Well, for the past few months, I’ve been giving Grant Horner’s Bible Reading System an extended trial. For a while it seemed that everyone was using this reading plan, from the church plant, to friends at my old church, to other random friends, to even Bob Kauflin, whose blog I’ve started frequenting.

So, being interested in what all the hubbub was about, I started the system. Although I haven’t been completely consistent in keeping up with it, I did keep plugging away at it, so that I could say that I gave it a fair chance.

Intitially, after some getting used to, I definitely saw the benefits of reading the Bible in such a way. God has had a plan throughout history, slowly revealed in the pages of the Bible. His character is consistent, and the major themes, covenants, events, and characters begin to fall into their respective places when getting a whole, big picture view of the Scriptures. And that’s just after a measly few months of reading this way…

But I’ve decided to stop reading the Bible in this manner. I’ve noticed lately that my times in the Word have been becoming more and more distracted, and I find I am remembering less and less of what I read. Although ultimately this is not the fault of the reading plan, but rather my own undisciplined mind, the RSS-style format was not helping, either. With the epistles in particular it seemed unnatural to me to read in such a fragmented manner. With the wisdom books, or even historical narratives, I didn’t mind reading a chapter a day, but most of the epistles were written to be read as a single unit, a letter, structured around linear arguments, with one historical context underlying the letter. It just seems more natural to read it on its own.

I’m not one to give up so easily on things like this, but I realized the reasons that I would want to stick it out were more prideful than helpful. I never made any sort of commitment to stick with the plan for more than a few months, and neither is there any Scriptural mandate to read in such a manner.

To be accurate, there is no Scriptural mandate to read the Word daily, either. The call is to meditate on the Word day and night. Certainly, the most straightforward way to have something to meditate on is by reading it, but I’m really beginning to think that sometimes I have put an emphasis on reading over meditation when it should be the other way around. If there is any emphasis in Scripture at all, it is meditating on it, delighting in it, and following it.

It makes sense. We take literacy for granted now, but for much of human history, literacy was an ultra-luxury. An exhortation to read the Scriptures, for a population that 1) may have had a high illiteracy rate, and 2) may not have had access to complete Bibles (still true in places) would be very difficult to follow.

But regardless of how literate a population is, if they have even a portion of Scripture, they can meditate on it. They can discuss it with one another. They can bind it to their minds. They can treasure it in their hearts. They can submit to it.

I’m starting to form the personal conviction that the practice of memorizing the Scriptures is actually more in line with how I ought to intake the Word of God than is daily reading. Naturally, “day and night” meditation as per Joshua 1:8 would probably mean that I would be reading daily as well, but the focus seems to be meditation for the sake of application, not consumption for the sake of information.

Some outside reading that I’ve been doing (Moonwalking with Einstein, a fascinating read, but take with salt) also seems to suggest that the average human memory is entirely capable of memorizing pretty much anything it encounters. We simply have stopped using our minds in a way that remembers things, and so we have forgotten how to remember. (Think of how many phone numbers you used to know by heart)

Regardless of whether or not every person has such incredible memory potential, when I practiced Scripture memory, it was one of the most beneficial disciplines in my life. Not sure why I stopped doing it…probably because it takes such long term effort.

So in place of Grant Horner’s Bible Reading plan, I’ll be renewing the discipline of memorizing Scripture. I would still recommend Professor Horner’s system, but not to the neglect of meditation and good hard study.

Now where did I put my Navigator verse pack?

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