How Do I Actually Read the Bible? | Aggressive Life

2 Timothy 3, verse 16 to 17 says, the Word of God is alive and active, sharper than any double-edged sword, piercing even between bone and marrow. Actually, that's from Hebrews. I just misquoted the Bible. That's not 2 Timothy 3, 16 to 17. Hold on here, hold on here, hold on here, hold on here. Wow. All scripture is God-breathed. There it is. 2 Timothy 3, 16 to 17. Which you could do, though. You could do the mess up first, and then we'll do that one, too. Thank you, Dad. ♪♪♪ Welcome to the Aggressive Life, and welcome to the new year. Maybe this is the first podcast you've listened to in 2026. Either way, it's the first podcast I've done in 2026. And as I think about who the kind of people are who tune into the Aggressive Life, we tend to be action-oriented, go-getter type of people. So probably a higher percentage than the normal percentage of America has set New Year's resolutions, has decided to do certain things. And maybe also a pretty high percentage set a resolution or has a goal around reading the Bible

in some way, shape, or form during 2026. Whether that's you or not, whether you did a resolution or not, whether you don't have a specific Bible goal or not, today's about the Bible. It is a primer to maybe help you have success in this area if you've wanted it in your life. The greatest selling book in the history of the world, not even a close second, is the Bible. The most criticized book in the history of the world, not even a close second, is the Bible. The most read book in the history of the world, not even a close, you could add up number two, three, four, five, probably two through 10 together, wouldn't come close to what the Bible has. The reason why it is so controversial, why there's documentaries against the Bible, scholars against the Bible, documentaries for the Bible, documentaries of scholars for the Bible, is because I believe it is the very Word of God. It is the best way to understand who God is. If you don't have some outside standard telling you who God is, telling you what He thinks, how would you know who God is and what He thinks? Well, the way you would know is the way everybody operates in their pop form of American spirituality, which is feelings-oriented, something that just affirms me, something that makes me feel good, something that makes sense to my mortal mind.

The Bible stands against all of our internals, all of our values, all of our ethics, and it informs our ethics. It tells us things that we don't want to hear. It tells us things that we wouldn't even think that we could hear. It is the very Word of God. Second Timothy chapter three, verse 16 to 17, says, the Word of God is alive and active, sharper than any double-edged sword, piercing even between bone and marrow. Actually, that's from Hebrews. I just misquoted the Bible. That's not Second Timothy three, 16 to 17. Hold on here, hold on here, hold on here, hold on here. Wow. All scripture is God-breathed. There it is. Second Timothy three, 16 to 17, which you could do the mess up first, and then we'll do that one. Thank you, Dad. All scripture is God-breathed, meaning is the author is writing down what he's putting on the paper. God is breathing on him, coming in his cultural context, through his personality, through his writing style, but it is God-breathed and profitable, profitable, meaning it works, it's good for your life, in correction, teaching, training in righteousness,

that the man or woman of God should be thoroughly equipped for every good work. So the reason I read the Bible isn't so I can win a Bible trivia contest. It isn't so I can check it off the box of, oh, I read the Bible this year. It's that I want to be thoroughly equipped for every good work. That's why I read the Bible. That's why you should read the Bible. That's why I want to. encourage and honor you if you have a Bible reading goal for this year. It is the way to get your life going in a profitable way spiritually. It is the way. And there's things in the Bible that are boring. There's things in the Bible that are offensive to our modern sensibilities. There's things in the Bible that are very, very confusing, but it still endures because it freaking works. That has stood the test of time. It's still standing. So I'm going to give you some tips for this year for you. First of all, I get asked, which Bible should I be reading? What translation do you like? The best translation of the Bible is the translation you're reading. If you're reading it and you like it, great. Do you like the message translation by Eugene Peterson? Great. Uh, I don't, I don't, I don't, I don't like that. I, it's not for me, for me, it's not a translation of the Bible. It's a commentary of the Bible. Very, very short. Um, and it's good. And if that works for you, it is based on God's word. Great, great. Read that. Uh, I like the English standard version for when I preach. I like the common English version. When I read, read the Bible on a daily basis,

