Devotional from Pastor Dave December 20, 2023

Christmas is quickly upon us, and shortly thereafter a new year! One of the best gifts we can give ourselves at Christmas is also a resolution we can make for ourselves for the new year – to read through the entire Bible in 2024. That is, to receive the gift of the Word of God which became flesh in the baby born in Bethlehem and to let it be born and live and grow in our hearts and lives throughout the new year.

A friend of mine on Facebook recently completed her course of reading through the Bible in a year, and she commented that “it is absolutely the best thing I have ever done for myself. Starting my day in the word has absolutely changed my life and I can’t wait to do it again to learn more and more. It has been challenging, comforting, confusing, confirming, and complicated.” Her words have encouraged me to want to read through the Bible as well.

Our bishop here in the Holston Conference, Debra Wallace-Padgett, has invited us to resolve to read the Bible together in 2024 by following the plan developed by the beloved author Ellsworth Kalas in his book The Grand Sweep: 365 Days from Genesis to Revelation. The readings for each day are relatively short and quite manageable, no more than about three or four chapters a day. The reading plan can be found online here:

https://www.holston.org/files/communications/webdesign/read+together/2024+read+together/2024+read+together+plan.pdf. We will also post each week’s list of readings in our weekly newsletter and Sunday bulletins and social media. If you would like to sign up for a daily email with each day’s readings, you can subscribe at http://holston-email.brtapp.com/subscribe.

You might want to try reading through the Bible in a different translation than you’re

accustomed to using. Sometimes that can help you hear it and understand it in a fresh and new way. For example, I usually use the New Revised Standard Version in my preaching and teaching and studying. But I’m also fond of the New Living Translation, so I think that’s the version I’ll use.

Like any new year’s resolution, reading through the Bible can be daunting, especially when we come to Leviticus (which will be in February). Sometimes it helps to know we are not alone, we are not in this by ourselves. It’s also more fun to read and study the Bible together. So starting on January 9, we will also be offering a Bible study on Tuesday nights at 7 pm in the Interpreters classroom by the church library where we will review and discuss the previous week’s readings, as well as some of the passages in the Gospel of Mark, which we will be exploring in our worship services in the new year all the way to Easter. I hope you will join us for this study as we encourage each other and learn from one another.

Let’s let God’s Word have the last word in this last midweek meditation of 2023, as we look toward the new year and letting God’s Word find more of its way into our hearts and lives:

For as the rain and the snow come down from heaven,

and do not return there until they have watered the earth,

making it bring forth and sprout,

giving seed to the sower and bread to the eater,

so shall my word be that goes out from my mouth

it shall not return to me empty,

but it shall accomplish that which I purpose,

and succeed in the thing for which I sent it.

(Isaiah 55:10-11)