Whew! Things have been getting pretty grim around here lately: war, abortion, stem cells, etc. Let’s change the subject.

Here’s a question for you: How do you read the Bible? Assuming that you do, that is. Lately I’ve been following the daily lectionary from Oremus. On the plus side, this, like the BCP lectionary, gives you an OT, NT and Psalm reading for each day, each in digestible bits.

One problem I’ve run into, though, is that, especially in the case of the OT books, I have a hard time getting much out of a given passage from, say, Jeremiah or 2 Samuel. I think this is because my familiarity with the OT isn’t nearly what it should be, so just dipping in more or less at random doesn’t work for me since I’m frequently unable to supply the context myself. I’m better at doing this with the NT, especially the Gospels.

So, how about you? What approaches to incorporating regular Bible reading into your daily life have you found helpful? Or not? Do you prefer to follow a lectionary or continuously read through one book at a time?