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Becoming familiar with God’s story through the reading of the scriptures is one of our most important and rewarding disciplines. Jesus said that a good tree will bear good fruit (Matt 7:17-18) and having the word of God present continually in our minds (John 8:31-32) and available to our thinking is critical to resting in God (John 15:4-8). Like anything else, we grow through consistency and rather than skipping around the bible, many people find it helpful to have a “reading plan”, using some sort of devotional or schedule of readings during their devotional time each day.
While there are many helpful books being printed today, I’d like to suggest that as a community we use the Common Lectionary. Because it was created centuries ago for people who set time aside daily for prayer and to hear the word of God, it provides readings for each day of the week, and then also provides a separate set of readings for the Sunday Community Gathering.
Imagine the power of a whole community all reading the same passages each day. Imagine all of us turning our attention, our thinking and our prayer life to these passages together. We might find ourselves discussing them at dinner, with our friends, or as we run into each other during our week (Deut 6:4-7!). We know that we are a body, and that God speaks to his people through his people. What better way to listen than by having the same words in our hearts and minds together each week?
The Daily Readings provide a Psalm, an Old Testament, New Testament and Gospel reading for each day. I would encourage you to read the Psalm and Gospel, and then one or both of the remaining readings as you have time. Or you might spilt them up and read two in the morning and two in the evening.
The Sunday Readings can be substituted for the Sunday daily reading and these will be the readings that I am generally teaching out of when are together for our weekly gathering.
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