As part of my preparation for teaching Sunday school on January 24 and 31 (Lord willing), I am trying to read as much of select parts of the Bible as I can. So far, I have read 258 chapters in 10 days, which is the best start that I have ever had for reading the Bible in a year, praise God!
Copyright © 2011-2024 by Rajesh Gandhi. All rights reserved.
I praise the Lord that He enabled me to read the whole Bible in English this year and the NT in Spanish!
Since I was saved in January 1990, I have now made it through the Bible in English (27x; at least once every year except 2014 because I read the Bible through in Spanish that year), Greek (2x; the first time over a period of a number of years and the second time in one year), and Spanish (1x in 2014).
I would like to read through the Bible in both English and Spanish in 2016. Because that may not yet be an attainable goal for my Bible reading in a year, I’m not sure which direction I will go at this time (reading through in English or Spanish).
As the Lord allows, I eagerly anticipate reading through His Word in 2016!
Copyright © 2011-2024 by Rajesh Gandhi. All rights reserved.
This morning, I finished reading through the Bible in English for this year! In my 25 plus years as a believer, I have now made it through the Bible 30 times (27 times in English, 2 times in Greek, and once in Spanish).
I praise and thank you, Heavenly Father, for giving me the priceless blessing of reading through your Word over and over again!
Copyright © 2011-2024 by Rajesh Gandhi. All rights reserved.
Today, I read through the book of Revelation again, which makes twelve times that I have read the book since mid-April. I can testify to how greatly God has blessed me through my reading this book over and over again, just as He has promised to do for anyone who will read, hear, and do what is written in this phenomenal book!
Copyright © 2011-2024 by Rajesh Gandhi. All rights reserved.
Because I am teaching an 8-week Sunday school series from the book of Revelation this June and July, I have been repeatedly reading through the book. Since April 16, I have read the book through nine times!
So far, I have made it through the whole book in one day three times (4/16, 4/20, 6/6), including reading the whole book in one sitting on June 6. My goal is to keep reading the book through once a week throughout June and July.
Praise God for giving us this incomparable book!
Copyright © 2011-2024 by Rajesh Gandhi. All rights reserved.
Today is the 70th day of 2015. So far, I have read 357 chapters of the Bible this year:
OT – 166 (Job 1-42; Gen. 1-50; Psa. 1-50; Proverbs 1-12; 1 Sam. 1-12)
NT- 191 (Matt. 1 — 2 Cor. 13; Gal. 1-6; 1 Tim. 1–2 Tim. 4; James 1-5; 1 Pet. 1– 2 Pet. 3)
I’m very thankful to have had the desire and opportunity to read an average of more than 5 chapters a day so far in 2015, praise God!
Copyright © 2011-2024 by Rajesh Gandhi. All rights reserved.
(I took this post down temporarily to correct an unintentional but serious factual error that I made originally: Because Moses wrote the Pentateuch, he, and not Luke, wrote far more of the Bible than any other writer of Scripture did.
I apologize for the inaccuracy of this post in its original form. Here is the corrected post.)
Analyzing in various ways the 66 books that the Holy Spirit inspired holy men of God to write reveals some striking and instructive facts about Scripture. After listing several of these facts, this post presents a key recommendation that stems from the profound distinction that Theophilus has among all people that have ever lived.
1. The book of Psalms has the most chapters (150), verses (2,461), and words (43,738) of any single book of the Bible.1 Psalms is the only book of Scripture that we know with certainty was written by multiple authors.
We also know that many of the individual Psalms were written especially for specific people (the choir director, etc.). Moreover, we do not have any explicit indication that all the Psalms were specifically addressed initially to any one individual.
2. Moses wrote five books of the Bible, Genesis-Deuteronomy. These books combined comprise 5,852 verses and 156,736 words.
Moses authored far more verses and words of the Scripture than did any other author.2 Although his five books were for the children of Israel and were to be read to them, the books do not explicitly say that they were written for any specific individual.
3. Paul wrote 13 books of Scripture, far more than any other author of Scripture did. The Pauline Epistles comprise 2,033 verses and 43,487 words, which are both slightly less than the corresponding numbers for Psalms.
Paul addressed some of his epistles to individuals and others to groups of people, which means no single individual (or group) was the divinely intended initial recipient of all of Paul’s writings.
