This blog is a duplicate of the one hosted on my website, mark-bradford.com. I recommend reading this blog there, rather than here, because there, the links work. I started that blog in January of 2009, and that blog was a carryover from a blog I started on my MySpace page in August of 2008. If you’d like to read some of my previous blogs, you can find them there.
During a sermon in August of 2008 at my church (Denver First Church Of The Nazarene), we were challenged to start journaling as we read through the Bible. To write down our thoughts about what we’d just read. After thinking about it, I thought it might be good to do my journaling in a blog. So as I read through the Bible, I share my thoughts on my daily Bible reading. Like a journal, only public.
Let me say first that I’m not a Biblical scholar! If anyone reads this, and thinks I’m off base about something, please comment! And though I will do my best to add a blog entry every day, because of my travel schedule, and other commitments, I may not be able to blog every single day. But this is good accountability for me.
I use BibleGateway.com for my scripture references. It’s the best online Bible on the internet IMHO, and I highly recommend it. I use the New International Version, the New Living Bible, and the Amplified Bible in parallel. All scripture references are from the NIV unless I indicate otherwise. Though I normally quote from the NIV, I always read and often reference all three versions in my blog posts. I also use David Guzik’s online commentary on Studylight.org. His insights are often very helpful. I also use Wikipedia and Bible-History.com a lot for research.
I love taking the time to study the Bible, read commentaries, do research, and listen to the Holy Spirit to learn what God is teaching me through each day’s passage as I write this blog. It’s become one of the passions of my life. I’ve grown more spiritually in the past two years of doing this than I have in my whole life up to this point. If I could make one recommendation to everyone who reads this, it’s that you would find some way to fall in love with the scriptures. Whether it’s a Bible study group, or journaling, or blogging, whatever it might be, find some way that works for you to develop a desire to spend time in the Bible, not just reading it, but studying it, learning about the original languages and cultures in which it was written. The more we understand the context of the Bible, the better we will understand what it’s trying teach us.
For me, until I started blogging, I viewed my daily devotional time as a discipline, something I did because I was supposed to, like working out. And like working out, I was not faithful with it. It was very “off and on.” It wasn’t until I really got into this blogging thing that I got to where I couldn’t wait to spend time in the Bible, and would spend all day on it if I could. Spending time in the Bible went from being a task I had to do to a labor of love that I was anxious to do for as long as possible. That’s why I say, find some way that that can happen for you.
Getting to know the Bible and getting to know God is what writing this blog has always been about for me. I’m not really trying to teach anyone else. I’m just trying to figure out for myself what the Bible really says, and write it down. The better we know the Bible, the better we will know God. The reason I do it as a blog rather than just writing in a notebook is I need the accountability that having regular readers provides. If you read this blog regularly, thank you! I hope you’ll keep checking in.
So thanks for checking out my blog, and I hope it’s helpful to you.
