Daily Scripture Reading

Curious question for any readers who care to answer: how do you do daily scripture readings? If you’re LDS, do you have some way of cycling through all of the Standard Works?
I have a reading plan that takes me through the entire Bible in a year. For January through September, every day I read a passage from the Old Testament, the New Testament, and the Psalms. For October through December I do Proverbs in the place of Psalms. This keeps me from being stuck reading genealogies or sacrificial laws for the entire day’s reading, and I appreciate the balance between the those three areas of the Bible. I think Psalms and Proverbs are best spread out throughout the year instead of being read in clumps. I used to swear by the NIV, but lately I’ve been using an ESV Study Bible for my daily readings.
Recently I’ve also begun reading the Book of Mormon with my husband when he’s around using a one-year Book of Mormon plan that I calculated using LDS Scripture Tools.com, which is a very handy site. I think it has a positive impact on his own spirituality in addition to giving us more time to read together as a couple.
Our daughter’s attention span is still very short, but I try to read to her from the Psalms or New Testament, or the Old Testament if it’s a cool story that a child can enjoy. I haven’t incorporated the Book of Mormon in my own daily readings to her yet, though we do a Book of Mormon for the lesson every other week at Family Home Evening right now.
So, how do you do it?

Comments

Daily Scripture Reading — 14 Comments

  1. Weekdays: We read a 10 minute section of scripture aloud with the family. This year is the D&C. Because I enjoy doing it, I usually do the reading.
    Sundays: After church meetings we do the same thing, coupled with a chance for each family member to talk a little about church.
    After scripture reading, we put our hands together in the center of a circle and the youngest child calls out, “What are we?” to which everyone replies, “A family!” as everyone tries their hardest to move his or her hands to the top of the pile of hands.
    Saturdays: we usually forget.
    If any one of you mocks me or makes fun of my family for doing this, you are a terrible terrible person. Also, my two oldest daughters will be scandalized that I’ve shared it with y’all at all, so I’m already a terrible terrible person.
    If, on the other hand, you think it’s really cute, then you can come to my house and participate one morning. If it’s OK with my wife.
  2. I stopped cycling through when I realized thematic analysis would be more rewarding. After finishing the source reading for my thematic analysis (scriptural sources for LDS understanding of grace and ordinances), I began learning more about Biblical studies, both OT and NT critical texts and studies. Currently I am working through all of the footnotes to all of the standard works, and removing all references to the Topical Guide from my footnotes (they’re superfluous), as well as obviously unrelated crossreferences, and adding some badly needed cross references.
    This is obivously a personal endeavor…
  3. I think most Mormons, to our fault, do not pay enough attention to the Psalms. My wife and I have a goal to really study the Psalms in depth this summer.
    PS – What happened to Batman?
  4. The Batman symbol blavatar was loading all blurry for some reason when I moved to the new site, and I decided it did not make for a great blavatar anyways because it’s so narrow and horizontal. Good blavatars are square-ish.
    So you get Bubbles now. She’s very clobber-y.
  5. Family: read a few verses of Book of Mormon before bed. Find something to talk about after for a minute or two. Most nights but if we miss it because we were doing something as a family (bike ride, park, etc.) then no sweat. My kids are all small, as you know, so it’s more of a habit-forming period for us until they’re older and can appreciate more of it. We’ll probably switch to the NT when we finish the BoM.
    Individual: I don’t study daily. I used to and it was just a chore, nothing more. Now I spend a lot of the day pondering questions in the back of my mind and turning to the scriptures for insight. I actually spend more time in the scriptures now than when I set aside time each day.
  6. My wife and I read from the Book of Mormon together several times a week. I’d say “daily”, but that’s not true; often, she falls asleep in the evening while I’m still up doing things.
    My current personal scripture study (also not nearly as “daily” as it should be) is going through all of the ‘standard works’ simultaneously, a chapter or so at a time:
    – for the Old Testament, I’m currently reading Robert Alter’s _The Five Books of Moses_ (which I also used when I taught OT in Gospel Doctrine a few years ago). I also read from an English-Hebrew interlinear OT, but the English only — I have zero Hebrew skills — mostly just to get a sense of the original structure and cadence.
