#translates to my brain like a failure even though i'm also more logically content with the life path i chose instead

[no-where-new-hero]

i have my masters!!! not officially officially until the end of the month but i passed everything and i got several congratulations-you're-graduating emails so!!! i'm forcing myself to feel a little bit proud of this today!!

[blessedarethebinarybreakers]

(1/2) hi there! so, i don't really consider myself a "new" christian- i've felt drawn to god since i was young- but i only started reading the bible about a week ago. i set a goal for myself of reading 20 chapters a day so that i will have read the entire bible in ~2 months, which was very manageable initially because april break was still in progress when i started. however, now that i have schoolwork to do, i'm finding that i just don't have enough time in the day to read that many chapters.

(2/2) i don't want to disregard my goal, but if i force myself to read too much each day, i fear that i won't be able to retain or appreciate much of what i read. i'm not sure what to do. should i lessen my ambitions at the cost of taking longer to read it overall, or somehow muscle through 20 chapters a day at the cost of not fully understanding them? sorry this isn't relevant to lgbt matters- i'm just always comforted by your advice and wasn't sure where else to turn. thank you for your time!

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Ah, don’t be sorry! If I could talk about the Bible all day every day, I’d be thrilled! (I’m autistic and scripture is my mainstay special interest haha)

This gets super long so tl;dr: I vote for revising your goal and reading less per day. You don’t wanna get burned out, and you want to be able to retain what you read and have the chance to really mull it over! 

It means a lot to me that folks like you come to me for suggestions; I’m by no means an expert but golly do I love the Bible, and I’ve been reading it since childhood -- first picture book & abridged versions, then the “real deal” starting in ninth grade, and these days I often translate passages from the original Greek and Hebrew. So I’m always joyful to share what I’ve learned about reading the Bible, particularly in ways that combine the spiritual and the scholarly. 

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I super admire your dedication to reading the entire Bible; most Christians never do so and while it’s by no means a prerequisite to being Christian, I find that actually reading it all can be a great help in many ways:

First, it means that no one can tell you what’s in the Bible without you being able to bring your point of view to the discussion, because you’ve read it too. You don’t have to just accept what others say about it, ya know? 

Secondly, there really is deep richness in the Bible; the Holy Spirit will breathe through the pages as you read and enliven your heart. You’ll learn more about what it means to be in relationship with God, with yourself, with other humans, and with all Creation. 

Finally, only in reading the entirety of the Bible to you come to see the overarching themes of scripture, the fullest glimpse of the God it reveals. The separate fragments and books of the Bible are distinct from one another in many ways, written by many authors with differing opinions and understandings of God; but once you’ve read them all it is possible to trace the path of the Divine across them all. 

Hopefully, you’ll grow more comfortable with things like contradiction and doubt. You’ll learn how to scoop up glimmers of the Divine even in Bible stories that make you shake with anger or scratch your head nonplussed. You’ll learn that being faithful doesn’t = having all the answers, but instead is about a willingness to engage in dialogue with God and with others, to constantly learn and question and grow. 

All that being said, 20 chapters is a lot to get through in a day!! Whew!! I do recommend reconsidering your goal. It was a valiant one and I’m impressed you were able to do it for a time, but it’s totally okay to re-plan things. I used to be really, like, averse to the idea of revising goals; I felt like a failure or like I was weak or something if I had to change them? So if that’s what you’re feeling, do what you can to let that feeling go. There is no shame or weakness in realizing that your current plan isn’t working for you. The true shame is in refusing to change your ways when everything is pointing to a need for change! 

Decrease your goal to something more manageable, so that you don’t start dreading your scripture reading and get burnt out. You don’t want to resent the time you reserve for reading! You want to be open to the Spirit’s wisdom as you read. 

Honestly, if your goal were to become as general as “read at least one chapter each day,” or even “read at least one paragraph each day,” that would be totally fine! There may be days when you get more done, but even a little passage of scripture is full of richness. And you’ll be showing your dedication and learning spiritual discipline in making time for even a little passage in a busy day. 

Yes, you’ll be reading for a lot longer; but there is no rush. Reading the whole Bible isn’t just about cramming all its contents into your brain; it’s also about letting the words seep into your heart. That takes years, lifetimes even. 

Still, I understand the desire to have the whole Bible in your head. So the rest of this post is going to try to balance the “scholarly knowledge” of the Bible that you logically want to get into your brain as soon as possible with the spiritual wisdom and impact of the Bible, which is cultivated over a lifetime.

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The spiritual side of Bible reading

I’m gonna share a passage from Sister Macrina Wiederkehr’s book A Tree Full of Angels about Bible reading, because she describes the richness held in the tiniest crumb of scripture and the wisdom in taking it a little at a time better than I can. 

Let’s start with her explanation of the spiritual discipline called “Lectio Divina,” reading the Bible in an embodied way that enriches our understandings of God’s presence in all Creation:

“Here is a way to harvest the Word of God. 

The monastic tradition to which I belong has always stressed the value of seeking intimate communion through persistent dwelling with and in the Word of God. We call this form of prayer Lectio Divina (Divine Reading). Lectio Divina is far more than what we ordinarily understand as spiritual reading. It is reading...with the eye of God, under the eye of God. It is reading with the desire to be totally transformed by the Word of God, rather than just to acquire facts about God.

The incarnational aspect of Christianity reminds us that all of life is full of God. God is in all. Lectio Divina, then, is a way of reading God in everything. ...

