Introduction

What follows in this schedule of daily readings is the greatest story ever told.  It is the sweeping drama of how God has become known in human history. 

The readings begin on Holy Cross Day, September 14.  They unpack the story of salvation chronologically, giving the reader an overview, the chance to see the continuity of what God has done.

• The beginning: creation and the rest of primordial history
• Next: the stories of the earliest people of faith
• After that: the people’s delivery from slavery in Egypt
• Christmas Season: stories from the dynamic life of David
• Season of Epiphany: the people of God amid the nations
• Lent: Luke’s account of the life, death and resurrection of Jesus
• Easter Season: the book of Acts, the story of the New Testament church

Although it is the most familiar and most widely published book in the world, many people find the Bible a strange read.  It was written for settings different from our own and put together over a period of more than a thousand years.  Adding to the puzzlement is the immense variety in content—narrative, poetry, moral codes, prayers, sermons, proverbs and hymns.  In spite of these many voices, the Bible does posess an overriding continuity, a single remarkable story. 

This schedule of readings will focus on the narratives.  The stories of the Bible will continue chronologically, day-by-day, through the academic year until the feast of Pentecost.  With rare exception, readings will be less than two pages and take less than seven minutes. 

Readers are encouraged to choose a regular time and place to read and pray each day, one that can be free from interruptions. Each one is invited to enter into the biblical world to encounter its peculiarity, and in the process to encounter God and take another look at one’s own world. 

Lou Flessner and Susan Hanson

Chaplains, Christ Chapel

August 2006