    – for the New Testament, I’m reading the Greek out loud from an English-Greek interlinear NT. I do have some Greek skills, albeit very weak, and am trying to improve them a bit.
    – for the Book of Mormon, I’m reading the 1830 edition while going through Skousen’s critical text analysis.
    – for the D&C, I’m reading “History of the Church” and encountering the sections as I go along.
    Needless to say, this is all going to take me a few years, even if I go get diligent enough to read from at least one of these (and preferably more than one) daily. ..bruce..
  7. I’d note that many people skip lots of the Old Testament. I’ve a friend who thought of herself as having read the Bible hundreds of times. When she was asked to work on a project for her Church, and got to the story of Zipporah, she realized she had missed a lot of the Book.
    I think it helps to blend various ways of reading things (or listening to them, I’m currently listening to the scriptures on CD again).
  8. I am terrible about daily scripture readings, and I annoy myself with my lack of discipline. Right now the closest I’m getting to breaking that laziness is by meandering through Reading the Bible Again for the First Time.
    That said, I’m intrigued by this devotional you mention, Jack.
    I’m also very, very slowly making my way through the Book of Mormon (that would be for studying, not devotional purposes, though). I’m hoping to be less flaky about all of this as soon as finals are over…
  9. My husband and I read a chapter together every night before bed. We’ll finish the PoGP tonight, and after that we’re going to read the BoM again. After (almost) three years of marriage, we’ve read the BoM, NT, D&C, and PoGP together. I told him we need to do the OT one of these days…not sure when, but we will (he’s a convert to religion in general and was never brought up with any sort of Bible understanding, so this is a huge task that he needs to gear himself up for).
    We don’t do “family” scripture study together yet, since our son is only 16 months old. We do have Family Night (when we remember) and teach him about Jesus, though. And we plan to get some of those Bible and BoM board books or picture books so that he can “read” through them at church and at home, too.
    As far as personal study, I’m really bad about that lately. I’d say I read a random chapter or a few verses on my own a few nights a week–I usually just read some of my favorite passages. I should be–and will be, I promise–better.
  10. I highly, highly recommend reading the Old Testament. You can arrange things with a decent study guide, because there is significant duplication in many of the books, like Leviticus and Deuteronomy.
  11. Rob – if that comment was directed at me, know that I highly, highly agree. To be honest, I’ve only read the whole thing through once (on my mission), and I relied heavily on the institute manuals to understand what I was reading. But I’ve read bits and parts of it throughout my life, and I was brought up with Bible Stories for Children (some 3-volume video thing that was the only movie my parents would let us watch on Sundays, so we watched it a LOT). I’m a lot more familiar with the stories than my husband. I’m working on getting him to be willing to take that on. I think next year Sunday School will be on the OT, right? Maybe I can use that as motivation…
    By the way, do you have a recommendation for a “decent study guide”?
  12. Carina, if you’re looking for LDS exegesis, I think the Gospel Doctrine manual for the Old Testament is fine. You won’t read things in order or read them all, but they will touch on topics which examine why the Mormons think the Old Testament is “all that.”
    The GD manual, though, isn’t an exhaustive study guide for the OT. The Institute and Seminary manuals might be closer to that.
    The trouble (if you will) with the Old Testament is that its source documents are so old (700 B.C. at the oldest, I think) that the cultures which produced them are nearly unintelligible to us modern folks. I made significant use of the Bible Dictionary, and the alternative Hebrew renderings in the footnotes, just to understand the sentences in the KJV text.
    If it’s available to you, nothing compares to this, in my experience: Try reading five chapters or so of Isaiah while sitting somewhere in an LDS Temple. (FYI: There’s an area in almost every Temple where anyone can go to do that, recommend or not. The Portland Temple is particularly nice that way…)
  14. So, guess what? My husband agreed that we should read the OT effectively immediately! We read Genesis 1 last night to start off. We plan to get some institute manuals soon as well, and we’ll do our best to understand what’s going on. I know this will take awhile, but I’m excited for the opportunity to read this together =)
    Thanks for the tip on reading Isaiah in the temple. We live in Utah, so there are plenty available to us. I might just have to try that little exercise of yours! =)
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