Fall Bible Reading Challenge

As fall approaches and the new school year has begun, our church has also begun it's new year of activities. One might consider in this season a couple of possible new ideas, I list two below.

1) In our small group Bible Study, we will be studying Luke. We will be looking at various guides and commentaries as we begin this series. I'm currently thinking that I will do this study with just the Bible, and two classic commentaries that are readily available online or downloadable.

Old John Gill's and Matthew Henry's. Both date from the early 18th century.

They do a good job in expounding on the "old paths". Which are easily rejected both then and today.

Jer 6:16   Thus saith the LORD, Stand ye in the ways, and see, and ask for the old paths, where is the good way, and walk therein, and ye shall find rest for your souls. But they said, We will not walk therein.

John Gill

(23 November 1697 – 14 October 1771) was an English Baptist pastor, biblical scholar, and theologian who held to a firm Calvinistic soteriology. Born in Kettering, Northamptonshire, he attended Kettering Grammar School where he mastered the Latinclassics and learned Greek by age 11. He continued self-study in everything from logic to Hebrew, his love for the latter remaining throughout his life.

• An Exposition of the New Testament (3 vols., 1746–8), which with his Exposition of the Old Testament (6 vols., 1748–63) forms his magnum opus

Matthew Henry (18 October 1662 – 22 June 1714) was a Welsh^[1] or British Non-Conformist minister and author. He was born at Broad Oak, Iscoyd, a farmhouse on the borders of Flintshire and Shropshire. His father, Philip Henry, had just been ejected under the Act of Uniformity 1662. Unlike most of his fellow-sufferers, Philip possessed some private means, and was thus able to give his son a good education. Matthew went first to a school at Islington, and then to Gray's Inn. He soon gave up his legal studies for theology, and in 1687 became minister of a Presbyterian congregation at Chester.^[2] While in Chester, Henry founded the Presbyterian Chapel in Trinity Street.^[3] He moved again in 1712 to Mare Street, Hackney. Two years later (22 June 1714), he died suddenly of apoplexy at the Queen's Aid House (41 High Street) in Nantwich while on a journey from Chester to London.^[2][4]

Matthew Henry's well-known six-volume Exposition of the Old and New Testaments (1708–1710) or Complete Commentary, provides an exhaustive verse by verse study of the Bible.^[5] covering the whole of the Old Testament, and the Gospels and Acts in the New Testament. After the author's death, the work was finished (Romans through Revelation) by thirteen other nonconformist ministers, partly based upon notes taken by Henry's hearers, and edited by George Burder and John Hughes in 1811.^[6]

Henry's commentaries are primarily exegetical, dealing with the scripture text as presented, with his prime intention being explanation, for practical and devotional purposes. While not being a work of textual research, for which Henry recommended Matthew Poole's Synopsis Criticorum, Henry's Exposition gives the result of a critical account of the original as of his time, with practical application.^[7][8] It was considered sensible and stylish, a commentary for devotional purposes.

If you want to use these, they should be available online in most all Bible Apps or websites, and can be separately downloaded as PDF's. Ask me if you need help.

2) General Bible reading challenge. As many know, I began the 10 Lists Bible reading program a few years ago. Though recently my progress has slowed, I am now approaching another milestone, my 666th reading. I'm striving to get beyond that ominous number soon! But that will mark 6,660 chapters read. I originally, began reading in the ESV, but after a year switched to the KJV version, which frankly I had never opened in the 60+ years of my life in the church.

So this challenge can be: 1)Try reading the KJV, for month. Pick a common book like John or Luke which we are doing in our Bible study. Have an open mind to the few strange words you will encounter ( they are really quite easy to grasp the meaning in context ) and I would bet you will actually find the reading very understandable and most likely notice your mind often connecting verses to hymns or other readings that are familiar. Or 2) begin your own 10 Lists Reading. Here are two useful links.

The Ten Lists

thetenlists.appspot.com/

A mobile web application based on Professor Grant Horner's Bible Reading System.

[PDF]Professor Grant Horner's - Harvest Bible Chapel

I link the App, to Bible Gateway and even use Max McClean's audio version to read the text aloud as I read it from my Bible.

And 3) Note: one doesn't have to pursue  reading the KJV, if your not drawn in that direction, nor use the 10 Lists....just read your Bible ..........like good Berean's.

Act 17:10  And the brethren immediately sent away Paul and Silas by night unto Berea: who coming thither went into the synagogue of the Jews.

Act 17:11  These were more noble than those in Thessalonica, in that they received the word with all readiness of mind, and searched the scriptures daily, whether those things were so.

Act 17:12  Therefore many of them believed; also of honourable women which were Greeks, and of men, not a few.

And finally, of course just continue to purse your reading and study as you are already doing.

Keeping up the good work.

Php 1:6  Being confident of this very thing, that he which hath begun a good work in you will perform it until the day of Jesus Christ:

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