex

sermonindex Mar 9, 2013

I have beard Bible teachers, such as John MacArthur and Chuck Swindahl, say if you take one of the shorter books of the Bible and read it through once a day, you will retain a large portion of that book in your mind and heart. Has anybody tried this?

Ok. I am going to do it. I am reading through the book of Colossians. Speed reading it takes me about 10 minutes. Reading it slower about 15 minutes. Bear in mind a legally blind nan is sharing this. I started my first recorded reading today on Mar.9. I do not know what richest God will unfold doing this but look to be blessed from his word. Will document in this thread as God unfolds truth.

I would invite anyone to join me in this. You may chose Colossians or another book God lays on your heart. Perhaps we can use tbis thread as a share board of what he is laying on our hearts from his blessed word.

Experts say it takes 21 days to break an old habit or form new ones. It takes about that long to get something into memory. Imagine what reading the word can do for a month?

Looking forward with expectation what God will reveal.

Bearmaster.

sermonindex Mar 9, 2013

Saints I read Colossians again at a normal rate. (Well a normal rate for me). Using a digital stop watch I timed myself. It took me about 8 minutes to read the letter at a normal rate. Again I am legally blind 22/100 vision. I have cataracts on both eyes. So if I can read the letter with these limitations. Anyone can read it. Imagine what a sighted person can do with a longer book.

This is a marvelous way to build a reservoir of truth for the Holy Spirit to use as he leads. For sure the letter to the Colossians tells us to let the word of Christ dwell in us richly.

Bearmaster.

U

used4him Mar 9, 2013

It took me about 2 months to read 1st Corinthians recently. Mainly, that is because I work, and read it when I can, a few verses at a time, then think about them. I cannot commit to this at the time, but would like to hear what God is speaking to you.

By the way, cataracts can be easily surgically removed, and an implant placed in your eyes for perfect vision, if that is the only thing wrong with your eyes.

M

MaryJane Mar 9, 2013

Greeting Bear

I do not read quickly any more I use to read much faster then I do now but felt I was missing to much of what the LORD had for me. Now I read at a slower pace. I read as HE leads, some days its many chapters others its just a few but as long as I am hearing from HIM then I know its all good. I often reread the same books over and over again. I still have not read every book in the Old Testament though. I have read each book in the New Testament many many times but I struggle making my way through all of the Old Testament for some reason. Perhaps I will join you in reading but I will begin in the old testament and read through entirely. I will put this to prayer.

Look forward to hearing what the LORD is showing you as you read on :)

God bless
maryjane

One after thought, Ginnyrose has a wonderful ongoing thread "the sayings of JESUS" and it is her understanding from the book of John. IF you have not had opportunity to read through you might. there are many wonderful seeds there that she has shared :)

L

life43 Mar 10, 2013

Hi, I just bought an mp3 player, and downloaded the entire bible in audio form, as well as many of the sermons found on sermon index. In one day I was able to listen from 1 Corinthians to the end of the 3rd epistle of John. I imagine it would take 2 days of 8 hours of listening to get through the entire New testament. I will try it again this week starting at Matthew. I am great-full that I am able to listen to my mp3 player while working, makes the time fly and I enjoy working much more this way. I listen to it when I go walking or jogging, and when I go to sleep. Its a lot easier then reading. "Faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of God" (Romans 10:17).

P

PaulWest Mar 10, 2013

Experts say it takes 21 days to break an old habit or form new ones. It takes about that long to get something into memory. Imagine what reading the word can do for a month?

I did this with the book of Galatians about 6 years ago. I even wrote the entire book out, verse by verse, and created my own translation (a synthesis of KJV, J.B. Phillips, NLT, NASB, AMP, NIV, Stephens 1550 Greek Interlinear and several commentaries like M. Henry and Jamieson, Fausset & Brown). It gave me an excellent overall understanding of the book and I highly recommend this method. Naturally, such an intense method of study will lead to a great accumulation of Bible knowledge, but this knowledge alone will not help you overcome sexual lust, pride, love of money, fear, anxiety, depression, religious criticism, forum debates, etc. If anything, it will put you at an even greater risk for pride and debate. Remember, it was the Bible masters of the day - systematically reading the Pentateuch - who confused the Son of God with Beelzebub.

