Daily Devotionals and Bible Readings
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| 2011 Devotional Index |
| 2012 Devotional Index |
Introduction and Background
Early in 2011, work was begun on a series of daily (weekday) devotionals designed to guide a person in studying or reading from every chapter in the New Testament in a year. By late February, enough progress had been made on the initial stages of the project to begin posting the devotionals. As a result, the initial 2011 version of the schedule included devotionals from March 2011 through February 2012. These are available in the 2011 Devotional Index, so named even though the schedule does not perfectly match the calendar year.
It was envisioned that this project would result in a devotional series with at least two unique features. First, the plan is unique because devotionals are provided for only five days each week, Monday through Friday. This plan (5 devotionals per week x 52 weeks) treats all of the 260 chapters of the New Testament in a year. Second, not only is each daily devotional based on a chapter of the New Testament, an attempt has been made in the devotional writing to reflect the content of the chapter and its importance to the message of the New Testament. A person may choose to read either the devotional Scripture text (included with the devotional) or the entire chapter (using one's personal Bible). Those who read the entire chapter will read through the New Testament in one year. This schedule allows weekends to be used for catching up, for other reading and study projects such as Bible class preparations, or for Old Testament readings.
The order of readings allows the reader to alternate between different sections of Scripture and different types of New Testament literature (gospels, history, letters, prophecy) rather than consecutively reading the gospels and historical material or the Pauline letters. Links to the New Testament books provide the option of consecutive reading for those who prefer that approach.
While the 2012 Daily Devotional schedule is available, the March 2011-February 2012 Daily Devotional Schedule is also being kept available (see links above).
The 2012 reading schedule begins with the Gospel of Matthew and concludes with the book of Revelation, following the same book order as the March 2011-February 2012 schedule. The use of the same book order lets a person use the 2012 schedule to finish the March 2011-February 2012 readings while also reading through the New Testament in 2012. (There is a slight duplication with double inclusion of the first 21 chapters of Matthew.) You can compare the 2011 and 2012 schedules to understand better how this overlap works. Some of the devotionals are being edited for 2012 but most will remain the same. A new set of devotionals is anticipated for 2013.
