I saw some powerful data today that challenged me and I wanted to share here. Did you know that it would only take the average reader just over 72 hours to finish the entire Bible? When you break it down over a period of a year or months, it's embarasing how many Christians still have not read the entirety of the Bible. What's our excuse? We don't have time. Well...when it comes to equiping ourselves & our salvation, we had better make the time. We make lots of time for the thigns we want to do, but not for the things we should do spiritually. Just a few minutes a day is nothing, but is everything if we neglect to dig into the Word. It's time to shake the dust off of our Bibles, and get back into God's Word.
#SetYourMindAbovePodcast
I saw some powerful data today that challenged me and I wanted to share here. Did you know that it would only take the average reader just over 72 hours to finish the entire Bible? When you break it down over a period of a year or months, it's embarasing how many Christians still have not read the entirety of the Bible. What's our excuse? We don't have time. Well...when it comes to equiping ourselves & our salvation, we had better make the time. We make lots of time for the thigns we want to do, but not for the things we should do spiritually. Just a few minutes a day is nothing, but is everything if we neglect to dig into the Word. It's time to shake the dust off of our Bibles, and get back into God's Word.
#SetYourMindAbovePodcast
Welcome back to all of our listeners! I’m BJ Sipe, and you’re listening to the Set Your Mind Above podcast – where everyday ordinary events teach us extraordinary eternal truths. I’m so glad that you’ve tuned in today, I am excited to share my life and my faith with you, and I sure hope that you’ll do the same with me along the way.
I am excited to be back sitting in my regular coffee shop and writing todays podcast per my usual routine. The kids are well enough today that Kylie sent me out of the house to get my work done, and while we’re not out of the woods yet, at least I’m out of the house. I did go ahead and spend the morning at home still to watch the kids while Kylie worked some things out at the hospital, but as soon as she got home I took off for Dry Stack. I walked in and got the Norm from Cheers treatment as they asked where I’ve been – I guess the song is right, sometimes you wanna go where everybody knows your name. Anyhow, today I wanted to share with you a powerful post that came across my home screen today on Facebook. I was sitting and enjoying my morning cup of coffee when a friend shared some statistics about how long on average it takes to read the entire Bible, broken down into different sections. To read the entire Old Testament from Genesis to Malachi, it would take the average reader 55 hours and 2 minutes. Broken down into sections, to read the Torah would take 13 hours & 46 minutes, to read the historical books would be 16 hours & 41 minutes, to read the writings would take 9 hours, and to read the prophets would take 15 hours & 35 minutes. Given that the New Testament is much shorter, it takes the average reader only 17 hours and 44 minutes to make it from Matthew all the way through Revelation. Broken down into sections, to read the Gospels & Acts would take the average ready 10 hours & 14 minutes while reading the rest of the epistles & revelation would take 7 hours & 30 minutes. Now I know what you’re thinking – that’s a lot of math! How long would it take then to read the whole Bible? Well, let me tell you. If you wanted to read the entire Bible from cover to cover over a period of 2 years, you would only need to read for 6 minutes each day. If you wanted to read the entire Bible in one year, it would only take you 12 minutes of reading each day. In 6 months would take only 25 minutes a day. 3 months would be 50 minutes a day. And if you wanted to be super ambitious and read the entire Bible in 1 month, it would take you 2 & ½ hours each day of reading to do so. Now let me ask you this question: does this surprise you how little time it would actually take to read the whole Bible? It did for me. I know for many people when you ask them why they don’t read their Bible every day, usually the answer given in response is pretty universal: “I just don’t have the time.” But is that really true? Let’s say that it is, that in my life I am so busy that I cannot even spare 6-12 minutes in a day to do something different than I already am. If that’s the case, I need to cut some things out of my life, because that’s just ridiculous. But in reality, we all have that kind of time to give to reading our Bible – we just choose not to make the time. The same post went on to explain some of the things that we spend our time doing instead. Did you know that on average in the United States, people spend 2 hours & 3 minutes on social media every day? In addition, on average in the United States people spend 4 hours a day watching videos (that would include YouTube, Social Media, & streaming shows). Just let that sink in for a minute: we’ll binge watch our favorite shows for hours (guilty) but then claim we don’t have time to read our Bibles. In reality, all of us could become near scholars in just a few years with how many times we could make it through the Scriptures, but the fact of the matter is that we just choose to spend our time elsewhere. Please don’t misunderstand me: I am not making sweeping generalizations about watching a show or using social media. But I think there is something pretty important to consider about our priorities when we consider this data and look at how it stacks up in our own personal lives.
Often times when we talk about biblical illiteracy, we automatically assume we are addressing a lack of Biblical knowledge among those who do not profess to be Christians. Naturally, if they do not believe, why would they waste their time reading this book? However, I am painfully aware of the fact that perhaps more often than not those who profess to be Christians are just as biblically illiterate as the nonbeliever. As the country song goes by Hank Williams Sr., “There’s dust on the Bible” – I think that’s true for a lot of Christians. When the only time we open up the Bible is when we come together for worship on Sunday, and often times even then we still leave our Bibles at home, there is a serious problem. 2 Timothy 3:16-17 says the following, “All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be competent, equipped for every good work.” Scripture, the inspired Word of God, is our greatest tool given to us by God for our growth. Through its instruction and application, we are molded and shaped into who are supposed to be in Christ Jesus. But here is the problem: if you never spend any time in Scripture, how will you ever grow? In addition, if we never spend any time in Scripture, how will we ever be equipped to do the works God has called us to do? You see this is not just a biblical illiteracy problem, this results in a failure to equip the church for the work of service as well. Perhaps the reason there are so few workers in so many churches is because most of it’s members are spending no time in the Word. As a result, 80% of the work is done by 20% of the people, because the majority feel like “they can’t” since they are ill equipped as a result of not spending time in God’s Word. Have you ever wondered how the church grew so rapidly in the book of Acts? How is it that the church that was scattered from Jerusalem as a result of persecution in Acts 8 went about spreading the gospel? They were not all apostles or teachers, so how were they able to be so effective? Well let’s back up to see how they were spending their time. In Acts 2:42 we read, “And they devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers.” The text goes on to say they were together day by day in the Temple devoting themselves to these things. How did the church grow? Because the church was equipped to work. How was the church equipped to work? They were devoted in their time, every single one of them, to the study of Scripture & prayer. They were talking to God, and studying the text of what God had spoken to us. When I look at my practice compared to theirs, I feel ashamed, and maybe you do to. Perhaps our problem is that we don’t have the right heart, that we don’t desire to grow & know God like we should. Perhaps we are content and comfortable just laying around and rewatching our favorite shows, wasting our time. May the words of David from Psalm 37:3-6 motivate us to take action & make a commitment once again to get back into the text. It says, “Trust in the Lord, and do good; dwell in the land and befriend faithfulness. Delight yourself in the Lord, and he will give you the desires of your heart. Commit your way to the Lord; trust in him, and he will act. He will bring forth your righteousness as the light, and your justice as the noonday.”
Thank you so much for listening to today’s episode. Tune in, Tuesday-Fridays, as a new podcast episode will be uploaded each day. Also, be sure to follow the Facebook page for the Set Your Mind Above podcast for future announcements and video sessions. As you have the opportunity, share these thoughts with your friends and family, and share with me what important lessons you are learning from every day, ordinary events. Until next time know that I love you, that God loves you, and may we all each and every day set our minds above.