Bible Roadmaps

I’m doing something I call “Writing for Lent” starting this Wednesday 14th Feb 2024. This involves Bible scribing during the fast of Lent. Now you may have some questions about this? What is Lent? How do you do it? Should I do it? What is Bible scribing? Why would you do this? Let me explain. Lent is an annual traditional practiced by those of Catholic and Orthodox faith, but has been a part of church tradition for a long time. It starts from Ash Wednesday, and involves 40 days of prayer and fasting leading up to Easter weekend. If you look at a calendar, Ash Wednesday and Good Friday are actually 44 days. The fast doesn’t have to be observed on Sunday’s and are excluded from the count, which results in 40 days of fasting. Fasting Fasting involves abstaining from food and various lifestyle practices for a set period of time to humble oneself and to focus on God. Although some people like to fast more superficial things like social media or movies, I think a proper fast s...

This is my eighth time doing the Bible Shred. For the past 4 years, I’ve completed it primarily with an audio Bible, this is because it's been hard to find time and space to read a physical or digital Bible with little kids. But this year I wanted to commit to reading as much as I can either physically or digitally, and reducing the amount of audio. So how did I do in 2024?? Thankfully, I was able to make the time to do about 80% of the Bible Shred in the form of a digital Bible, and 20% on audio (reserved for times when I had to do a lot of driving). And I am so glad that I committed to this as I noticed a lot more while reading rather than listening. What I found most interesting are certain patterns that I’ve been learning about over the last couple of years becoming more obvious. One of them is the choice that man has to decide if they can live a life using their own ways and insights, or choosing to use God’s way of life and trusting His wisdom. This tension is first...

Hello there. 2023 was a busy year for me. I wasn’t able to do much writing for this blog at all for various reasons. My kids are getting older, various work projects and just life in general has gotten in the way of doing any writing for this blog. One of my roadblocks with writing is feeling overwhelmed that I need to cater to various platforms - website, Instagram posts, Instagram stories, Instagram reels, other potential platforms (YouTube, Podcasting). I don’t have the capacity or desire for making content across all these platforms. But in 2024 I want to create some space to do more writing. My plan is to focus on just the website blog, and the Instagram account. But instead of trying to replicate the content of the blog onto an Instagram post (which was time consuming and isn’t really what social media is designed for), I want to keep long form writing on the website blog and keep short form and bite sized content on Instagram. So rather than copying and pasting a whole ...

It is upon us again, the dreaded Bible Shred. 2024 will be my 8th year partaking of reading through the whole Bible in 30 days in the month of January. I’ve written previously about some tips and ideas on how to do it here: https://www.bibleroadmaps.com/blog/reading-whole-bible-in-1-month https://www.bibleroadmaps.com/blog/bibleshred2021-reading-tips https://www.bibleroadmaps.com/blog/bible-shred-2022-tips https://www.bibleroadmaps.com/blog/bible-shred-2023-tips But I’ve been reflecting on why I do this, and would like to share some insights here. Reinvigorate Every time I participate in this I end up with a bunch of observations and questions for the rest of the year. This builds an excitement and joy for me to go further in my personal studies and commitment to be a life long student of the Word of God. If I’m honest my personal devotions can get stale over the year, but having an extreme focus like this can help a lot. Renew Throughout the year I like to cons...

Lent is a 40 day fast that starts on Ash Wednesday (a symbolic day that remembers Jesus’s entry into Jerusalem on a donkey) and ends on Holy Thursday (or Maundy Thursday, the day before Good Friday and when Jesus had the Last Supper with His disciples). It is also symbolic of the 40 days that Jesus spent fasting in the desert and was tempted by Satan. Most often practiced by Catholic and Orthodox religions, I believe that it is a seasonal corporate fast that the wider church can participate in as well. I’m also very excited to commit to a Bible writing plan during Lent. A writing plan is similar to a reading plan, but instead of just reading the Bible you write it out instead. Whether that's on paper or digitally is up to you, but I know from experience that the tangible act of writing on paper has a very different effect than typing onto a screen. For Lent in 2023, I’m going to write out the Book of Luke. Why the Book of Luke? Two reasons. Firstly, Luke seems to have more ...

My kids are at an age where they are fascinated by the little things. Right now they both love bugs. For his birthday and Christmas my son Ezra received a variety of magnifying glasses, bug catchers, and small containers to observe and admire little bugs. Both my kids squeal with excitement when they see a caterpillar, run to get the bug catcher, carefully put the critter into the container and then loudly describe and exclaim the little things they notice. I love studying the Bible, from the interesting and the technical to the debates and textual criticism. Throughout 2022 I listened to a lot of audiobooks and podcasts, read a lot of content about the Bible, and completed various online theology courses. This was done with the goal of completing a broad sweep of big ideas so I can plan out what sort of personal Bible mapping (see my post “ Bible Mapping ”) I’d like to pursue in the coming year. But at the back of my mind, I’ve had the constant voice of the Holy Spirit ensuring tha...

The 30 Day Bible Shred is a Bible reading plan. But not just any Bible reading plan. It is reading through the WHOLE BIBLE in 30 days. That's not a typo, 30 DAYS TO READ THE WHOLE BIBLE. I’ve written about the 30 Day Bible Shred a couple of times in previous posts “ Bible Shred 2022 Tips ” and “ Reading the Whole Bible In 1 Month ”. So this post will just include some new tips and review a new Bible reading app that may interest you as well. I’ve made my own version of the 30 Day Bible Shred which you can find at: https://www.bibleroadmaps.com/bible-shred What could you get out of it? The reason I believe this crazy reading plan is worth it for the following reasons: You can overview the whole “tree” of the Bible. Rather than stopping and inspecting the leaves, you’re looking at the whole structure in one go. Design patterns are more obvious. When you read the stories of king Saul and king David back to back you notice that the author of Samuel has included details t...