Daily Bible Readings

In August of 2024, the congregations of China Methodist Church and Forest Park Methodist church started on a journey to read the Bible together over two years. To facilitate this, I have created a reading schedule and am providing some daily thoughts to help along the way.

Each day’s entry contains the assigned reading (with a link to read it online at Bible Gateway) and a contemplation on how the section relates to life or to other parts of scripture. There is also a short reading from the Wisdom writings of the Bible and a suggested prayer focus. The most important part, though, is the words of scripture themselves; they are our surest guide to life.

– Mark Fleming, pastor

Most recent reading:

  • Day 657 Hebrews Chapter 10

    Support in love and deed
    Day 657, Saturday, May 30
    Hebrews Chapter 10
    You’ve likely heard part of verse 25 quoted: “not giving up meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing.” Usually we hear that in the context of being encouraged to attend church on Sunday. But there’s more to it than that.
    Verses 23-25 say, “Let us hold unswervingly to the hope we profess, for he who promised is faithful. And let us consider how we may spur one another on toward love and good deeds, not giving up meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing, but encouraging one another—and all the more as you see the Day approaching.”
    We’ve all attended a lot of meetings that didn’t need to happen—meetings that could have been an email.
    Sadly, what passes for meeting together in most churches is exactly the kind of thing that could have been an email: a few people speak, everyone else listens, then we go home and forget about it.
    In a productive business meeting conversation happens; ideas are shared and discussed; concrete action is initiated. Things happen through the active participation of all that could not have happened without the energy of face-to-face contact.
    That is what the writer of Hebrews means by meeting together: real communication that allows us to spur each other on toward love and good deeds.

    -Rev. Mark Fleming

    Saturday meditation

    Psalms 129:1-8
    “They have greatly oppressed me from my youth,” let Israel say; “they have greatly oppressed me from my youth, but they have not gained the victory over me. Plowmen have plowed my back and made their furrows long. But the Lord is righteous; he has cut me free from the cords of the wicked.”
    May all who hate Zion be turned back in shame. May they be like grass on the roof, which withers before it can grow; a reaper cannot fill his hands with it, nor one who gathers fill his arms. May those who pass by not say to them, “The blessing of the Lord be on you; we bless you in the name of the Lord.”

    Prayer focus
    Let us find the way clear to share our hearts that we may spur each other on to love and good deeds.

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