Besides Heralding the start of another year, January furnishes the believer with many spiritual opportunities. By following a year-long reading plan, the Bible can be read completely in just 15 to 20 minutes a day. Although we are praying for Jesus’ speedy return, God’s mercy and longsuffering have provided an opportunity for still others to read and believe the scriptures (II Peter 3:15). Many who have read through the Bible before will have the privilege of again reviewing all scripture. In doing so, it is certain new aspects of God’s word will be noted. These details will help us comprehend better and, by practicing what we read, we will root out evil from our character. May God bless us with increased understanding and humility as we read His word this year.
Diligence encouraged
If you found it difficult to do or comprehend the readings last year, consider a change in your daily routine. This might help you achieve a more consistent reading pattern and enable you to enjoy the daily readings more. Hit and miss reading makes the narrative more difficult to follow. We would reject this method for reading other material, so why continue to struggle in this fashion with the word of God?
While readings from the Bible Companion are taken from three different sections of scripture, these portions often complement one another and combine to help us better understand what we have read. The readings for January — Genesis, Matthew and Psalms — provide a good example of this point.
Beginnings
The first and last readings for January are scene-setters for the two testaments of scripture. The universe, earth, mankind, Adam and Eve, sin, Abraham and the children of Israel are all introduced in Genesis. This is where new Bible readers should start their reading of scripture to get the background God provides in this book.
Without the appreciation that God is our creator and the scriptures are His written word, we might easily read the Bible in vain. If we consider the scriptures as only an historical record, it would be easy to dismiss its teaching as mere human opinion.
We also need an appreciation of the promises of God if we are to read scripture with understanding. That becomes clear with the opening words of Matthew. He begins: “The book of the generation of Jesus Christ, the son of David, the son of Abraham” (Matt. 1:1) assuming we know the significance of David and Abraham to the birth of Jesus.
Like Genesis, Matthew is a book of beginnings. We learn of the birth of Jesus, his early years, the family’s escape to Egypt from the murderous Herod and their return to Nazareth. The gospel provides the story of God’s only begotten son and his disciples. A careful reading of Matthew reveals how Jesus conquered sin, was crucified and resurrected. Unlike the first man, Adam, Jesus was sinless and completely obeyed his Father
Learning about Abraham
By starting our Bible readings m Genesis, we quickly gain basic information about Abraham While Adam chose to disregard God’s commands (Gen 3 6), Abraham acted faithfully Commanded by God to leave his country, Abraham obeyed (Gen 12: 14) and the land of Canaan was promised to his seed as an everlasting possession.
Matthew’s gospel reveals the promises to Abraham were still taken seriously in Jesus’ day John Baptist found the Pharisees and Sadducees were proud to assert descent from Abraham claiming, as descendants of Abraham through Isaac, they were God’s favored people He plainly told them fleshly descent from Abraham was not enough “And think not to say within yourselves, We have Abraham to our father for I say unto you, that God is able of these stones to raise up children unto Abraham” (Mt 3 9)
The Psalms
The middle readings this month are from Psalms.
The first collection of psalms (1-41) was mainly written by David and is similar to the book of Genesis m its topics Just as Genesis tells us how mankind was created, fell into sin and was then promised redemption, many of these psalms discuss humans as blessed, fallen and redeemed by God.
While the name of Abraham occurs over 200 times in Genesis, it doesn’t appear at all m this first book of Psalms This may seem odd until allusions to “seed,” “covenant” and the promise of eternal life are recognized as clear allusions to the promises to Abraham He is thus just below the surface in several places.
Psalm 1 speaks of the godly man, “He shall be like a tree planted by the rivers of water his leaf shall not wither, and whatsoever he doeth shall prosper” In contrast, “the ungodly shall not stand in the judgment” (Psa 1 3-5) These words assume a hope of eternal life for the godly which is the substance of the most important aspects of the promises to Abraham If we are reading Genesis and Psalms at the same time, we will quickly see the relationship of one with the other.
Reading should lead to doing
We should not forget that doing our readings is but the first step in our path to God’s kingdom Hebrews explains the importance of acting once we have received God’s word “For if we sin willfully after that we have received the knowledge of the truth, there remaineth no more sacrifice for sins, but a certain fearful looking for of judgment and fiery indignation, which shall devour the adversaries” (Heb 10 26,27) Once we are convinced this is the Word of God, there is no turning back But why would we want to? As Peter said to Jesus “Lord, to whom shall we go? thou hast the words of eternal life And we believe and are sure that thou art that Christ, the Son of the living God” (John 6 68,69)
There is no place else we can go for the words of the Living God Let us then be continually thankful we have them readily available to read on a daily basis
The Origin of the Organic World – Part One