How to Eat Your Bible was a great nonfiction read. I enjoyed the topic and especially the detailed 7-Year Plan at the end. I recommend it.


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How to Eat Your Bible
A Simple Approach to Learning and Loving the Word of God
by Nate Pickowicz
Moody Publishers
Christian
Pub Date 05 Jan 2021


I am reviewing a copy of How to Eat Your Bible: A Simple Approach to Learning and Loving the Word of God through Moody Publishers and Netgalley:




In How to Eat Your Bible we are reminded that the Bible is far more than a book, it is the word of God, and studying it, reading it, praying over it, can change our spirit, regenerating our spiritual life, it can change our mind through the knowledge it gives us, and it has the power to change our emotions, it can change our will too.




We are reminded that Loving God means Loving His Word. That when we feel distant from God, it is because you’ve been ignoring God’s word? Maybe you don’t know where to start. Maybe the long books and strange names feel overwhelming. Maybe you just don’t like reading. Whatever the case, How to Eat Your Bible will help you cultivate an appetite for life-long study of God’s Word.




In How to Eat Your Bible you will find practical guidance for overcoming the hurdles that have kept you from making Bible study a regular part of your life. You’ll also become encouraged to pursue God’s Word by learning how other Christians throughout time maintained this crucial practice.



Pastor Nate Pickowicz includes a unique Seven Year Bible Plan so that you can apply what you’ve learned and continue drawing near to God as you consume His Word.


I give How to Eat Your Bible five out of five stars!


Happy Reading!

I liked what the author was going for in the book and the importance of the Scriptures, however, I wasn't a fan of his reading plan. It is 7 years long and involves reading the same thing over again many times. I think the reader, and know from experience that I, would learn much better from taking time to ponder and use additional learning resources, as necessary, rather than just reading through the same thing over and over again. If you aren't reading getting anything from reading once, reading it again and again, consecutively, is not an effective measure to suddenly learn something. The reader needs to change HOW they are reading, not just repeat ineffective measures. Again, I think he had good intentions in this book, the execution in the latter part just didn't come together for me.

A solid book that could offer value to long-time followers of Christ or new followers. Discipleship is so important and this book is a great start in knowing how to read the Bible and be nourished by it in truth.

Spending time in scripture, prayer, and mediation has been a struggle for many years for me. When I saw How to Eat Your Bible by Nate Pickowicz, I just had to see what this was all about! How does a person eat their bible? Just as you would eat an elephant, one bite at a time!

How to Eat Your Bible by Nate Pickowicz shares about the various places and ways you can find scripture and study bibles. It’s quite fascinating to see it all in one places with a little summary. Why are there so many? People learn in different ways, so it’s useful that there would be a variety of styles and translations of the Bible.

Pickowicz also goes into ways to study your bible, how to pray, what to pray for, and everything there is to do with scripture. It’s a comprehensive compilation of what he does when he studies his bible and suggestions on what readers could do as well.

This is a pretty short book that contains many relatable scriptures. The focus is on the seven-year bible reading plan. This is a plan I have never done, but it sounds like a great idea! Read through each book of the New Testament 30-times before moving onto the next book. Longer books can be divided up into sections to cover. Doing this allows the reader to dive deeper into the scripture, spend time learning more about the area and civilization during that time.

A digital copy of How to Eat Your Bible by Nate Pickowicz was provided complimentary by Moody Publishers via NetGalley. A review is not required, but it helps readers and authors alike, so I enjoy writing a review. I give this book 4 out of 5 tiaras because it’s very useful information, but part of me feels that it could be divided up a bit better. The book goes over the seven-year plan more than once and it’s almost redundant.

How to Eat Your Bible offers another option for how to love, know, and enjoy reading Scripture. Pickowicz provides a guide and concludes with a Seven Year Plan in which a person reads a section of the Bible everyday for 30 days. Some of the ideas are valuable. I like the idea of encouraging readers to deeply study sections of Scritpure. Other parts of the book were not as enjoyable. Already having a reading plan and regular deep study, I did not benefit from this book.

I'm undecided as to how many people I think will benefit from this book. I think some will be turned off by the technical language the author uses. By no means is the book academic, but some will stumble around them. Overall, I would recommend people read the book if they have struggled to either consistently read Scripture or retain what they have read.

First sentence from the introduction: I’m writing this book to myself. Well, actually, it’s for you, but I can’t help wondering whether you and I may have had a similar experience.

This short little book focuses on the Word of God. Why should Christians read the Bible? How often should Christians read the Bible? How should Christians approach Bible reading? What steps are necessary or important? (Namely prayer and actually doing it.)

The reader Pickowicz has in mind is a reluctant reader who feels slightly bad about approaching the Word of God reluctantly and inconsistently. This reader is essentially unfamiliar with the Word of God and lacks desire to be fed by the Word of God.

