Park Cities Presbyterian Church (PCA)

The Bible plan

By David Gowdey

Published October 30, 2004 in This Week

As a church we have an exciting opportunity in 2005—to read the entire Bible together, as a body. We intend to accomplish this by encouraging everyone to read through the English Standard Version of The One Year Bible. The One Year Bible is designed to take you through the entire Bible with selections each day from the Old Testament, New Testament, Psalms, and Proverbs.

To encourage you toward this end, allow me to raise and answer two key questions: Why read the Bible? and Why read the Bible together?

Why read the Bible?

There is no means of grace as potent as individual time spent with Jesus in the Word. Jesus Christ is objectively beautiful, and therefore to see Him is to fall in love with Him. There is no better vista to see Jesus from than His Word. We at PCPC are fond of saying that “we exist to extend the transforming presence of the Kingdom of our Lord Jesus Christ in Dallas and to the world.” The process of worldwide transformation begins in our individual hearts, and the Holy Spirit uses His scriptures to transform us.

“And we all, with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another. For this comes from the Lord who is the Spirit” (2 Corinthians 3:18).

Transformation into Christ’s image is a by-product of beholding His glory. We behold His glory by seeing Him, and we see Him in His Word as revealed by the Holy Spirit.

“And we also thank God constantly for this, that when you received the Word of God, which you heard from us, you accepted it not as the word of men but as what it really is, the Word of God, which is at work in you believers” (1 Thessalonians 2:13).

“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God” (John 1:1).

“[The Son] is the radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of his nature, and he upholds the universe by the word of his power. After making purification for sins, he sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high” (Hebrews 1:3).

“When Moses came down from Mount Sinai, with the two tablets of the testimony in his hand...Moses did not know that the skin of his face shone because he had been talking with God” (Exodus 34:29).

It sounds magical to say that time in a book transforms you, yet there is nothing mystical about falling more in love with your lover as a result of spending time together. That is why we read our Bible.

Why read the Bible together?

This is not a program but a tool, a tool for unity.

Imagine what marriages would look like if husbands and wives read the Bible together daily next year.

Imagine what families would look like if fathers led their families through the Bible daily next year.

Imagine what small groups and Sunday School communities would look like if everyone read the Bible together daily next year.

Imagine what corporate worship would look like if everyone in the pews had already read the passage that the pastor was going to preach from.

Please consider joining us in this journey to fall more in love with Christ together. May God honor the reading of His Word.