The Lord speaks through his Word. And for some folks, structures like daily quiet times and Bible-reading plans can be immensely helpful. If they work for you, have at it. But my plea is to not place more store on those things than the Bible itself does. The Bible calls us to meditate on it and be formed by it and, whilst we must know what it says to do that, at the same time that is not a command to read your Bible at set times every day.

My wife was just telling me about about a Bible reading plan she has in an app on her phone. She was also telling me how it comes up with the particularly unhelpful, slightly hectoring, statement of how many days you happen to have missed.

You have missed 3-days. Eep! You have missed 10-days. Yikes! You have missed… just close that there.

The problem with this is that we tend to look at that and think we’ve blown it. What’s the point of maintaining a Bible-reading plan now? I’m just too far behind. Unless I maintain it perfectly, or keep it within an easily claw-backable amount, I may as well give up altogether.

Now, I’m not a Bible-reading plan zealot. In fact – and hold onto your hats my conservative Evangelical friends – but you’ll struggle to find a single command in the Bible that tells you to read your Bible. Dwell, meditate, conform yourself to, etc, yes. But read it? Actually, no.

Now, thinking about that for two-seconds offers its own fairly obvious reason. Most Christians, throughout most of Christian history, haven’t been able to read. If the Bible insisted we are all to read it, it inevitably forces large swathes of those who follow it into immediate sin.

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