13 Week Bible: Before You Begin

Transcribed by https://otter.ai

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Hey, it's Nathan. And I'm back with episode one of season two of the Bible in 90 days highlights. Well,

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except there have been a few changes. And I just want to let you know what those are. The first season was titled The Bible and 90 days highlights. And the second season has a name change. And that name change is the 13 week Bible. So technically, this is season two. But now it's titled, The 13 week Bible. The big idea behind the 13 week Bible is that I want to create something new. And the 13 week Bible allows me to expand on the dream of the Bible in 90 days. And some of the stuff on the back burner is some print stuff in print, which is really on the backburner at the moment. But also multiple seasons that are yet to come, I've got one, one season is halfway in the bag, and that will be season two. And then season three is already in the planning stages. And so just looking forward to creating a a space to inspire and facilitate the regular rapid reading of Scripture. Another thing that's happened since Season One of the podcast is a new venture, I'm on with a friend called Love shaped life. As you'll notice, the 13 week Bible is part of the love is part of love shaped life, this incredible new venture and adventure that you're discovering as you engage in this second season of the 13 week Bible.

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Again, just really exciting. It all began several years ago, I just was working as a pastor, as a parish pastor had this desire to know Scripture better. And so for some reason, I just decided I would read the Bible through at a rapid pace. And I started reading it through multiple times a year, in 90 day increments. And there was a problem though, because as I was reading it through the paradigm, I was seeing the story of Scripture through the story of God through was, was not fully immersed in the truth of God's radical love. And I came to a time in my life where it became very clear that my religious model was not working, that even though I was really into scripture, that scripture and religion were just not really

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ng the Bible some time around: 2021

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etting back to the podcast in: 2023

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that first season,

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or that that first reading that I did with friends, and this is from a friend, and I'll just say initials in C at the time of my writing.

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I'm on Psalms 89. Let me tell you this is probably the best New Year's resolution I took every morning and night. I can't wait to read the Bible or have it read to me through my Bible app. As I'm cooking, driving, doing laundry or brushing my teeth. The same by David How sweet is your word to my taste is totally relatable. Now, sometimes I feel like I'm flying high and watching events unfold from Genesis. And all the way down in time. I picture an angel explaining things to me from the Bible. There were times I found myself crying after reading certain chapters in job. God's love for me is so intense, so palpable. Through this journey, I am making new friends and learning more about the love of God. As we chat on Discord and meet over zoom once a week, arguably, I have found the sweetest thing that ever existed the Word of God. Same person also said this, I feel like every word was written for me. And so I just I just want to tell you as we're looking forward to season two, that reading the Bible through rapidly is an incredible asset in discovering the story of God. Yes, you run into messy parts of Scripture. Yes, you have stuff that is baffling, and frustrating and upsetting. Yes. But then out of it all, you start picking up big theme ideas, that that just really expand your sense of who God is, and of how the story fits together. Another friend mentioned this, about the storm just trying to find that I saved I thought I saved one more.

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Man, it's not showing up.

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Anyway, another friend went through it and just found the just had an incredible time journeying through the Bible in this short 90 Day or three month window. And so anyway, let me talk about what it's like to go through the Bible. Before that. I just want to mention this, the Bible is a story. It's not a theological workbook. So as we're working through scripture, we're not reading through a collection of theological theological treaties. We're just reading a story, the story of God's interaction with the human family. There are three modes that I see for engaging scripture, one is daily reflection, daily reflection is super important daily reflection is that time that I spend,

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sitting with the Word of God, processing, reflecting on the Word of God prayerfully, thinking and reflecting on what the teaching of Scripture means to me for that day for my life. And then there's deep dive, deep dive is where I take a section of Scripture, even maybe a book of Scripture, and really just work on unpacking it. Exploring the theology, exploring the teaching, exploring the ideas of the book, unpacking the words, really getting into it doing just again, a deep dive. And then there's the third mode, which is the rapid reading of Scripture, all three of these work together in in synchrony to provide an expansive, robust understanding of Scripture. The daily reflection helps the teaching of Scripture moves into the practical rhythm of my life, the deep dive helps my understanding of the text become more robust. And the rapid Reading helps me stay in the big themes of Scripture, keeping my my study my reflection time on track. So all of them work together in this powerful way to really

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just just create a powerful encounter with scripture. Here are some reasons to read the Bible through at a rapid pace. We'll have to devote podcasts and teaching seasons in in in either the 13 week Bible or love shaped life to daily refract reflection practices and deep dive practices. Again, my friend Bob and I are talking about ways to bring that out. We've we've got some exciting ideas in the works for love shaped life, about daily reflection. And so but that's that's not happening here. This is the 13th week the rapid reading of Scripture. Here's reasons to do that.