4. Although Luke wrote far fewer books than Paul and Moses did, and the combined size of his two books (Luke and Acts) is far less than the totals for the works of Moses, Luke’s writings are greater in both words (50,184 versus 43,487) and verses (2,158 versus 2,033) than the Pauline Epistles are when they are treated as a unit.
Compared to Psalms, although Luke-Acts has fewer verses (2,158) than the Psalms (2,461), it has more words than Psalms does (50,184 [Lk-Acts] versus 43,738 [Psalms]).
Although Luke wrote far fewer verses and words of Scripture than Moses did, he did write more of the New Testament than any other writer did.3
Luke wrote both of his books to the same man, Theophilus.
The following table helps us see further the significance of these facts:
The analysis of Scripture above underscores the biblical importance of Luke-Acts in comparison with the writings of other major contributors to Scripture. When we then also take into account that Scripture informs us explicitly that both Luke and Acts were written to the same person (Theophilus), we learn that God inspired far more Scripture to be written to Theophilus than He did to any other human being that has ever lived!
Moreover, Theophilus is the only person to whom we know with certainty God directed that two genres of Scripture be written (a Gospel; Acts). These facts show that the vast numbers of believers who have never thoroughly studied Luke-Acts as a unit should do so in order that they might be blessed in the same way that God blessed Theophilus by bestowing upon him the profound glory of being the initial recipient of Luke-Acts!
1All basic statistics in this post are for the books in English in the KJV and are based on the Detailed Stats available in the Search Statistics Window of BibleWorks 7.
2Moses also wrote Psalm 90, so the totals for the numbers of the verses and words that he wrote are actually greater than this but those additional verses and words do not affect the comparisons made in this post in any significant way.
3If Paul also wrote Hebrews, his writings would total 2,336 verses and 50,392 words. Paul would then have written more words of Scripture than Luke did, but he still would have written far less of Scripture than did Moses.
Copyright © 2011-2024 by Rajesh Gandhi. All rights reserved.
I have read Acts 10:1-11:18 more than 50 times over the past 25 years. In spite of all those previous readings of this passage, I observed something a few days ago while reading an edition of the KJV that I have never noticed before in Acts 11:12.
What I observed still puzzles me because so far I have not been able to figure out any good reason for why this edition of the KJV (as well as some others) has a clear reference to the Holy Spirit printed the way that it does in Acts 11:12. To understand the issue with how this text reads in this edition, we first have to look at an earlier text in Acts 10 that directly ties to 11:12 in a very close way.
In Act 10, Luke relates at length how God worked in the lives of both Cornelius and Peter to bring Peter to Caesarea to evangelize Cornelius and his household (Acts 10:1-25). As part of God’s remarkable supernatural work to bring about this encounter, Peter testifies to direct divine revelation that was verbally given to him by the Holy Spirit (Acts 10:19).
In the Broadman and Holman Publishers 1988 Bilingual edition that has the Santa Biblia and the Holy Bible in parallel columns,1 Acts 10:19 reads this way:
Act 10:19 While Peter thought on the vision, the Spirit said unto him, Behold, three men seek thee.
20 Arise therefore, and get thee down, and go with them, doubting nothing: for I have sent them.
The Holy Spirit (Acts 10:19) directed Peter to go with the three men who had come to him from Cornelius and even told him that He had personally sent them Himself (Acts 10:20)! Because to pneuma in this verse is indisputably a reference to the Holy Spirit and not Peter’s own human spirit, editions of the KJV that have the word spirit capitalized here have correctly rendered it so.
As part of his testimony that explained why he went in to uncircumcised people and ate with them (Acts 11:2-3), Peter testified that the Holy Spirit had directed him to go with the men that had come to him. In the B&H 1988 Bilingual edition, Acts 11:12 is printed as follows:
Act 11:12 And the spirit bade me go with them, nothing doubting. Moreover these six brethren accompanied me, and we entered into the man’s house:
13 And he shewed us how he had seen an angel in his house, which stood and said unto him, Send men to Joppa, and call for Simon, whose surname is Peter;
Notice that verse 12 has “spirit” in it in a statement that is Luke’s recording Peter testifying about precisely the same event that Luke speaks of in Acts 10:19-20. Unquestionably, the word spirit in this verse is a reference to the Holy Spirit yet this edition of the KJV has “Spirit” in Acts 10:19 but “spirit” in Acts 11:12.