I believe his goal is to get that reluctant, inconsistent reader to get excited and prayerful about actually reading the Word of God and living by it. He encourages the reader often to pray, pray, pray, pray. Pray for God to place the desire within your heart. Pray for God to open your eyes, your heart, your mind. Pray for God to transform you through the reading of the Word. Pray for God to use your time in the Word beneficially. Pray against temptations that distract and negate.

He specifically is encouraging readers to take a different approach to reading the Bible. Instead of encouraging readers to read through the Bible in a year or two or three in its entirety. He is encouraging his reluctant, inconsistent readers to approach Bible reading the John MacArthur way. That is to read each book of the New Testament through thirty times in a row. Shorter books get a month. Longer books are broken into sections and tackled over multiple months. (For example, three months for the book of Romans.) He deviates from MacArthur's advice to read through the Old Testament once each year. He instead feels that readers should commit to reading each book through fifteen times in a row. (Half of what he encourages for the New Testament.) Again shorter books are given their own time. But longer books are broken into segments. One clarification: MacArthur emphasizes 30 days--roughly a month. Pickowicz emphasizes thirty readings. So if you wanted to read Galatians once in the morning and once in the evening--one could finish it in fifteen days instead of thirty. It is the number of times through a book that matters to Pickowicz.

So he's devised--loosely somewhat--a seven year Bible reading plan.

My thoughts...I do have them! Let's see. I like the idea of including the Old Testament in this in-depth study. I myself have done this with Psalms. I read 30 days of book one of Psalms, 30 days of book two of Psalms, 30 days of book three of Psalms, 30 days of book four of Psalms, 30 days of book five of Psalms. It was incredible, wonderful, nourishing. I highly recommend it if you get the chance. There are other books I'd love to approach this way. (Though notably not Proverbs. But Isaiah 40-66 comes to mind!)

But. I am not Pickowicz's envisioned reader. I am not reluctant to read the Bible. Nor am I reluctant to read in general. You don't have to really do much to get me to set aside time to read. Being completely honest, I am not inconsistent now. Though the me of twenty years ago was inconsistent--very. I was either all hot or all cold.

I am slightly unsure how someone completely and totally new to the Bible--who doesn't really have an idea of the big picture or how the narrative fits together or how books relate to one another or a foundational grounding of key essential doctrines of the faith--would handle being thrown right into possibly one of the hardest ways (but most thorough and no-nonsense) to get to know the Bible. 30 days or 30 readings of the same book. He encourages reading the whole New Testament first. Is this perhaps disconnecting the New Testament from the Old Testament a little too much at the beginning of the program??? Maybe. Maybe not. I can't imagine reading Hebrews for 30 or 60 or even 90 days without ever having read the Old Testament. The New Testament is built on the Old.

I love the idea of people actually reading the New Testament books that intensely and frequently. But I am leaning more towards MacArthur's the Old Testament needs to be being read throughout the year too. (Just like I would encourage readers who actually implement Picowicz's plan to read through the New Testament each year that they study the Old Testament books.) I can't imagine going four years without reading the New Testament!!! (Nor can I imagine going three years without reading the Old Testament.)

Overall the subject matter of the book is excellent. The topic of studying and reading the Bible is more important than how often. It seems Christians try to pride themselves on reading the Bible every year and yet, we Christians don't seem to have a good grasp of the Scriptures.

The plan and thought of a Seven Year Bible plan is interesting. Basically, read each portion of Scripture multiple times to learn and understand it. Following that plan (as laid out in the book) will take about 7 years.

I currently rate the book at 3 stars because of typos. Far too many typos in the book. I was able to figure out a great majority of them and did send notes/suggestions to get those typos fixed. However there were some typos I was not able to understand and suggest fixes for. In those cases, I had to skip that sentence or in sometimes that paragraph. Those typos desperately need fixed before the book is released.

Another problem/challenge was the weird paragraph spacing and sentence returns. That could be because this is a pre-release version that I am reading, but it needs addressed as well.

The last issue/concern is the that page numbers and Chapter titles are in the middle of the page, instead of at the top or bottom of the pages as typically found in books. It was distracting.

Overall I recommend the book because of the subject matter, and upon fixing and addressing the issues present, I plan to increase my current rating.

This is a good resource for a new believer or someone that has had a difficult time reading the Bible. It's well laid out and gives several ideas for reading and studying the Word.
I received a complimentary copy of this book from the publisher for the purpose of an honest review.

This book started out very engaging but after a while it became too technical. I feel like too much information was being thrown at the reader and was not broken down properly. I believe the book needs a bit more tweaking at times I was dozing off or bored. Frankly I thought I was going to enjoy it at the beginning but ending up not liking it.

A bit technical to be honest. Didn't flow right for me and it was a hard book to read. Good premise tho.

Thanks to author,publisher and Netgalley for the chance to read this book. While I got the book for ,it had no bearing on the rating I gave it.

This was a really useful read. If you struggle with knowing where to start with the Bible, this book will help you understand its meaning better.