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Number one, it forces engagement with the larger picture of Scripture forces you to think about the big themes, less than the little details. It also makes it easier to trace thematic threads because you're moving quickly you're missing details, but catching repeating themes that's really important. Number three, the difficult parts don't lie

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last forever, there are parts of Scripture that are tedious, or brutal, or a mix of both. The good thing is, when you're reading it through and just 13 weeks, those hard parts don't last forever. So you move through them much more quickly. Number four, less time to forget what you've read. So you're in Genesis at the beginning of three months, and at the end of three months, you're in Revelation. So it's much easier to remember links and connections or similarities between books. Number five, it encourages hyperfocused, but manageable time in Scripture, it takes about 70 hours to read the whole Bible through out loud, and we're giving it three months. And so if you give yourself just an hour a day, you'll be able to get through the Bible in three months, again, because we're not focusing on picking up every single little detail. We're looking at catching the big themes of Scripture.

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Number six, it's easier to finish because it's only 13 weeks of focus, rather than 52 weeks. So those are some of the reasons that I think are important. Let me just talk about strategy. Here are some of the strategy things to keep in mind. Number one, seek the spirit. Just say Holy Spirit, guide me as I sit with Scripture today helped me to see the pieces come together, be my teacher, God's promised that. So ask the Holy Spirit. Again, supernatural guidance, we believe in that, as we engage in Scripture, make it a habit. And I'm talking about a rapid reading habit. So say, Listen, I'm going to do this once a year, I'm going to do this twice a year, the 13 week Bible is going to be set up with a spring 13 weeks and a fall 13 weeks, you can do it in a time of year, you can do it once a year, but make it a habit because then it matters less that you catch all the details this time because you're going to do it again. So you can breeze through sections and just say Listen, I'll get that better next time. So the habit is such a great thing to do. Make it a habit. Number three, look for big ideas. Not every little detail focus on the big ideas. Again, these are strategies to follow. As you move through this through the Bible in 13 weeks. Adapt your approaches number four, adapt your approach to the content. stories read different than tedious details, there are details about sacrifices about the building of the tabernacle, some of those details are better left for deep dive studies, and, and areas you can skim over. There's also chapters as just lists of people. So adjust your reading speed your reading focus to the content of the book. Number five, time versus sections is a couple of ways street One is you can focus on reading through the section, or you can focus on giving yourself a timeframe in the section. So let's say for day two is like Genesis one through I don't know 16 or something, you can either just focus on reading through those chapters, or you can say, Listen, I'm gonna give myself one hour, and I'm gonna spend it in this section doesn't mean you'll cover everything in the section. But you'll you'll do some surfing back and forth in that section, picking up themes picking up different people, you won't focus on reading all the words, but instead getting the gist of that section. We can also talk about a day versus a week, you can look at simply reading the day's section, day by day, or you can change to focusing on completing the week's section. So rather than worrying about whether or not you're on pace for the day, you focus on simply completing the week's section during that week. So this works really well with say, a time approach where you give yourself 60 minutes a day as an example, to spend in the section for that week. The interesting part about doing a section approach is that rather than just being restricted to the day's reading, you're thinking about the entire week's reading. So you may spend the first couple days kind of skimming through the whole section for the week. Again, rather than just the day you're skimming through the whole week in two or three days. And then for the last 434 or five days of the week, you slow down for those sections you want to pay more attention to or you you look through the section for themes. Maybe you've chosen a theme you want to look out for that week. Maybe you've chosen a theme you want to focus on for the whole reading. Well, the section approach allows you to focus where the theme shows up the most in that week's section. You're not going to catch as much in the day to day reading, but you are going to pick up more clearly the big thematic threads. So again, use this 13 weeks to your advantage not to pick up every word of the text, but

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Understand the larger picture better. And number seven, remember that subtitles count if all you do is catch the subtitles, that counts in this reading plan, because you're becoming more familiar with the content of Scripture, let's say this is your first read through, it's fine for this first read, listen to the summaries, the daily summaries in the first season of this podcast, called the Bible and 90 days highlights and then just hit the hit the the subtitles for the for the day or for the week. So again, work this to your advantage to build your understanding of the story of Scripture, not to simply check off that I've read every word or every paragraph for a day's reading.