This difference in capitalization does not (and could not) have anything to do with differences in manuscript readings, such as textual variants, etc. Why then is this puzzling difference present in some editions of the KJV?2
If you have any reasonable ideas for why some editions of the KJV do this, I would appreciate hearing from you.
1Copyright 1988 Holman Bible Publishers.
2Two other editions that I have that have this same difference in these readings are the Riverside Book & Bible House Holy Bible Old and New Testaments in the King James Version (Printed in England by Eyre and Spottiswoode Limited Her Majesty’s Printers, London) and The Gideons International 1977 Edition of The New Testament of Our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ with Psalms and Proverbs (Copyright 1968 by National Publishing Company Philadelphia, Pa.).
Copyright © 2011-2024 by Rajesh Gandhi. All rights reserved.
I became a Christian sometime during the first week of January in 1990. It’s hard to believe that was 25 years ago now!
God has remained faithful to me all these years in spite of my continually failing Him. On this my 25th spiritual birthday, I would like to thank and praise the Father of lights, who is the giver of every good and perfect gift, for giving me new life in Christ Jesus (James 1:17-18)!
I am very thankful for having had the privilege of reading the entire Bible at least once every year of my Christian life so far. Thank you, Heavenly Father, for putting me in a country where I was able to have the freedom to do so (1 Tim. 2:2b)!
In my first twenty-four years as a believer, I read the Bible through in English each year. Over the years, I also made it through the Bible twice in biblical Greek.
This past year was special because I was able for the first time to read the whole Bible in another modern language—Spanish! Having had only one semester of Spanish in Junior High and studying Spanish on my own for just the past three years, making it through the Bible in Spanish in 2014 was especially encouraging and is a testimony to the power of God to grant special ability to those whom He directs to serve Him in His inscrutable ways.
Lord willing, I hope to make it through the Bible again in English in 2015. I’m also thinking about reading through the Apocrypha in English and Greek this year. I plan also to read as much of the Bible in Spanish as I can this year.
If you are a Christian, I would like to encourage you strongly to do whatever you need to and can do legitimately to read the whole Bible in 2015. May God give us all the grace, desire, diligence, discipline, faithfulness, and perseverance to do so for His eternal glory and our highest good!
Copyright © 2011-2024 by Rajesh Gandhi. All rights reserved.
Having a proper hope in God is essential in life. An examination of Romans 15:1-4 points to a dangerously flawed teaching and practice that is robbing many believers of the hope that God wants them to have.
The apostle Paul begins Romans 15 by challenging those who are strong believers about the necessity of their bearing the infirmities of weak believers and not pleasing themselves (Rom. 15:1). He then directs every strong Christian to “please his neighbor for his good to edification” (Rom. 15:2).
He explains these directives to strong believers by pointing them to how even the Messiah, Jesus of Nazareth, did not please Himself (Rom. 15:3a). Rather, in keeping with what was written long ago, He accepted the reproaches of those who reproached God, His Father (Rom. 15:3b).
Paul explains further that everything that was written beforehand was “written for our learning, that we through patience and comfort of the scriptures might have hope” (Rom. 15:4). Although this teaching applies to all believers, in context and in the flow of thought of Romans 15:1-4, these verses are direct apostolic instruction to strong believers that makes clear that they as strong believers need to learn from all that was written beforehand so that they would have the hope that God wants them to have!
It is a deadly trap for any strong, mature believer to think that he pretty much knows what the Bible teaches and no longer needs to immerse himself in all of it. By using the pronoun “our” in Romans 15:4, the apostle Paul, who was as strong a believer as there has ever been, instructs us that he believed that he needed to have hope through his receiving the patience and comfort that all the Scripture that was written beforehand provides!
Saying this, Paul made clear that he viewed his partaking of the entire OT as an essential aspect of his Christian living. Any Christian teaching or practice that in any way minimizes the importance of a believer’s reading and profiting from the entire OT is dangerously flawed Christian teaching and practice that will rob him of the hope that God wants him to have!
Especially if you are a strong believer, God wants you to heed what He has inspired for your profit in Romans 15:1-4. You need to feed on the entire Old Testament on a regular basis all of your life so that you will have the hope that God wants you to have!
Copyright © 2011-2024 by Rajesh Gandhi. All rights reserved.
Rajesh Gandhi holds a Ph.D. in New Testament Interpretation from Bob Jones Seminary; he's a long-time member of Mount Calvary Baptist Church in Greenville, SC.
