How important is personal Bible reading? One easy answer is: VERY important. Most of you reading this post would wholeheartedly agree with that statement, and yet most of you also acknowledge that you struggle to find sufficient time for reading your Bible.
In truth, many of us struggle to find time because we waste a bunch of time that could be spent reading.
According to one article, billionaire investor Warren Buffett reads 500 pages per day. 500 pages. Per day. That is more than many people have read in the last 12 months, and yet here is one of the wealthiest men in the world who does it primarily to gain a treasure that will not last into eternity.
But, how much is 500 pages? A typical hardcover book has an average of 375 words per page. That means Warren Buffett is reading about 187,500 words per day. Jeremiah has the most words of any book in the Bible. It comes in at 33,002. Genesis is 32,046 and the Psalms has 30,147 words. On any given day Warren Buffet consumes more words than the three longest books of the Bible combined.
But, how can you hope to read anywhere close to that amount?
The average American reads 200-400 words per minute. Even if you read at the low end of that average, the amount of time it would take you to read through the book of Genesis is just over 2 ½ hours. That is for the second longest book in the entire Bible. If these numbers seem too good to be true, Desiring God estimates that it takes an average of 3 ½ hours to read Genesis, but you can read all of the pastoral epistles in less than 35 minutes.
You can read the Bible.
You can find the time.
According to one survey, the average American watches 3 hours of TV per day. Another survey finds that Americans are spending over 1 ½ hours per day on Social Media.
Since there are about 775,000 words in the Bible, based on the average reading times listed above, it would take a person about 65 hours to read through the entire Bible. If you replaced TV watching (3 hours per day) with Bible reading that equates to 3 weeks. If you replaced social media with Bible reading you could read the entire Bible in less than 4 months. Do you want to read the Bible through in a year? That will take you about 9.4 minutes per day.
You can read the Bible. Will you make it a priority this year?