By all means, read and study the Word (for God wants us to be students, rightly dividing the Word of Truth) but take heed to the reason you are doing it. If you are thinking of approaching the Bible for a 21 day systematic-rote-read in the hopes that you can condition your brain (as the "experts" say) to develop an appetite for scripture, it could mean all the difference between feeding from the Tree of Life versus the Tree of Knowledge, for these are side by side in the garden. One is poisonous and the more you eat of it, the more it will work to puff you up and destroy you. I can tell you before God, my efforts in studying the book of Galatians gave me no life but instead turned me into a greater Pharisee, for there was no reserve of grace to rightly process the knowledge. And knowledge without grace seems impressive to the flesh and human intellect, but to those who can discern, the absence of life is but death, notwithstanding how colorfully arrayed the wreaths of Bible knowledge are that adorn the coffin.

sermonindex Mar 10, 2013

Paul I appreciate your warning about the Bible just becoming head knowledge only. What I encourage must be done in the power of the Spirit.

But brother if anything the opposie is true. The body is suffering from malnourisment of the word of God. There is a famine of the word of God in the church. Many pastors are not feeding their congregatjons the word of God.

I am suggesting this method only as a means to encourage believers to feed on the word of life to grow. If done for any other reason then the outcome is pride and din.

My thoughts.

Bearmaster.

P

PaulWest Mar 10, 2013

But brother if anything the opposie is true. The body is suffering from malnourisment of the word of God. There is a famine of the word of God in the church. Many pastors are not feeding their congregatjons the word of God.

Actually, I would say that many more professing Christians than you suspect are familiar with the especially important verses and spiritual concepts of the Bible. It is not the accumulation of more knowledge, but obedience to what they already have light on where the problem lies. Pastors are not teaching how to overcome sin through grace; most can only teach/preach forgiveness of sin. All they can tell you is that God hates sin. But they are not teaching how to experience total freedom from sin's dominion through the grace of the New Covenant. They cannot teach it because they themselves haven't entered into the victory. Inwardly many men in church leadership and Bible-teaching positions are habitually defeated by lust and in the seeking of the religious approval of man. However, they systematically teach the Bible, they quote prolifically from it, even go book by book hermeneutically, but there's no river of life.

Bible reading plans are numerous. Many church groups endeavor to read the entire Bible in a year, but how to overcome Satan is not once taught from the pulpits. Crucifixion of the self-life is not expounded; and the the partaking of the divine nature is a totally foreign concept (if not heretical) to most. Seminaries are churning out Bible scholars and Masters of Divinity each year by the truckload who are well-versed in Greek and Hebrew, and they get plugged into lucrative pastorates and begin teaching the Bible. They know theology, they know the Bible; "know" meaning just that: they have "knowledge" of it like a chemist has book knowledge of chemistry, and a doctor has book knowledge of medical science (for they read the material systematically in college), but the Bible is not a book to be studied in this fashion if one expects to gain true, life-transforming power from it.

The information of every book in the world is meant to be read, acquired, studied and finally processed through the intellect. But not the Bible. Those who try to read it mechanically (and I am not saying this is what you're proposing), thinking daily repetition will somehow increase one's spiritual productivity will be disappointed in the end. The Bible is the only book whose contents must be spiritually assimilated if any real profit is to be gained. Anything less than this will actually have the opposite effect and enhance your destruction.

sermonindex Mar 10, 2013

Paul we must be describing different experiences in our faith walk with Jesus. For what I am encountering is a total ignorance of God's word in the body in America. I am sure your assessment is correct about the seminaries. For sure they are churning out tbeologians. They no theology but not the word itself. Or the word of Jesus himself who said his words are spirit and life.

But brother I ask you this? Why do the persecuted cry for the scriptures, the Bible? The persecuted will go to any legths to own a oopy kf the life giving word. Even risking imprisonment and death. If it is important to them? Should not the word be important to us?

Bearmaster.

P

PaulWest Mar 10, 2013

Brother, I am just sharing my own testimony of what can happen when we approach Bible-reading plans and systems thinking total inundation will automatically profit us spiritually. I am all for the daily reading the Word of God, but I believe the exhortation of us to "take heed" in how we read it is also needful (Mark 4:24).

