Originally posted 2005.
Our church recently started a 16-week plan to read through the New Testament together. I was shocked when a college student said, “I’ve been going to church for almost my whole life and I’ve never read through the New Testament.” That’s heart breaking! The New Testament is not very big. It’s roughly two thirds the size of most novels. Even though our faith is founded upon it, many people have never read the whole thing. Some people have been following Christ for twenty or thirty years and have yet to read through the New Testament. If you haven’t done so yet, please do so. It’s such a small thing to do.
How much effort would it take to get your child to read through the New Testament? There are 260 chapters in the New Testament. If he read one chapter a day it would take 8 ½ months. Two chapters a day would take four months and a week. Three chapters a day would take 12 ½ weeks.
You’d have to have your kid sit down and read for a little while each day. That would take some time on your part, but not much. The reading would have both spiritual and educational benefits. Since it is good for us all, maybe you could even do it with him. It would provide some great parent time, as well as setting a good example.
Little things like this over a lifetime will profoundly impact your children. They don’t take much time, but they make a real difference in their lives. Sometimes we view stuff like this as being so difficult that we don’t even try a little.
I read a book called Ten P’s in a Pod by Arnold Pent III. It’s about a couple and their eight children who drove all over the country preaching the benefits of Bible-reading. One of the philosophies of their father was that you should feed your soul more than you feed your body. As a result, he had family devotions for 30 minutes after each meal. This was in addition to their private devotions which were 30 minutes for the younger kids and 60 minutes for the older ones. The book claims that the kids were of normal intelligence and had normal memories. Yet the amazing thing is that without really focusing intensively on memorization, the kids could quote massive amounts of Scripture from memory. They just read the Bible that much! One of the older children could quote the entire New Testament almost entirely from memory. I was impressed!
I’m not saying all of you should do that with your kids. What I’m saying is that we can get fooled into thinking that doing stuff like having our kids read through the New Testament is really excellent parenting—almost extreme. Having your kids memorize the New Testament is extreme parenting. Having them read through the New Testament is far closer to mediocre parenting.
Perhaps the thought of achieving excellence can be so overwhelming that we can lose heart and even give up trying for mediocrity. It would do us well to raise the bar a little in our expectations. Of course, the hardest part of this is that such parenting can conflict with other things we are trying to accomplish. Let me ask you a question. How much are you willing to do to win with your kids? Are you willing to read the Bible yourself? Will you pray for fifteen minutes a day? Are you willing to get more involved at church? We need to be strong and be willing to do whatever it takes.
1 Corinthians 16:13 Be on your guard; stand firm in the faith; be men of courage; be strong.
[Printer friendly version]
Our church recently started a 16-week plan to read through the New Testament together. I was shocked when a college student said, “I’ve been going to church for almost my whole life and I’ve never read through the New Testament.” That’s heart breaking! The New Testament is not very big. It’s roughly two thirds the size of most novels. Even though our faith is founded upon it, many people have never read the whole thing. Some people have been following Christ for twenty or thirty years and have yet to read through the New Testament. If you haven’t done so yet, please do so. It’s such a small thing to do.
How much effort would it take to get your child to read through the New Testament? There are 260 chapters in the New Testament. If he read one chapter a day it would take 8 ½ months. Two chapters a day would take four months and a week. Three chapters a day would take 12 ½ weeks.
You’d have to have your kid sit down and read for a little while each day. That would take some time on your part, but not much. The reading would have both spiritual and educational benefits. Since it is good for us all, maybe you could even do it with him. It would provide some great parent time, as well as setting a good example.
Little things like this over a lifetime will profoundly impact your children. They don’t take much time, but they make a real difference in their lives. Sometimes we view stuff like this as being so difficult that we don’t even try a little.
I read a book called Ten P’s in a Pod by Arnold Pent III. It’s about a couple and their eight children who drove all over the country preaching the benefits of Bible-reading. One of the philosophies of their father was that you should feed your soul more than you feed your body. As a result, he had family devotions for 30 minutes after each meal. This was in addition to their private devotions which were 30 minutes for the younger kids and 60 minutes for the older ones. The book claims that the kids were of normal intelligence and had normal memories. Yet the amazing thing is that without really focusing intensively on memorization, the kids could quote massive amounts of Scripture from memory. They just read the Bible that much! One of the older children could quote the entire New Testament almost entirely from memory. I was impressed!
I’m not saying all of you should do that with your kids. What I’m saying is that we can get fooled into thinking that doing stuff like having our kids read through the New Testament is really excellent parenting—almost extreme. Having your kids memorize the New Testament is extreme parenting. Having them read through the New Testament is far closer to mediocre parenting.
Perhaps the thought of achieving excellence can be so overwhelming that we can lose heart and even give up trying for mediocrity. It would do us well to raise the bar a little in our expectations. Of course, the hardest part of this is that such parenting can conflict with other things we are trying to accomplish. Let me ask you a question. How much are you willing to do to win with your kids? Are you willing to read the Bible yourself? Will you pray for fifteen minutes a day? Are you willing to get more involved at church? We need to be strong and be willing to do whatever it takes.
1 Corinthians 16:13 Be on your guard; stand firm in the faith; be men of courage; be strong.
[Printer friendly version]
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