By Lorie Ham
Many people find the beginning of a new year to be the perfect time to start a read through the Bible. There are several ways of approaching this, and many feel that doing so chronologically is the way to go!
There are websites, apps, podcasts, and even Bibles printed in chronological order to help you on your journey. “I have the Audible App and I downloaded the Chronological Bible, one of many versions available on there, and it was very affordable,” shares Mennonite Insurance Agent Michelle Heinrichs.
She chooses to listen to the Bible app because, like many, she is busy, and this is something she can do while doing other things like driving, cooking, or folding laundry. “The app has set amounts per day if you wanted to accomplish reading the Bible through in one year as well.”
As to why read chronologically, Michelle feels that while learning the Bible is interesting on its own, the idea of learning the events in chronological order sounds even more interesting and inspiring. “Many know that Noah and the Ark occurred before many of the other important events in history, but what about some of the others? How do they impact events that happen later? Learning them in order can help in studying the Bible the traditional way.”
Mennonite Insurance Service Rep Stephanie Heier is nearly finished with the chronological read that she was doing with her husband in 2019. She decided to check it our after seeing one of her friends post on Facebook about how much she had enjoyed it, and how she understood more by reading the events in the order they actually happened.
They used the You Version Bible app. “It lays out daily 1 to 5 chapters to read”, says Stephanie. “As you read (or listen) to each chapter, it checks the box, and moves you to the next chapter. When you’ve completed the daily chapters, it gives you a spot to write down reflections. It has been really neat to see the Bible as written like a book with a specific order of events instead of reading it piece by piece. I loved that as I was reading some event in the New Testament that was foreshadowed in the Old Testament; I remembered more about the entire event because of reading it and understanding it more holistically.”
If you are interested in trying this out for yourself, there are multiple ways to go about it and you should be able to find one that best suits your needs.