If you have been reading God's Word dutifully for years and years and are still defeated by sin and have a contentious attitude toward others, always looking for debate, I would say its better to put the Bible down for a season (for you're obviously reading it wrong), pray for wisdom in addressing the heart of the issue, and then begin afresh. I cannot emphasize how important this is. But these teachers who exhort their congregations to just read, read, read without first establishing a solid foundation in showing them how to look for life rather than knowledge, ultimately do a great disservice to their flock. And a famous tactic they use is to make you feel guilty and lazy for not reading the Bible 24/7 on account of those who are without Bibles in labor camps. This is the same principle used in getting people to give more money to missions, or for not praying enough for the lost, etc. These kinds of religious bricks come from Pharaoh's taskmasters and not the Holy Spirit. There is never an end to the bricks of pressure and guilt once you start down this path. They just increase.

Brother, we do not live in a nation where reading the Bible is illegal. We are not yet persecuted to that capacity. But if we were, I think those already not reading it would probably not miss it very long once its banned.

Paul

sermonindex Mar 11, 2013

Joseph may God bless you richly as you listen to the New Testament on your MP3 player. I listen to the New Testament on a Travellers Go Bible. Very rich experience. Being legally blind I find listening to be much easier than reading.

Again brotber, may God bless your time in his word.

Bearmaster.

sermonindex Mar 11, 2013

Dear brothers and sisters,
Apart from Jesus Christ, we can do nothing. We must be renewing our minds daily in His Word. The more the Word of God permeates our minds and souls, by His Holy Spirit, the less the world means to us, the more His love fills us.

Thank you, Lord, that you have given us this gift of the written Word of God. To whom much is given, much is required. Blessed are they that hunger and thirst after righteousness for they shall be filled.

Though I have read the Bible for 36 years after being born again, the depth, height, width and breadth of it is unfathomable! Heaven and earth will pass away but the Word of God will never pass away."In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning. Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made. In him was life, and that life was the light of men...(John 1:1-4)There is no God like our Jesus who is the Living WORD.
I am a piano teacher. No student will play well unless they go over a musical piece over and over again. Repitition is the best way to learn. This is but a discipline that leads to memorization and ultimately expressing the music with great skill and beauty.

"Husbands are exhorted to love their wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her to make her holy, cleansing her by the washing with water through the word and to present her to himself as a radiant church, without stain or wrinkle or any other bleminsh, but holy and blameless..."(Eph. 5:25-27)

A true believer in Christ Jesus will never ever tire of hearing, reading or speaking the Word of God as revealed to us in the Bible.

Sister Leslie

sermonindex Mar 11, 2013

Dear sister your insights are a blessing. Paul would say of you as he wrote to the Colossians that I delight to see how well ordered you are and how firm your faith in Christ is.

Bear

M

MaryJane Mar 11, 2013

by PaulWest on 2013/3/10 7:11:15

If you have been reading God's Word dutifully for years and years and are still defeated by sin and have a contentious attitude toward others, always looking for debate, I would say its better to put the Bible down for a season (for you're obviously reading it wrong), pray for wisdom in addressing the heart of the issue, and then begin afresh. I cannot emphasize how important this is. But these teachers who exhort their congregations to just read, read, read without first establishing a solid foundation in showing them how to look for life rather than knowledge, ultimately do a great disservice to their flock. And a famous tactic they use is to make you feel guilty and lazy for not reading the Bible 24/7 on account of those who are without Bibles in labor camps. This is the same principle used in getting people to give more money to missions, or for not praying enough for the lost, etc. These kinds of religious bricks come from Pharaoh's taskmasters and not the Holy Spirit. There is never an end to the bricks of pressure and guilt once you start down this path. They just increase.

__________________________

Just wanted to say thank you for sharing this. I believe there is much wisdom in your words. I have at times without realizing it used guilt to try to get another to read the Bible more often. I suppose my thought in this was that if they are reading the Bible more then they will truly come to know HIM and have a relationship with HIM. I have learned that is not the case. Sometimes reading the Bible more only fills a person with head knowledge and they still are not moved by the HOLY SPIRIT. They read but do not understand. Someone told me recently that reading the Bible does not save you, only JESUS can. I think I understand that better now.

Thank you for your insights

God Bless
maryjane

sermonindex Mar 11, 2013

Saints I opened up this thread as a means to encourage and exhort us to get intoi the riches of God's word. Paul exhorts the Colossians to let the word of Christ dwell on them richly. The method being encouraged here is a simple means to get one into the deep truths of Christ in a simple way. Just reading it and letting the Spirit minister.

