Yesterday, I learned from Trever that he's going through a reading plan through YouVersion which has more translations of the Bible than I can shake a stick at.
Which Bible edition should I use? Here's a good article to help determine which Bible editions are right for you and it goes into some detail of why we have so many different editions. While this article is from a Catholic based view, it's really for everyone, it's universal. See what I did there? :)
Bible Translation Guide
I really like the bottom line though... literally. If you scroll all the way to the bottom of that article it states:
So, which bible is the best? Perhaps the best answer is this: The one you'll read.
Bada Boom. I love it.
Anyway, I'm not here to study Bible edition history, I'm here to just read it and absorb it so I'm going to use NABRE (New American Bible, Revised Edition) which is a relatively new edition (2011) which is being used by Catholics everywhere in the United States now. Here's more information on that edition. If I stick with this, I'll probably switch to another Bible as it's good to get different perspectives, like the article I mention above says.
A Reading Plan
So now I'm going to start that same reading plan that Trever is following, it's called the Life Journal Reading Plan. I've never done anything like this before, well except when I did the Bible Study Fellowship, a long long time ago. I've wanted to do another Bible study as I had some negative experiences during that time... that's when I found out that Catholics weren't as loved everywhere like I thought... I suppose I should have realized that, the whole Reformation and everything ya know. I wasn't a very bright lad when it came to theology back then... still not actually. But I digress...
Anyway, that plan is available through the YouVersion website and I'm basically starting in the middle since it goes from Jan 1st - Dec 31st but with that plan you end up reading the Old Testament once and the New Testament twice through that time. I'm not planning on starting from the beginning so I'll just pick up from now.
SOAP
Trever taught me the S.O.A.P. method of studying scripture... well, not study exactly but how you read it and how it applies to you. This isn't about trying to understand that particular translation over another, what did the people of that day really mean by those verses, which words being translated were literal or was it a dynamic translation, etc. This is about simply reading scripture and letting it absorb into my heart, mind and soul.
SOAP stands for Scripture, Observation, Application and Prayer. It's rather simple really. For Scripture, just choose a verse or verses that stuck out to you during your reading. Make an Observation about why it struck you so. Apply that scripture and observation to your life and then write Prayer about what you just learned.
I was going to do one today, but I wrote way too much already, so maybe I'll start tomorrow...
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