He upset me when he said this:
“What [God] desires of us is that we understand what we read in His word, ruminate on it, and then do something with what we’ve read. With some of the plans out there, I could spend an entire year reading the Bible and not remember one whit of it, nor put into practice even one of its commands.”

You can do that with a reading plan of 1 verse a day for the rest of your life. Here’s a week’s worth of single verses off the top of my head to change your life: John 3:16, Romans 12:9, Matthew 6:21, Matthew 22:27, Proverbs 3:5, Matthew 28:19. That might be the only thing someone knows in rural Ethiopia, yet they can be flowin’. I’m just saying there are other ways to do what he just proposed. It’s on you to “remember it” and “put it into practice,” so if that’s how he does it, cool, I’m on board… for him. I’d love to consider it, but he makes me feel like an idiot for considering any other way to read the Bible.

Just re-read this. The state of the world is a result of Christians “not remembering a whit of the Bible nor putting it into practice”? That’s why the world is messed up? Really? Yeah? The world is messed up because Christians don’t know or practice the Bible? The world is absolutely burning to the ground in imperfection no matter how many Christians there are practicing the Bible to the T, and that’s biblical. Blame Christians for the world’s problems. Stupid and unproductive. Except for his argument.

“Rampant biblical ignorance in the American Church”? Really? He mentions George Barna, by far the most famous Christian trends/feelings/etc research group in the world, but doesn’t mention the study. But I’ll believe it – fine, Americans are reading the Bible less for about 100 different reasons probably… so his solution is to just tell them to read it an hour every day? I have a hard time believing Jesus would look at a Christian with “biblical ignorance” (me being one of them depending on how you define “biblical ignorance,” something he does not qualify) and tell them to read the Bible 7 times. I would love to know the Bible better, and I’m truly convicted and want to put my money where my mouth is, but I also enjoy questioning absolutes like this, such as whether or not the point of our faith is to be full of “knowledge ([which] puffs up)” – 1 Corinthians 8:1.

I’m taking an extreme stance on this because I think this guy does, too (“the prophets must be read straight through the first time”). My Church back home (including my parents who are loving it) is doing a 1-year Bible reading plan as a Church, and it’s apparently really great. Riverwest has 5 or 6 pastors, each who know the Scriptures really well in my opinion, especially the main guy, and they chose to have their congregation do this. Then they can talk about it in church, in small groups, and on an online posting-board. When I read the Bible in 1 year, I got a ton out of it, including some things his plan undoubtedly does not cover – such as the connection of different books and the total story on a gross, gross scale.

This guy’s idea is great, but I don’t buy it’s the World’s Best Bible-Reading Plan nor that obeying “chapter delineation” is a matter of pure convenience. His quip about us having made God’s word convenient by delineating verses and chapters is only convenient for his argument (why is he arguing again? Instead of just explaining how he does it and what it does for him?). Let’s say there weren’t verses and chapters. Have fun getting a non-believer to look up a passage in a 66 “chapter” 1500 page book without verses. It worked 2000 years ago because that’s mainly what Jews learned in school, but it doesn’t work anymore sadly. We didn’t make God’s word “convenient” by adding those verses. I cannot believe they made the dictionary alphabetical. What lazy human beings.

I get his point that we can stop reading passages arbitrarily and not take in the whole meaning. So say that. Encourage, don’t call the other system lazy or second-best when there’s no way in heck my non-lazy, walking-the-walk Dad is going to muster up a “concerted effort” and read Isaiah in a single sitting. He could argue that the ultimate approach is a combination of the two approaches. The fact that he doesn’t at least say that upsets me because he clearly doesn’t get it. I don’t think we quench the Spirit one bit when we just read a few verses at a time.

“If you absolutely have to read something every day that isn’t part of this program, consider a few Psalms or a cycle of Proverbs. They’re the most suited to broken-up reading patterns since they are collections of wisdom and less unified than a book like Romans.”

Haha if I absolutely have to? Romans? The book that arguably has the most teaching in the New Testament? That’s his example of a letter to never take verse by verse? I absolutely think people should read Romans on a gross scale, too, and he should just say that, but what this guy’s insinuating is crap.

Haha I just laughed when he said, “A book as large as Isaiah is hard to partition, so be sure to read it on a weekend.” Les Miserables is just so dang long – be sure to make 7 gallons of coffee and take off 4 days of work, because it’s too difficult to mentally keep track of where you are if you stop.