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Number eight, don't bother catching up. You heard me don't bother catching up. There are a couple of ketchup days in the 13 week reading. I'll talk about those before we wrap up the podcast. But don't bother catching up, focus on keeping up with the reading. If you miss a day, skim the subtitles.

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Or simply skip the day. And

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I'm going to do this again in: 2025

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The story of Jesus Old Testament you're going to be looking for where are hints at the coming of Jesus New Testament, you're obviously going to be looking at the

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arrival of Jesus and the church that forms after His ascension, get a reader's Bible. A reader's Bible is a Bible that has no chapter divisions, no verse markers, it is laid out in paragraphs like a Bible, I'm sorry, it's laid out in paragraphs, like a book like a novel. The reason this is so valuable is because those chapter breaks. And those verse breaks are surprisingly disruptive in catching the flow of Scripture. So getting rid of those, getting a Bible that has no chapter divisions, and no verse numbers will really help you to get immersed in the story, there's a couple of those available, I will put a link to them in the show notes to this podcast.

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And then speed your audio up. If you're listening to the audio, consider speeding it up, I've listened as fast as one and a half productively, you can probably go a little faster than that, depending on how fast your mind moves. So don't be afraid to play with audio speed, especially depending on the section in order to decrease the time you're spending in going through the book. Again, the point is to see the big themes of Scripture. So it's not super important that you catch every word, it is important that you start hearing the thematic ideas. Again, you're not just trying to cram through this. So you do want to be getting something out of it. But it's okay to play with the audio. As long as again, you're catching the big thematic patterns. Number 12. Remember, being in the text, even if you don't catch everything is more helpful than you realize. So as you're going through the text, one thing you're going to want to remember is that even though you're missing a lot, you're actually picking up a lot more than you realize. So just spend the time in the text. And over time it's going to accumulate every time you go through the texts, you're going to pick up more and more stuff. Sometimes you're going to be several days readings, maybe a week or more ahead and all of a sudden you'll remember a little something you read a couple of weeks ago and lights will start going off. So just be in the text, stay in the text, stick with it and it will you will make progress in getting the big picture of Scripture.

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A number 13 There is a pre

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Few days day one of the 13 week, Bible is a preview day. take that seriously, don't just check the day off and start the next day. Take that day seriously, give yourself an hour to just re familiarize yourself or perhaps for the first time, become familiar with the books in the Bible, the basic content, whatever you can get, in a sense of the whole book of Scripture did that within that 60 minute preview. And here are some challenging portions. No, let me just let me rephrase that. There are some challenging portions in Scripture. And I want to give you three pointers for for relating to those. And when you begin working through the bott the 13 week Bible as you begin working through the text of Scripture, you're going to find out what I'm talking about pretty quick. So when you find yourself in a challenging part of Scripture, here are three suggestions that I have. I've been through scripture in this rapid format multiple times. Here are three takeaways from my experience. Number one, use the backburner. That simply means when you stumble into something that's puzzling or upsetting, or angering or confusing, take that and just put it on a back burner as you would just kind of put it in the back of your mind. Just let it sit there. Don't try to fix it, solve it, settle it, just let it sit there. Because as you dive into scripture, you'll be surprised at how some of those pieces over time and with insights from other authors in Scripture, some of those pieces actually resolve fairly simply. Number two, remember the big theme, the big theme of scripture is God is love. As you're moving through the text in Scripture, when you get into those hard spots, simply remember, whatever I'm seeing now.

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It's going to come together at some point, and I'm just going to remember that the fact is that the bottom line at the end of the day, God is love what I'm seeing yours confusing. What I'm seeing here doesn't seem to line up with that. But it's in some way at some point, it's all going to resolve into the big reality that God is love. And again, backburner. God is Love is the big theme. stick to that.