I'm probably going to start preaching on the common English version of the common English version is so interesting because I read it. It just sounds so fresh. And I think, wait a minute, that can't be true. And I'll, I know enough Greek and Hebrew to understand the arguments from for translating this way or that way. So I'll go and, and look at it and go, wow, that's really fresh. You like King James, like New King James. You like New Living, New Living Translation, like NIV. Great, great, fine, fine. Any of the above is fine. Just have one. Second thing, like when should I read the Bible? I'm pretty firmly on this one. You should read it every day at the same time. Every day at the same time. If you don't read it that day, God isn't mad at you. You're not going to hell. But if you don't have it every day at the same time, you're not going to read it. Just having a goal of like, I want to read the Bible in a year. That goal rarely gets accomplished. That goal always gets set. It rarely gets accomplished because we haven't figured out how we're going to accomplish that goal. You've got to know when it is you're going to read every day. For me, it's the morning. It's the morning before I go to work. It's the morning for the most part, before I read anything about the news, it's the morning. And when I miss, when I don't do it, well, the next day I just read a little bit more. The next few days I make it up. But you have to have a daily rhythm. If you say weekly, I'm going to do it. I'm going to like nail it on all Saturday mornings and go through the Bible. No, it's not. It's not going to work that way. Not only that, because it's profitable, profitable for your life. Don't you want that every day? Because maybe there's something in it that day that's helpful for you. Just today in my Bible reading plan.

And I think you do need a Bible reading plan. I'll get into that in a moment. It might be a Bible reading plan in 2 Timothy 2. I don't have the exact quotation, but I think it's 2 Timothy 2, verse 17, 18. It says, and this is basically the message version because it's my interpretation, translation of it with giving some application of it. Uh, anything that you can't control has mastery over you and you are its slave. I read that. Wow. Okay. What is it that I'm, so now today I'm going, am I just spending money too freely? My freaking credit card bill is larger every month. Like it should be. It's just, it's a horse choking amount for me. Do I not? Hmm. The rhythms I have with tobacco. Do I, do I have control over those? Does it have control over control over me? Um, other things like that. It just makes me ask the question. And that's what reading the Bible daily does. It gives you things that, Oh, I ought to think about that today. It doesn't happen every day. I mean, I haven't even happened every week, but every day you increase the likelihood of it. And every day you also get into rhythm to actually accomplish a goal, whatever that goal is. That's the next thing I would say to you. Okay. If you want to read the Bible more, you have to say, what is the goal? What is it? Give yourself a goal for the year. When I say my goal is to read the Bible every day, that's, That's a good goal, but I found that when I started stating goals like I'm going to read the Bible all the way through this year, some one year might be cover to cover, another year is in chronological order, chronological as far as time as it happens. When I have that sort of thing, I end up doing it. Another goal was you can have a goal of I want to read the New Testament in a year. That's a good goal. No one should shame me that that's not as much as the whole

Bible in a year. Who cares? It's the Word of God. Reading the whole New Testament in a year is going to be a little less than a chapter a day. Hey, man, if you read a chapter of the Bible a day, well done. Good, good, good. This last year, I had a goal of reading Psalms, Proverbs, and the New Testament twice, and I'm on track to hit it as is 2 Peter 6. Actually, yeah, yeah. Other years, I've had the Deschenes reading plan, D-E-C-H-E-Y-N-N-E from a Scottish pastor in I think the 1800s who devised a plan for his congregation to read the whole Old Testament once, Psalms twice, Proverbs twice, and the New Testament twice. And you can do that basically by adding an extra chapter a day. If you want to do the whole Bible in a year, it's in essence two chapters of the Old Testament a day and one chapter of the New Testament a day. I'm just giving examples here. That's all I'm trying to do. The most important thing is you have to want what you want. You don't want to listen to what I say or what somebody else says, because then you're going to be tempted to just go big because that seems like a more lofty, amazing thing. Big goals don't please God. Big accomplishments please God. So whatever goal you set, so long as you accomplish it, you're going to be closer to God, not because God's impressed when you fulfill your own goal, but because that goal will get you with God more frequently this next year. I'll also add this. How do you find your plan? AI is great for this. I used to go to a website. I can't remember what it was called. Bibleplan.org or something like that. I would punch in in December what I wanted and it would send me emails every single day of what my plan was that I asked them to give me, pre-generated plans. You can do that. You can find those websites out there. Then I went to AI this year and so I just chat and chat GPT. I typed in my goals and said, give me a plan, a daily reading plan with these things and it generated what it was. And then I can import it into my calendar. Actually, I think my assistant did that. So then every day of my calendar, it just showed me at 7am, here's your plan for today. That's what works for me. Maybe there's a devotional that you want to do. Maybe you're like an old school book person that you're the type when you see a book and you just start working from the beginning to the end, it works for you. Good. You just have to have a system. Know when you're going to do it and then know what it is. And the other thing I would say is this, stop feeling guilty when you space out. You're going to space out some days. You're going to gloss over things. Your mind's going to wander. It's what happens. I don't expect to

