Transform Your Life

This post contains a four step process that could transform your life by, quite literally, changing your mind.After reading the entire post the vast majority of readers will snicker at such a hyperbolic claim and never implement the method I outline. A smaller number will consider the advice intriguing, my assertion only a slight exaggeration, and will also never implement the method. A tiny minority, however, will recognize the genius behind the recommendation and apply it to their own life. This group will later say that my claim was an understatement.Before I reveal the four steps I want to reiterate that while the advice could transform your life, it most likely will not. As with most life-altering advice, it is simple, easy to implement, and even easier to ignore. Statistically speaking, the odds are great that you’ll ignore this advice. Therefore I encourage you to stop reading now; you’ll only be wasting your time reading further.For the one or two people who will find this useful, the four steps that will transform your worldview are:1. Choose a book of the Bible.2. Read it in its entirety.3. Repeat #2 twenty times.4. Repeat this process for all 66 books of the Bible.I (Justin) didn't write this. It all came from Joe Carter. Read the rest of his excellent post here. Be sure to also peruse his "How to Master the English Bible" link.As I'm thinking through what my Bible reading plan is going to be in 2007, I'm giving some serious thought to Joe's plan. As I prepared to preach Philippians this year and write a study guide on the book, I read Philippians straight through 20x. That method was a huge help in getting me to grasp the text and getting the text to grasp me. Maybe in 2007 I'll implement this method for all of my Bible reading and rather than going through the whole Bible in a year I'll simply focus in on getting real familiar with a dozen or so books??? We'll see.One quick word of caution about this method:If you're not too familiar with the larger storyline and unity of the Bible, this method could cause you to simply become confused and miss how all the various parts and books of the Bible fit together. If that's you and you're interested in this 20x Bible reading method, I would strongly encourage you to read a book like Vaughn Roberts, God's Big Picture, so that you grasp the Big Picture as you study the smaller pictures.