I Read the Whole Bible and You Should Too

On December 31, 2007, I finished reading the complete Bible for the very first time using My Daily Catholic Bible. I think it is very important for every self-identified Christian to become familiar with the entire Bible and not just their favorite bits or the portions they hear in church.

Reading the whole Bible offers several benefits:

- You read everything that the community of Christians felt was essential for salvation when the Bible as we know it was put together back in the 300s.

- You get a strong feel for the major themes in the Bible – love, mercy, calls to protect the aliens, widows, and orphans among us, etc.

- You start to have a better grasp of New Testament references to Old Testament materials.

- You’ll learn about stuff that might be new to you — i.e. requirements not to charge interest to countrymen, 50 year jubilees, returning property to poor, males given a higher cash value than females, and so on.

- You’ll realize that Judeo/Christian scripture  can be very, very bloody and we Christians have no real right to condemn the Koran on its words alone. For every sura that horrifies us, there is at least one OT passage to horrify us as well. Most of us just don’t read enough of the Bible to realize this.  For me, I feel the love, mercy and inclusion outweigh the blood and seemingly divinely ordered violence. But then I’m not a literalist.

So, with the new year still fresh, I suggest that if you call yourself a Christian, you consider reading the full Bible over the course of the coming year. If you’re Catholic, I highly recommend the Daily Catholic Bible cited above, but if not, there are a large selection of daily bibles you can try.