Torah Portion plus new Testament Reading Plan

Last night, I fell asleep thinking about Bible reading plans.  Recently, a new friend of mine began reading through his Bible from cover to cover for the first time.  He just finished the book of Exodus, and he has lots of questions.  So, he reached out to me.  I love the excitement of discovery that comes when we read God’s Word.  Because it is a living book, we get the joy of discovery every time we read it.  I fell asleep thinking about the conversation I had with my new friend and the book of Exodus.

As I slept, my thoughts continued, and an idea I have had for sometime came back to me in my sleep.  This idea that certain books of the Bible pair really well to read together.  For example, when my students do their high school course work, I have them read and study Genesis and John together, and Matthew and Deuteronomy together.  I match up Leviticus with Hebrews.  I find when we read and study these passages together, it gives us a better understanding of each book.

Everyone who knows me, knows I am a big believer in reading the Bible from cover to cover, over and over again.  Like I told my new friend last night, when we read the Bible from cover to cover most of the questions we have are answered as we continue reading.  As a child, I was mostly taught the Old Testament Bible stories, and the rest of the time, we were taught primarily from the New Testament.  This made it confusing at times, because so much of the new testament scriptures are referring to the old testament scriptures.  So, it truly makes sense to read and understand the front of the book, before trying to understand the back of it.

But, as I slept I had an idea come back to me.  Many Christians and Jews read their Bibles or parts of their Bible systematically year after year.  In the denomination I grew up in it was called, the lectionary.

A lectionary (Latin: lectionarium) is a book or listing that contains a collection of scripture readings appointed for Christian or Jewish worship on a given day or occasion. There are sub-types such as a “gospel lectionary” or evangeliary, and an epistolary with the readings from the New Testament Epistles.   (copied from Wikipedia)

In the Jewish and Messianic groups it is referred to as the Weekly Torah Portions.

In our home, we like to read the weekly Torah portion together as a family every Saturday.  During the week, we each read and study the portion independently, and then we come together on Saturday and read it out loud, and discuss it.  But, if I am completely honest, sometimes it can become redundant because we do it over and over.  So, we add in other passages that we can compare to the weekly Torah portion.  But, I had this idea of making my own reading schedule.  So today is the day, I am going to try it.

So, this is what I cam up with so far.

Written by ktmom15

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