A Plan to Read

Emily Woodard

For the third year in a row, I am attempting to complete a “read through the Bible in a year” plan, and specifically, a chronological plan. While the pressure of a daily task, an annual deadline, or the association with failed New Year’s Resolutions might make undertaking such a plan seem too formulaic or pressure-filled, there are some great reasons for commencing such a journey. One reason is to gain an understanding of the timeline of redemptive history and an appreciation for the overarching storyline of the Bible. Scripture is God’s revelation of Himself and His relationship with His elect people, from before the creation of the world through to the New Heavens and New Earth. It can be easy to forget that the 66 books of the Bible, with their various authors and literary genres, from different ages and stages in history, are all part of that one connected story. And, as my dad would say, it is a story, with a beginning, a middle, and an end. Another benefit of participating in a Bible reading plan is the impetus to read the parts of scripture that you might not naturally be inclined to read on your own. I would venture to say that for many Bible readers (who aren’t otherwise obligated by college or seminary syllabi), the reason they have read through Leviticus, or chapters of genealogies in Chronicles, is due to participation in a Bible reading plan. If you have never read all the way through the Bible, from front to back or in chronological order, now is a great time to start; you don’t have to wait for January 1.

There is, however, at least one downside to reading through scripture in a chronological way. This is because, in order to do so, some books have to be broken apart to allow other material from other books to fit into the chronology. For example, think about reading through the events of Jesus’ life and death in order and how shuffled together passages from the four gospels would be with each other. Comparing different accounts of the same event can provide some insight into individual author’s purposes for writing and help in identifying the lens through which they portray Jesus and his ministry. However, in the breaking apart of books, we lose the context in which the accounts occur and therefore may miss out on themes or other textual characteristics that an author intended. For example, we could read side-by-side the accounts of Jesus walking on water in Matthew 14, Mark 6, and John 6 and notice that Matthew alone includes Jesus’ special interaction with Peter, but we may miss that in his sixth chapter, John recreates an Exodus pattern in Jesus’ activities (the Passover, the crossing of the Red Sea, manna in the wilderness, etc.). (1)

Two books that are especially susceptible to being broken apart in reading plans are Psalms and Proverbs. Without an easily discernible narrative order, and containing components written by different authors in different time periods, the two books can come across more as anthologies or collections. And, despite some literary features that point to intentional editing and ordering, such as the five books of the Psalter and the prologue of Proverbs, in general, Biblical scholars for most of history have treated the books as those that were compiled in no particular order. Recent (within the last 50 years or so) scholarship, however, has acknowledged an intentional order to these two books. Brevard Childs, in 1979, discussed what he called a ‘canonical approach,’ in which an interpreter considers a Biblical text in its received form (i.e., the completed Psalter) and that form’s function for the intended audience. (2) Gerald Wilson, a student of Childs, used this canonical approach to the book of Psalms in his Ph.D. dissertation, “The Editing of the Hebrew Psalter,” (3) and influenced the work of a generation of scholars, including O. Palmer Robertson, author of The Flow of the Psalms. (4) The work of these scholars opens new realms of possibility when considering the purpose and meaning of specific passages. For example, how might the idea of the intentional ordering of the book, and a progression of thought throughout, influence our understanding of the final and climactic poem in Proverbs (31:10-31), a section which is often treated without regard to its context?

It’s exciting that scholars are still discovering facts about and aspects of scripture that can aid us in our study and understanding of it. But it should not be surprising to us that there is still much more for us to learn about God’s Word. The un-mineable depth of scripture is one of its “incomparable excellencies.” (5) It is a book about God breathed out by God, after all. The important thing, then, is not whether we’re studying it chronologically, or in literary order (both are great!), but that we are reading it, studying it, memorizing it, meditating upon it, sitting under the preaching of it, for as long as we live. For, “Blessed is the man… [whose] delight is in the law of the Lord, and on his law he meditates day and night. He is like a tree planted by streams of water that yields its fruit in its season, and its leaf does not wither. In all that he does, he prospers” (Psalm 1:1-3).

(1)   A good bit of this material is covered in conversations I’ve had with my dad (Mark Ross) on a podcast we created as a companion to reading through the Bible chronologically. You’re welcome to follow along with us at “I Asked My Dad” wherever you get your podcasts.

(2)   Brevard Childs, Introduction to the Old Testament as Scripture, (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1979), 82-83.

(3)   Wilson’s dissertation was later published. Gerald Henry Wilson, The Editing of the Hebrew Psalter, Dissertation Series (Chico, CA: Society of Biblical Literature, 1985).

(4)   O. Palmer Robertson, The Flow of the Psalms: Discovering Their Structure and Theology (Phillipsburg, NJ: P&R Publishing, 2015).

(5)   Westminster Confession of Faith, Chapter 1, V.