I Have an Hour a Day to Read — How Much Should Be Bible?

00:00:00.000 | Well, the Cross Conference continues today in Louisville and ends tomorrow on Saturday

00:00:08.600 | and over 7,000 young men and women are registered for the conference in Kentucky, which should

00:00:13.420 | prompt all of us to pray about what God might do with how many young men and women who are

00:00:18.360 | considering giving their lives to the nations as missionaries.

00:00:22.480 | But even as you travel, the questions keep arriving from listeners facing a year of Bible

00:00:26.080 | reading ahead and this email is from Jeff.

00:00:28.600 | "Hi, Pastor John, through various seasons of my life, I've been ministered through the

00:00:32.120 | Bible and through other books and especially through your own books.

00:00:35.120 | In 2019, how can I best balance Bible reading with reading other books specifically?

00:00:40.480 | If I have only an hour a day to read, how would you suggest I allocate my time between

00:00:45.200 | the Bible and other books?"

00:00:47.720 | That's a nice specific way to ask it, isn't it?

00:00:49.680 | Yeah, it is.

00:00:50.680 | Like you got one hour, you got your Bible and you got some other books, tell me what

00:00:54.160 | to do.

00:00:55.160 | Wow.

00:00:56.160 | That's a little bit risky to tell somebody how to apportion their time between the Bible,

00:01:01.800 | the very Word of God and other books.

00:01:05.960 | But I will give a very specific suggestion in just a moment.

00:01:11.120 | But first, a couple of thoughts.

00:01:13.640 | When I read this question, I wasn't sure what kind of books Jeff had in mind.

00:01:20.440 | Is he asking about Bible reading versus reading Pilgrim's Progress, Packer's Knowing God,

00:01:28.080 | Calvin's Institutes, or is he asking about reading the Bible versus reading Sports Illustrated

00:01:34.920 | or National Geographic or a novel, a manual on how to be a mechanic or science school

00:01:41.920 | texts?

00:01:42.920 | What is he asking?

00:01:43.920 | Well, let me say a word about Bible reading versus the quest for knowledge in general

00:01:52.320 | outside the Bible, because I can imagine a person saying, "Well, if the Bible is the

00:01:59.440 | very Word of the Creator of the universe, why would you not just stay with your Bible

00:02:06.800 | all day and listen to God, for goodness sake?

00:02:10.600 | He's God."

00:02:12.720 | And the answer to that question is because the Bible tells you not to.

00:02:17.560 | Go to the ant, oh sluggard, consider her ways and be wise.

00:02:20.960 | In other words, close your Bible and go out and look at an anthill.

00:02:24.000 | Learn something from the world.

00:02:26.260 | Consider the lilies of the field.

00:02:27.920 | Close your Bible and go look at some lilies.

00:02:29.880 | Consider the birds of the air.

00:02:31.380 | Close your Bible and go look at the birds of the air.

00:02:33.920 | Don't just read the Bible, read God's world as well as God's Word.

00:02:39.840 | And of course, the Bible tells us to work with our hands, to provide a living, but you

00:02:44.520 | learn how to be a tent maker like Paul, or a doctor like Luke, or a carpenter like Jesus

00:02:50.840 | Father, or a professional fisherman like Peter.

00:02:53.880 | You learn how to do those skills, not by reading your Bible.

00:02:57.500 | The Bible doesn't tell you which stitches hold tents together when the leather gets

00:03:03.080 | wet.

00:03:04.080 | It doesn't do that.

00:03:05.080 | It's not designed for that.

00:03:06.080 | You go out and look at the world and listen to wise people and study nature and figure

00:03:10.240 | things out.

00:03:12.080 | So all that just to say that the Bible itself instructs us to learn about the world and

00:03:18.320 | learn about people and learn about vocations and learn about society and social processes

00:03:24.560 | that God made by looking at them.

00:03:28.520 | We don't stop seeing the hand of God just because we're not reading the Bible.

00:03:35.560 | Now that's probably not what Jeff was asking.

00:03:37.840 | I just wanted to say it, right?