fully digest everything I'm reading every day. If I'm reading two chapters a day, I'm going to say 25% of it, I don't even, I read, I'm reading it, but it doesn't even sit in my mind because I'm thinking about something else. And of the other 75%, 75% of the time, there's nothing that smacks me in the face. But it might, and it might because I put myself in the place for it. And what it does for me, if it doesn't give me a verse that gets me through the day, what it does for me, it forms my mind to be different than the kind of man that this world is creating. This world is creating a man who isn't high on commitment, who isn't high on sacrifice, who doesn't believe in the supernatural. This world is creating a man who thinks everything depends on him and he can make his own rules. This world is creating a man that's driven by his own feelings and his own sensations. This world is creating a man who has to glorify himself and exalt himself. This world is creating a man who doesn't have a big vision for his life, who doesn't sacrifice for other people, who doesn't build teams. This world is creating a man who's all about himself and not about God, not about eternity, not about the kingdom. And so when I read the Bible, the main thing I'm getting is I'm getting a reorientation that says, no, this is the kind of man I want to be. I want to be a man after God's own heart. I want to be different and I have to be in his word. It is his word. Somebody else's sermons is not his word. When you listen to me preach, I'm not his word. I mean, unless I'm quoting his word, like verbatim, I'm not his word. I have to be in his word and also listening to the Bible also counts. Maybe the way you want to go through Bible year is just find it on Audible, find it on Spotify and just listen to the Bible. You realize that the people who were the most ardent followers of Christ reputedly was the early church. I mean, that's the way many people think. Well, in the early church they did XYZ. Well, the early church had this habit of, well, you know, those folks didn't actually read a Bible because they didn't have bound books.

It didn't come around until Gutenberg year 15, 16, 15, 16, whatever it was. So they got the word of God by people reading the word of God in their gatherings and they would gather and some would read it and they would digest it. So you can hear and assimilate the word of God in your car. I just pick it a little concerning car because when you're a car, it's kind of hard to digest the word of God. You're digesting traffic lights and speed limits and all that stuff. But maybe you want to listen to it. Maybe you want to sit in your little room, put your earbuds in and listen to it. It doesn't matter. It doesn't matter. The most successful way to read the Bible is the way that you will read the Bible. That's what it is. I got my good old buddy dirt here. Might want to ask some questions that I haven't covered dirt and anything else I didn't cover there we should cover. I would just like to ask maybe two questions. First one is I would love to know specifically what do you like? What does your Bible time look like? Is it the same chair? You got the same drink. Are there things that you do that maybe help you get in the gear? Yeah, I'm, I'm big on routine. Not so much a habit for the sake of habit, but I'm big on routine. Routine for me is a thing that that marks things. It says like over, like I mentioned, uh, I mentioned tobacco, uh, before, you know, every night on my front deck for 15 years, I've had a cigarette and it's not an addiction to tobacco because I'm places sometimes where I just can't, can't do that or they're just not, not feasible. It's a routine. It tells me the day's over the day I finished. I finished the day. Did I do this day faithfully? Did I not do this thing faithfully? It's a,

