The reading of the word

The pace of minstry around here simply amazes me. We have just come off of an awesome weekend where we blessed nearly 800 families with winter coats, toys for children and food in our annual "Imagine" outreach. I was blessed to see many new friends at church yesterday from this day! Then, this weekend we have our Christmas concert, Saturday night is sold out and we're getting close on Friday night! It will be a great weekend of celebrating the birth of Jesus, but in between these two things something else significant is happening.

I just came from the atrium (now "the well") and the reading through the entire Bible is well under way. We began at 6:00 a.m. and we are well into Exodus. I don't know if that is a good pace or not, but we've started. What some of you might not know is that this year is the 400th anniversary of the King James Version of the Bible. In 1611, it became the first authorized Bible in the English language! Several British actors are reading it in it's entirety at Shakespeare's theatre in London to commemorat the date. This is cool, but reading the entire Scripture has been practiced throughout the history of God's people. Moses read the entire book of the law, Joshua did it when they came into the land (Joshua 8:34) and Josiah did it (II Kings 23:2) and Ezra did it (Nehemiah 8:8), and Paul told Timothy to devote himself to it (I Timothy 4:13).

So we won't do any ministry in the well until the entire Bible has been read in it...a kind of consecration. I noted as I was out there a few minutes ago that the sound of construction is going on in the background as the Word is read. A reminder that the loudness and bustle of our lives go on and God is talking beneath it all if we will just listen!