00:03:41.320 | I think what Jeff is asking is if I have a good book about God and His ways to read by

00:03:50.320 | a godly author, and I have one hour and I have to divvy up reading that book from reading

00:03:58.080 | the Bible, what should my proportion be?

00:04:01.680 | Like Calvin's Institute, J.I.

00:04:03.320 | Packard, "Knowing God."

00:04:04.320 | If you want to read some of that, you want to read your Bible, how do you do it?

00:04:07.640 | So here goes.

00:04:09.040 | And remember, I have no biblical authority for saying this, this proportion that I'm

00:04:16.040 | going to suggest.

00:04:17.840 | I'm going to remind all of our listeners something I've said before a long time ago.

00:04:23.640 | Suppose you read slowly like I do, about 200 words a minute, which may be this pace I'm

00:04:29.440 | talking right now.

00:04:30.440 | I don't know.

00:04:31.440 | If you read 15 minutes a day for one year, you'll read 5,475 minutes in a year.

00:04:38.840 | Multiply that by 200 words a minute, and you get 1,095,000 words that you would have read

00:04:45.480 | in a year.

00:04:46.960 | Now an average serious book might have, what, 360 words on a page.

00:04:52.160 | I counted a bunch of them.

00:04:53.640 | So you would read 3,041 pages in one year during that 15-minute slot a day.

00:05:01.400 | A serious book would average maybe, what, 250 pages?

00:05:05.680 | Lots of books are just 150 pages, but let's just say a good, solid, serious theology book

00:05:10.960 | would have 250 pages.

00:05:12.440 | I just flopped one open yesterday that I just got in the mail.

00:05:15.720 | There it was, 250 pages.

00:05:18.080 | That's 12 very substantial books all in 15 minutes a day for the average slow reader.

00:05:25.720 | So I'm going to suggest to Jeff that he reads 45 minutes in the Bible slowly, thoughtfully,

00:05:33.440 | meditating, praying, which would get him through the Bible in a year, and that he spend 15

00:05:40.320 | minutes of that hour reading a great, God-centered, Bible-saturated book that will serve his Bible

00:05:48.480 | reading.

00:05:49.480 | And I'm assuming that Jeff then sets aside another chunk of time for prayer, by the way.

00:05:53.920 | That's another conversation we should have.

00:05:56.600 | Someone might say, "How could you even dare to suggest that any book intrude itself on

00:06:02.320 | an hour that he could spend reading the Bible?"

00:06:05.680 | And my answer is, my experience, and the Bible itself, tells me that other people's vision

00:06:14.600 | of what they have seen in the Bible can be a great means of seeing more in the Bible.

00:06:20.920 | I know this is true.

00:06:22.520 | If I take 10 minutes in the morning to read John Owen or Jonathan Edwards, I see more

00:06:27.560 | in my Bible.

00:06:30.040 | So I think if Jeff chooses his books wisely, they will not diminish what Jeff sees in God's

00:06:38.360 | Word in that hour.

00:06:41.160 | Looking through the eyes of others will increase Jeff's grasp of the greatest things in the

00:06:47.360 | world when he reads his Bible.

00:06:50.200 | Amen.

00:06:51.200 | This is some really wise counsel here, Pastor John.

00:06:53.320 | Thank you.

00:06:54.320 | And, you know, we have surpassed now 1,300 total episodes in the life of this podcast,

00:06:59.480 | and that's because of your support, your prayers, your interest, and your questions.

00:07:03.800 | And you can search all six years' worth of episodes, read transcripts, even send us a

00:07:07.680 | question that you might have at our online home, DesiringGod.org/AskPastorJohn.

00:07:13.840 | Well there are seasons of life when we are especially weary and when it seems like we're

00:07:17.960 | simply too busy and tired for meaningful Bible reading.

00:07:22.000 | In those seasons, how do we push back the fatigue and the many chores of life in order

00:07:25.640 | to engage with God's Word each day?

00:07:28.920 | That's the question from a perplexed listener who needs life advice on Monday when we return.

00:07:33.880 | I'm your host Tony Reinke, your host.

00:07:35.920 | Have a great weekend.

00:07:36.920 | We'll see you back here on the other side of the weekend.

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I Have an Hour a Day to Read — How Much Should Be Bible?

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