it's a routine that helps me, you know, decompress and reflect on the day. And I think to read the Bible, you have to have that kind of routine. So my routine is it's the same time every day, which is the morning. My routine is get the other stuff out of the way with first. Take your, take your supplements, your vitamins. You take those, get your coffee going and then get in the same room you're always in and sit in the same chair you're always in. And that's the chair where I say, okay, this is, this is Bible time here. This is, this is prayer time here. This is journal time. So yeah, but that's my routine. The same, the same thing. If I, and that's part of why when I go, when I fall behind on my Bible reading, it's always when I'm out of town because I'm out of my routine. I'm in a hotel and I, I don't know, I don't have any affinity with that couch. When I look at that couch, it doesn't tell me, Oh, that's a place where I read when I'm on vacation someplace. I, it, they're all the, everything is, is, is, is, is destroyed. So I'm a, I'm a big, big fan of routines. Great. Uh, is there anything else you do besides just the actual physical reading? Do you, do you journal about it? Do you try to use it like as a prayer prompt and pray the scripture you've read? Like what else besides just words on the page? I think it's the way I am. I need, I need flexible routines. I'm not, I'm pretty inflexible on time and where I go, but the other stuff I'm, I'm pretty flexible on it. I, For a long time, I was a big journaler, journal every day. Now I'm journaling, I don't know, once every two weeks. And a journal for me would just be I'm processing something with God,

or there's a verse that kind of jumped out at me, which was that 2 Timothy 2.1 that I mentioned today. So I'll journal on that. Prayer, prayer happens afterwards. I'll do a short prayer to start. God be with me as I open your word, but more substantive prayer will happen for me afterwards. So I've got a pretty standard routine for a given year, but then I'll switch things up from year to year. Maybe this year will be a year that I say I'm gonna journal every day. Maybe this will be a year, I think this year I'll probably get back to praying on my knees for a set time. I did that for a year. Unbelievably powerful. And I'm kind of unbelievable I stopped doing that. So I'm thinking about doing that. So I like to make things fresh that way, but what I'll do is then, okay, that's the routine. Whether it's for that year, that month, or whatever. I think it's really important to say here's my guardrails. Great, last question. We know from being part of this podcast, it's about what you do, right? It's not just taking information, you gotta do something with it. When is the last time you can think of like an action step you took

that was directly related to something that you had read in the Bible? And I'm putting you on the spot, so take your time. Yeah, yeah. Well, a more dramatic one, I don't know how to say it's the last one, but a dramatic one was I was reading about, reading just this past year, a few months ago, about praying for your enemies, and I realized that it's so stupid, but I've had enemies of people who were part of the church I was part of and then left, and left in a way that was not an honorable way, at least I didn't believe it was an honorable way, and I had real disdain to a number of them, and one person in particular kept coming up in my mind, and I read that verse, it just really pierced me, and I said, you know, it's ridiculous, I gotta pray for those who persecute me. He wasn't persecuting me, he just didn't like my decisions around some things politically and just decided not to come anymore, he'd been coming for a long, long, long time, and so I prayed for him, and I sent him a very encouraging text, hey, I think about you, thanks for doing XYZ and all that stuff, and I got free, I got free immediately,

like the angst or bitterness I had just was gone. That was a big, big liberator for me. Now, so there you have it. I know the new year has begun, but you can always decide to do something new because this is still the new year. We're six days into January, you could say, I wanna do whatever it is, the New Testament, two New Testaments, Bible New Year, you could do whatever and just say, take it from January 6th to January 6th, or you could be a person who says, okay, I'm gonna get really, really aggressive here the next day and just do the first six days, you could do that. You could also, by the way, the church that I lead, Crossroads Church, we have a very helpful app that we in the church are going through the app and going through the Bible in a year. You can join us, just pick it up where we are right now at any time, and we'll have some helps in there and some explanation helps, and we can journal together and sharpen each other a little bit in there, you can do that, whatever it is. I just encourage you to figure out what it is you wanna do. Take control of your life

and do the thing that you think is gonna bring you closer to God and being the aggressive man or woman that you know He wants you to be. We'll see you next time on The Aggressive Life. Thanks for joining us on this journey toward aggressive living. Find more resources, articles, past episodes, and more at bryantome.com. My new book, A 60 Day Devotional called The Five Marks for Man, 60 Days to a Powerful Life, along with all the other books in the Five Marks Library are open right now on Amazon. Be sure to leave us a rating and review wherever you listen to your podcasts. Then send an email to dirt, that's dirt, at bryantome.com to get a free Aggressive Life sticker. Find more on Instagram at bryantome. The Aggressive Life is a production of Crossroads Church, Cincinnati, Ohio.