Happy New Year!  I don’t usually make a big deal about New Year’s Day because it seems like a rather arbitrary line in the sands of time.  But the solar year is about 365.25 days long, so we need to set some point at which to acknowledge that we are beginning another year.  There are of course other places to draw the line.  Both the Jewish New Year (Rosh Hashanah) and Chinese New Year are based on the lunar calendar.

The beginning of a new year is a good time to look back on the past year and look forward to the new one.  I’m not very big on New Year’s resolutions, but one thing that I plan to continue this year is my daily Bible reading.  On Dec. 31 I finished reading the Bible in 2009, and on Jan. 1 I began my 2010 trek through the Bible.  This year I am doing my reading in the ESV Bible.

Reading the Bible on a consistent basis is essential for a healthy spiritual life.  You will never grow into a mature Christian without regularly taking in the spiritual food of God’s word.  If you have never read through the entire Bible, why not make 2010 the year in which you change that?  The plan that we are using in my church can be downloaded here. In this plan we read something from both the OT and NT every day. The chart on the web site is marked 2009, but actually you can use it for any non-leap year.

Consistent Bible reading is a habit well worth forming.  The first thing that I did on NewYear’s Day was to begin my 2010 reading.  It gave me a good feeling to get the new year started in the right way.  If you read the Bible every day for several months it can become a regular habit, and you will feel that something is missing if you don’t do your reading on a particular day.  I’m not talking about guilt resulting from a legalistic approach, but rather the feeling of missing out on something familiar and enjoyable.

The first time you read through the Bible you will find some things that are difficult to understand.  After you have read it through three or four times you will find it much less difficult. By the time you have read it through 15 or 20 times it will be like an old friend.

If you are just beginning to read the Bible I have some suggestions for you:

• Remember that some things will be unfamiliar to you.  After you have read through the Bible a few times it will be easier to understand what is going on.  You will begin to see the connections between different parts of Scripture.  The description of the new temple in Ezekiel is reminiscent of Exodus, and the end times prophecy in Daniel is closely related to Revelation.  Today’s reading in Matthew quotes a verse in Micah that I read last week.
• Feel free to skim quickly over the long genealogies or detailed descriptions of the construction of the temple.  These might be worth careful study at some point, but don’t feel guilty if you want to skim over them at this point.
• Try to understand individual passages in the context of the over-arching story of the Bible: Creation–Fall–Redemption.
• Don’t give up if you fall behind.  Reading the Bible in one year is a great goal, but the most important thing is to read it. If it takes you 1.5 or 2 years to get through the Bible that is fine.  Just read it!

Why not make 2010 the year in which you finally read the entire Bible? If you have already read through the Bible, why not do it again?

At my church we are challenging everyone to read through the entire Bible in 2009.  Although that may seem like a daunting task, it is actually not difficult if your read consistently.  To read the entire Bible in a year, you need to read only about three chapters a day.  In our reading plan, we will read a section from the OT and a section from the NT each day.

There are lots of good reasons for reading through the entire Bible and additional benefits to reading it together as a church, but instead of repeating them all here I will refer you to the article I wrote for my church.

I invite you to join us for our journey through the Bible in 2009.  Over at the CFC Bible Blog you will find the latest articles and comments on the passage of the week as well as a Bible reading chart.  Come on over and join the fun!

A new study released this week ties teenage sexual behavior to TV watching habits.  Boys and girls aged 12 to 17 were asked about their TV viewing habits and two followup studies tracked how many of the girls got pregnant and how many of the boys got a girl pregnant.  The report states:

Participants were asked how often they watched any of more than 20 TV shows popular among teens at the time or which were found to have lots of sexual content. The programs included “Sex and the City,” “That ’70s Show” and “Friends.”

Pregnancies were twice as common among those who said they watched such shows regularly, compared with teens who said they hardly ever saw them. There were more pregnancies among the oldest teens interviewed, but the rate of pregnancy remained consistent across all age groups among those who watched the racy programs.

Study lead author Anita Chandra noted that TV-watching was strongly connected with teen pregnancy even when other factors were considered, including grades, family structure and parents’ education level.

This study adds to the growing body of evidence that what you put into your brain does influence your behavior.  Repeated exposure to music, TV shows or movies that depict certain types of behavior as normal or acceptable gradually influences our thinking and hence our behavior.  It is naive and foolish to assume that we somehow won’t be affected by what we allow into our minds.  It is no different from assuming that having terrible eating habits year after year won’t eventually affect your health.

That’s why the Scriptures have so much to say about our thought lives.  For example, Philippians 4:8 says:

Finally, brethren, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is of good repute, if there is any excellence and if anything worthy of praise, dwell on these things.

The Greek word translated “dwell” in this passage means “reason about, ponder, think about.”  The NASB translators note says “Lit. ponder these things.”  “Ponder” is a good word that indicates unhurried, careful thought. The ESV translates it, “think about these things.”  The verb is a present tense imperative, which indicates a command to regularly and often ponder these things.

How many movies and TV shows promote the qualities listed in this passage?  How much time should we be spending watching them?  Share your thoughts below by leaving a comment.

The other day I was stopped at a traffic light and I saw a man who looked to be in his 60s crossing the street with the ubiquitous white cords hanging down from his ears.  iPods are not just for the young any more.  Portable music players have allowed us to fill the last remaining gaps of silence that occur when we are away from TV, radio, stereos and other sound sources.  I’m not sure that that is a good thing.

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