The idea is so popular that the inside cover of nearly every Bible on the shelf of your local book store will have a one-year plan for reading the entire Bible.  Of course, it is always good to read the Bible.  It is after all, as we claim weekly, ‘the word of God for the people of God.’  According to John Wesley, daily Scripture reading was one of the ‘Ordinances of God’ that were required for continued membership in the early Methodist societies.  We should all be reading the Bible daily.  The problem with the one-year reading plains is that they fail to recognize the communal nature of reading Scripture.  The Bible is the Church’s book, and it is always meant to be read within the community of the Church.  This is one of the primary reasons that we here in Ripley have a one-year reading plan that we include in our Informer and Sunday bulletins.  Ideally, our daily Bible reading is not separated from the life of our church as ‘my quiet time.’  By using the reading plan we have chosen as a church, our daily Scripture readings bring us not only into communion with God, but also with one another.  The mysteries of the Bible, its power and promise, are too great to be taken on by any one person.  I was wrong to be bothered by the seemingly intrusive question of a total stranger.  Reading the Bible is not a private personal matter.  We would all do well to read the entire Bible, but not to earn a badge that will tempt us with pride.  Instead we read to bring us into communion with those who have read the same words for thousands of years.  We read with them and with each other as a way of helping each other to name, claim, and join in the ongoing Story of God’s People.  Grace and Peace-Jake Wilson