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Spiritual Fitness: How Long Does It Take to Read the Bible?

Jesus said the greatest commandment ever given by God—the most important one for us to obey—is: “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength” (Mark 12:30).

The best way to obey that command is to read God’s communication to us (the Bible) and to communicate back to God (prayer). In this way our love for him will grow richer every day and our soul will grow stronger in our spiritual warfare against evil and personal temptation.

[ Read SemperVerus articles on the subject of spiritual fitness ]

But you may be thinking you don’t have enough time in a day to complete the reading of the entire Bible. The reality is you do have enough time, since each book of the Bible can be measured in achievable “chunks.”

Almost half the books in the Bible take less than a half-hour to read. Twenty-three of them can each be read in under 20 minutes!

Here’s a chart (by the website desiringGod) of the average time it takes to read each book of Scripture, shown in the order in which each one appears in the Bible:

Biblical Lessons to Learn De-Escalating Skills

You’ll always prevail against a threat if you’re able to avoid the threat. Proper execution of situational awareness positions you to be aware of warning signs in advance of perilous occurrences, which in turn allows you to maintain enough physical distance as much as possible to stay in control of the outcomes. In his ancient book, The Art of War, late 6th century BC Chinese general, military strategist, writer, and philosopher Sun Tzu wrote, “The greatest victory is that which requires no battle.”

[ Read SemperVerus articles on the topic of being Aware ]

Practicing situational awareness applies to the verbal confrontations you might face as much as to the physical surroundings you encounter every day. The oral skill-set required to keep a heated argument from becoming a deadly altercation is known as de-escalation. It involves knowing what to say and not say, when to say it, and how to say it. That means the coordinated use of our brains and tongues can be just as important in our self-defense strategy as performing defensive shooting drills at the range. An excellent article on the subject is “The Truth About De-Escalation” by John Bostain, president of Command Presence Training, published in Michigan Police Chiefs.

[ Read SemperVerus articles on the topic of spiritual fitness ]

The world’s most influential book, the Bible, has plenty to say about the words that come out of our mouths. Consider the following Scripture verses as a framework to help you in building your de-escalation mindset.

▶ Death and life are in the power of the tongue…. Proverbs 18:21

▶ Let every person be quick to hear, slow to speak, slow to anger. James 1:19

▶ Do you see a man who is hasty in his words? There is more hope for a fool than for him. Proverbs 29:20

[ Read the SemperVerus article, Gentle Response De-Escalation Training for Church Security Teams ]

▶ Whoever restrains his words has knowledge, and he who has a cool spirit is a man of understanding. Proverbs 17:27

▶ Whoever guards his mouth preserves his life; he who opens wide his lips comes to ruin. Proverbs 13:3

[ Read the SemperVerus article, on Concealed Carry Daily Prayer ]

Stay On Mission

Stay on mission compass illustration Staying on mission means you remain committed to your objective—no matter what temptation, disruption, or distraction you encounter—until you accomplish what you set out to do.

[ Read the SemperVerus article, Secure Your Base (Your Soul) ]

For the SemperVerus Brotherhood, staying on mission means keeping your soul strong by adhering to the 5 core components of Prepare, Aware, Be, Know, Do, resulting in the strategic element of solidifying your Self-Defense.

[ Read the SemperVerus article, SemperVerus™ Brotherhood/Sisterhood Launches to Help People ‘Stay True’ ]

Staying true to your spiritual, mental, and physical purpose is the way to disallow mission drift and mission creep. It all comes down to intentional decision-making to stay true at every step of your life journey, every moment of every day. If you don’t, you’ll veer off course before you’re even aware of it. It happens one little decision at a time, where you go astray bit-by-bit. You need to build in measures to help you avoid suffering this outcome.

3 Ways to Get More Done

In his book, The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, the late Stephen Covey said, to be productive, we need to schedule our priorities.

[ Read the SemperVerus article, The 7 Habits: Put First Things First ]

Podcast host Pat Flynn, in a Fast Company article, suggests 3 ways to to keep yourself on track to accomplish that:

Manage distractions by setting 5-6 alarms on your phone to sound at random during your workday. When they go off, ask yourself if what you’re doing at that moment is productive or unimportant.
Perform “just-in-time learning” where you only consume educational content that has to do with your current priority (not a future idea). It should be relevant (related to the next most important milestone along your prioritized project’s path) and actionable (can be put into action in the next week or two). Otherwise, set the information aside to read at a later time.
Delegate 10% to 20% of your time per week to “scratch the itch” you have that’s a dream idea or brainstorm, but not yet a priority. That 20% is your reward for being focused and productive the rest of the week.

Read this article in full…

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By semperverus
Posted on 08/23/202008/23/2020