In the tradition of our desert fathers and mothers...the emphasis was on the reading of the Scriptures. This was the Word of God par excellence. The discple was encouraged to hover over the word of God in the Scriptures as the Spirit once hovered over the birthing world. ...The one who is immersed in the Word of God in the Scriptures is eventually able to read God in all things. ...

Macrina then brings up Guigo II, a monk from the 1100s who came up with four phases or degrees of the Lectio: reading, meditation, prayer, contemplation. 

It sounds to me like you’re currently most focused on the “reading” phase, since you’re busying yourself with getting through the whole Bible as soon as you can. That is totally cool! 

Guigo II described the reading phase as putting food in the mouth, while “meditation chews it, digs for the treasure. Prayer extracts the flavor and helps us get to know the treasure. Contemplation embraces and welcomes the thirsty soul.”

I know that there are days when I just can’t seem to get my spirit into the latter three phases of the Lectio; I can only manage the reading phase. So I read, with the faith that by absorbing the content of Bible pages into my brain, there will come a time when I chew on that content, digest it, find the treasure in it. Thus I don’t think it’s a bad thing to read the Bible primarily in that “info-gathering” mode -- the more scholarly mode -- but when you’re ready and able to wade in deeper, do so! That might be every day for you, especially if you don’t spend all your time and energy on cramming in as many passages as possible; or it might be something you don’t really get to until you’ve read whole books of the Bible. I’m not saying there’s one right way to do all this -- just stuff to consider! 

But I will emphasize the “meditation” phase Macrina describes next, because I think it might help you decide that yes, you do need to cut down on just how much of the Bible you read daily. Here’s what she says about how much of the Bible she reads in one sitting:

“Read until your heart is touched. When your heart is touched, stop reading. After all, if God comes in the first verse, why go on to the second? A touched heart means God has, in some way, come. God has entered that heart. Begin your meditation. 

Meditation is a process in which you struggle with the Word of God that has entered your heart. If this Word wants to be a guest in your heart, go forth to meet it. Welcome it in and try to understand it. Walk with it. Wrestle with it. Ask it questions. Tell it stories about yourself. Allow it to nourish you. Receive its blessing. To do this you must sink your heart into it as you would sink your teeth into food. You must chew it with your heart.

... You may ask if there is ever a day when my heart is not touched. Yes, there are many. On some days each psalm or gospel passage is like the parched earth. There is nothing moist or life-giving to be found in the words I read. I see this barrenness as a message from God also. ...God also speaks in silence and darkness. So when nothing comes, when darkness prevails, then too, I lay my Bible down. My word is silent darkness. I carry the dryness, the emptiness, the silent darkness with me through the day. It is only in darkness that one can see the stars. I have seen too many stars to let the darkness overwhelm me. Even though You are silent, still I will trust You.”

So, yeah. That’s Macrina’s instruction for reading the Bible -- it leans very heavily onto the spiritual side of Bible reading. But the scholarly side is important too, especially for your first go-around! Let’s get into that.

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The scholarly side of Bible reading

People who have to read part or all of the Bible for school know that Macrina’s method of reading only “till your heart is touched” is pretty, but not pragmatic. There were times when I’d be assigned all of Exodus, or all of John, or all of Paul’s letters to read within a few days or a week in seminary -- so I wasn’t that focused on getting spiritual fulfillment out of the words then! I just had to cram that info into my brain so my teacher would know I did the homework!

I feel like your first Bible read-through is probably going to lean more heavily on the scholarly side than the spiritual, because if the stories aren’t already in your head, getting them in there is your primary goal. 

As you read I cannot recommend enough the use of footnotes or commentaries or other resources to help you make sense of what you are reading. Especially when you come to the more problematic or culturally-complex parts of the Bible. You’re not the first to have questions and confusion and distress about things in scripture; so let others who’ve been in your shoes and done research help you out! By finding trusty resources, you’re leaning on a whole community, just as Christians are called to do. 

I’ve got a post here with recommendations for Bibles with good footnotes, for online Bible resources, etc.

One of the resources listed in that post is the Bible Project’s YouTube series that offers a short video for each book of the Bible. It might be cool for you to watch through all of those in the coming month, so that you can get those “main ideas” and Bible stories into your head now, even while your reading of the actual Bible slows down. Those videos can be like a “sneak peak” for what’s in store as you continue to read through scripture. 

If you prefer text to video, you could also consider getting a “family Bible” / “children’s Bible” to read through! I recommend the DK Illustrated Family Bible, because it has wonderful historical notes and images, and it quotes from the Bible verbatim rather than paraphrasing it in kid-friendly language. Reading through that Bible could totally be done in 2 months, no sweat, unlike getting through the whole Bible. And then you’ll have the main stories and themes in your head asap, while not letting your Bible reading overwhelm you or burn you out.

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To wrap up, here are a couple other resources you might find useful as you continue your reading:

A webpage I made discussing a framework for scripture that takes it seriously and affirms LGBTQ+ persons; concepts like divine inspiration, “cherry-picking,” and the rule of love are also discussed

A post addressing misogynistic passages of the Bible; oh and another post on sexism in the Bible

A post addressing the potential for antisemitism when reading the Bible through a Christian lens

And in my Rachel Held Evans tag you’ll find quotes from her wonderful book Inspired: Slaying Giants, Walking on Water, and Loving the Bible Again, which is such a helpful little book for those wanting a crash-course in things like cultural context, divine inspiration vs. human authors, and grappling with violence in the Bible.

I hope that something in this post helps you out, anon! And best of luck to you as you continue your journey through scripture!