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Number three, if you're new to Scripture, be aware that the ideas of Scripture develop over time. See, God is working with human beings in the flow of our unfolding story. We don't just go from zero to algebra or trigonometry, when we're learning mathematics. We take it a step at a time, God is working in the human story in the same way a step at a time. So be patient with the unfolding story. In the text. It's really important, then that we read through Scripture recognize that that the hard parts often make more sense as the story develops. So stick with that story. Stick with it, come back to it, just hang in there, asking the Holy Spirit, as I mentioned in number one, and so in that first recommendation, ask the Holy Spirit to be your teacher. And I would say just as a side note, to think of the Bible in three major sections, the first one, the pre Jesus story, that's everything from Genesis through Malikai. And then think of the Jesus story. That's Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. And then think of the early church story that is acts through the revelation. Again, kind of kick out that Old and New Testament nonsense, kind of kick that out and think of it instead in three sections, that pre Jesus story, the Jesus story, and the early church story. We'll come back to that. In fact, I think my friend in episode two of this season, my friend, Sean, I think talk about that.

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Let's talk about tools. By the way, this is all going to be available to you in the introductory

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part of our course, which I'll tell you about in just a minute. Get a notebook, a digital or print notebook, to just make a note of passages or insights as you're reading or questions to come back to. That's a great way by the way to put into practice the back burner approach. Write that troubling passage down and once you've written it down, it kind of helps you to let it go from your mind and come back to it in the future. Read through with friends. Don't do this by yourself. Get friends, to work through the text of Scripture with you. Number three, get the love shaped Life app which you can download at love shaped dot life.

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Love shaped dot life. Or if you go to the 13, week bible.org 13 week bible.org You can also get to the app that way. So get the love shaped Life app. Subscribe to the 13 week Bible podcast on Apple podcasts, Amazon music etc. subscribe to the podcast follow season to check out season one. The point of the podcast is to support your journey through the text. And definitely number six. I've mentioned it already, but I'll mention it again. Remember 13 week bible.org doesn't matter you doesn't matter whether you spell 13 with a one and a three, or whether you spell the word out, you just got to put in 13 week bible.org. That'll get you to what's a developing landing page. And especially will drop you into signing up for the 13 week Bible course. Let me just talk to you about the 13 week Bible course. Day one

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t to decide how you spend day: 2856

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So the cool thing is, if you access this through our 13 week Bible course again, that's available 13 week bible.org Or love shaped dot life. And you can get that right on our app love shaped dot life, connect with us through the app. And the course allows you to check off your reading each day. It gives you if you want to do kind of a simplified course you can listen to the summary podcast, which is linked on each day of the reading. And then you can read a select number of chapters highlight chapters from each day's reading. Again, if you don't have time, or if this is overwhelming to kind of tackle this at once, start simple. Listen to the highlight podcast and then read all or some of the highlight chapters. Those are right there in the course, again, you can check off each day. As part of the course there will be a link to each week's summary podcast, which is a conversation with my friend Sean and myself, and or between my friend Sean and myself that will drop every Sunday beginning the last Sunday of this year, every Sunday. So before the week, you get into the week's reading, listen to the podcast, Shawn and I talk about some of the stuff to expect in that week's reading. And then and so there'll be a link to that podcast on each Sunday of the course. They're also mid week in the course there will be an opportunity for engaging with Bob and I from love shaped life as we talk about our reading our encounter with scripture from that week as we process your questions which you can submit through the app. And we would just love to connect with you. Again, as we journey together. Our goal is to develop not only to get in the text ourselves, but to support each other in this journey through the text. Again 13 week bible.org will get you to the place you need to be to access the course, get the app and be ready to start on December 31 With that preview day, which is day one of our reading. And it's going to be an incredible journey. So I'm really looking forward to your joining me, Sean and I are looking forward to joining you in this next episode of season two, which will be a preview of the first week's reading in Scripture. And so you'll love it. Shawn is an incredibly bright guy loves Jesus loves scripture. It's going to be a great time. And then Bob and I will just love to chat over your questions chat about what we're learning as we connect midweek in a live stream. Again, that link will be available from the app in the app so you can check out the live stream. God bless you. If I don't hear from you. I'll see you in the app or catch you in a sense when Shawn and I show up on Sunday. And then hopefully we'll hear your questions and comments in the app where you can engage with other

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readers as well as Bob and myself and potentially Shawn. Alright until next time keep leaning in to the love shaped life

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See, experience, live love shape dot life

Transcribed by https://otter.ai