I think our sister, Lesley, best summed up what being in God's word is all about. And this reading is to be done under the leading and power of the Spirit.

I empathise with those wbo have had bad experiences in Bible reading. But please. Let us not kill this thread before we have had a chance to experience the blessings of God's word.

This is a voluntary activity. You need not participate. You are still loved by Christ. He will show you another way to get into his word. But some of us feel a deeper hunger to get info the riches of Christ and this method of reading through a book of the Bible may bless some.

Again I look forward to hearing how God is blessing some in reading through Colossians or any other short boon of the Bibke on a daily basis.

My thoughts.

Bearmaster.

M

MaryJane Mar 11, 2013

by bearmaster on 2013/3/11 3:10:13

Saints I opened up this thread as a means to encourage and exhort us to get intoi the riches of God's word. Paul exhorts the Colossians to let the word of Christ dwell on them richly. The method being encouraged here is a simple means to get one into the deep truths of Christ in a simple way. Just reading it and letting the Spirit minister.

I think our sister, Lesley, best summed up what being in God's word is all about. And this reading is to be done under the leading and power of the Spirit.

I empathise with those wbo have had bad experiences in Bible reading. But please. Let us not kill this thread before we have had a chance to experience the blessings of God's word.

This is a voluntary activity. You need not participate. You are still loved by Christ. He will show you another way to get into his word. But some of us feel a deeper hunger to get info the riches of Christ and this method of reading through a book of the Bible may bless some.

Again I look forward to hearing how God is blessing some in reading through Colossians or any other short boon of the Bibke on a daily basis.

My thoughts.

Bearmaster.

________________________

Bearmaster

I am sorry if my post detracted away from your original point to the thread. I was just trying to share with Paul and others what the LORD was showing me as I believe Paul was attempting to do also in what he shard in the thread. When I wrote my recent reply it was because I felt the HOLY SPIRIT convicting me in my own attitude towards this other person in laying guilt upon them for not reading as I believed they should. Paul's words were the means in which the LORD showed me these things and I wanted to acknowledge that. I had planned to take part in your thread for myself but think perhaps it best if I do not. In love I will just say to you, it seems after reading your last post that you have some "conditions" on how you want this thread to go so I will not infringe upon that.

I do believe we should encourage one another to read the WORD as the LORD leads but I do also believe that the real issue with many today who call themselves Christian is that they do not live the WORD...

God bless
maryjane

sermonindex Mar 11, 2013

Dear sister you are correct in many, myself included, do not live the word. Probably because, the WORD, does not live in them. May his word dwell in us richly that we may live in him and he in us.

Dear sister I hope you will share on this thread what God is showing you in his word. However you are taking it in.

Bear.

P

proudpapa Mar 11, 2013

Bear I want to encourage you and let you know I think that this is a great Idea.

As long as we rely on God for insight and not on the commentaries to puff us up and to muffle the truth, I think this will be a great blessing.

sermonindex Mar 11, 2013

MaryJane your post reminded me that the word of God in all its fulness is Christ in you, the hope of glory. That blessed truth is out of Colossians.

So dear sister, Praise God be used you to bring that glorious truth to heart and mind.

Bear.

sermonindex Mar 13, 2013

Eric Sanders in his book, Buck Named Faith, gives the following quote

"People whose lives are centered around Christ don't just study the Bible to be smarter. They see that every single page of His Word, is stained with the crisom blood of Jesus Himself. Suddenly the Bible isn't just a text to be studied but a source of life for a withering branch."

My brother or sister if you can go for a time without a daily intake of his word than truly you are a much better Christian than I am.

For in the weakness of his flesh this blind man sees a continual need for life from the words of Jesus. For sure this blind man sees the continual need for the sword of the Spirit to war against the sinful desires of his flesh.

Please forgive the blind man. For he is but a withering branch who needs the life of the vine. That life that comes from Jesus himself.

Please forgive the blind man as he calls out Lord please give me your bread this day out of your word. Plesse give me your word as my bread to feed the inner spiritual man to strengthen him. For sure that is all this blind man knows.

Saints please forgive me. I am but a withering branch who needs God word daily. For those who are stronger and can go without the word for a time. I honestly respect you.

Bearmaster.