I am so grateful that my friend Daniel decided to write this powerful book on such a critical topic. I was convicted and motivated to dive into the Scriptures even more. I hope it motivates many others to do the same.
—Francis Chan
Author of Crazy Love, Forgotten God, and Erasing Hell
This book instructs the reader how to be interactive with God’s Word. It develops ten helpful ways for getting you into the Bible and for getting the Bible into you. This guide will enable you to interface with the written Scriptures in a life-changing way.
—Dr. Wes Adams
Contributing Author and
Associate Editor of Fire Bible (in 40 languages)
Daniel Lim, in Bible 360º: Total Engagement with the Word of God, leads the way by his example and teaching. He inspires us to learn, believe, pray, and live the Word of God, by the power of God’s Spirit, for the glory of God’s Son, Jesus. Daniel describes the what of biblical discipleship and the how of walking with God faithfully and passionately.
—Dr. Jerry Kirk
Author of The Prayer Covenant
Founder, PureHOPE and the Religious Alliance Against Pornography
Formerly Senior Pastor at College Hill Presbyterian Church in Cincinnati,
Ohio
We are blessed with a living artifact in this book testifying to the Living Word. Once started, you will not wish to put this book down until you finish it.
—Rev. Samuel E. Chiang
President and CEO, Seed Company
As a person who has prayed the Bible for forty years, I can tell you that everything Daniel Lim says in this book is true. His practical instructions and personal testimonies on using every means possible to engage with the Word of God are inspiring and enlightening. Several times I was moved to tears as I read the simple teachings and the beautiful testimonies that came as a result of putting the Bible into practice. Bible 360º shows you how to get deeply into the Word of God so that you can develop a closer relationship with its Author. I highly recommend it.
—Rev. Stacey Campbell
Co-author of Praying the Bible: The Pathway to Spirituality
and The Book of Prayers
Daniel Lim’s excellent book, Bible 360º: Total Engagement with the Word of God, is a must read for any serious student of the Bible. It is filled with vast amounts of information, great insight, and much profound practical help on how to make the Bible truly applicable for your daily life. His personal stories and true-life experiences make it even more readable. I sat in rapt attention and read it from cover to cover in one sitting. It is without reservations that I commend this wonderful read to everyone.
—Dr. Glenn Sheppard
President and CEO, International Prayer Ministries
Formerly the Senior Associate for Prayer,
Lausanne Committee for World Evangelization
Bible 360º represents around-the-clock and around-the-world Bible-based inspiration for this generation. The term 360º speaks of a single spin which results in the original orientation, which for Bible 360º represents God’s original orientation. Daniel Lim’s passion for God’s Word, his passion for the Christ of God’s Word, converts to his passion for readers of this and every generation to engage in God’s Word. Be ready for a ride on the waves of God’s anointed inspiration of the Holy Spirit who bore along the authors, “For prophecy never had its origin in the human will, but prophets, though human, spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit” (2 Pet. 1:21 niv).
—Dr. Luis Bush
International Facilitator, Transform World Connections
Servant Catalyst, 4/14 Window Movement
Servant, Transform World 2020
Bible 360°: Total Engagement with the Word of God
by Daniel Lim
Published by Forerunner Publishing
International House of Prayer
3535 E. Red Bridge Road
Kansas City, MO 64137
Copyright © 2016 by Daniel Lim
First edition, Singapore, 2016
Second edition, 2016
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopied, recorded, or otherwise, without the prior permission of Forerunner Publishing, except as provided by United States of America copyright law.
Forerunner Publishing is the book-publishing division of the International House of Prayer of Kansas City, an evangelical missions organization that exists to partner in the Great Commission by advancing 24/7 prayer and proclaiming the beauty of Jesus and His glorious return.
ISBN: 978-1-938060-37-3
eBook ISBN: 978-1-938060-38-0
All Scripture quotations, unless otherwise indicated, are taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright© 1982 by Thomas Nelson, Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
All emphasis in Scripture is the author’s.
Cover Design by Lala England
Interior Design by Les Barker (barker-books.com)
Printed in the United States of America
To our Lord Jesus Christ,
the Word who became flesh, full of grace and truth
and to
Bible translators, printers, and distributors
who dedicate their lives daily to ending Bible poverty
in our generation
Bible poverty is defined as deprivation of access to the Holy Bible due to linguistic, geographical, socio-economic, and political barriers.
I deem deprivation of the Word of God the greatest injustice in human history.
Foreword
1. The Word of Eternal Life
2. Read It
3. Meditate on It
4. Study It
5. Live It
6. Write It
7. Pray It
8. Sing It
9. Proclaim (Preach) It
10. Teach It
11. Remember (Memorize) It
12. His Word Will Remain Forever
Acknowledgments
Appendix
About the Author
Of course my good friend Daniel Lim is suggesting ten different compelling, practical, and exciting ways to be in God’s Word! He’s just sharing the world-changing way he lives his life. He approaches the Bible like we would so purposely and intentionally try to find many different ways to spend time with the person we care most deeply about in our life.
Daniel’s passion for the Bible is contagious because it is really all about his love for spending time with the One who authored it. Pick any chapter from Daniel’s ten suggestions. If you will experiment with only one of his methods, your life will be changed.
The Book is Alive!
Dr. Roy L. Peterson
President and CEO, American Bible Society
Philadelphia, 2016
The Word of Eternal Life
Simon Peter answered Him, “Lord, to whom shall we go?
You have the words of eternal life.”
John 6:68
The Holy Scripture was not always intelligible to me as a child. In my early years of Scripture engagement, I faced both linguistic and hermeneutic barriers. In my late teens, after I surrendered my life to follow Jesus, I tried to read the Bible, but the only copies I could access were the King James Version (KJV) and the Revised Standard Version (RSV) from a local Baptist church. As English was not my first language, this made it especially difficult for me to understand and to engage with the Bible.
Finally, I decided to explore a pictorial Bible storybook. I found a cheap paperback book with three hundred sixty-five Bible stories. I began to read the narrative of the Bible. I started to enjoy it as it was written in simple English and in a genre of literature comprehensible to me. I completed the reading of the Old and New Testaments in about three months instead of three hundred sixty-five days. I found the stories in this paperback, chronological narrative very engaging. When I eventually read the RSV and KJV Bibles again, they made more sense to me, as I now had the broader narrative of the Bible in the back of my mind. When my son turned five, I decided to get him the newly published Action Bible. I watched him devour the picture book and become familiar with major Bible characters and the storyline.
As a person who was educated with a secular atheistic curriculum and grew up in a polytheistic worldview, I find the revelation of the Holy Scripture very appealing. The fact that there is an intelligent origin for existence and that life is held together by the Word of His power not only makes sense to me, but gives me purpose that transcends my brief, earthly, temporal existence. The revelation of the love of God, which necessitates His consistent attributes of mercy, justice, and righteousness, provides a clear moral compass and framework for life individually and corporately. It also instills a strong sense of stewardship pertaining to our biosphere and my role as a global citizen. Science and history make sense to me from such scriptural revelation. Our temporal-eternal existence makes sense to me, as well as the anthropocentric reality of our world.
Since my college years, reading, writing, teaching, preaching, praying, singing, and living the Bible have been a delight to my soul. The Word of God has guided me, strengthened me, comforted me, corrected me, and trained me for righteousness. In the last two decades, I have also witnessed the power of God’s Word to transform many lives across the nations of the earth. Indeed, like the apostle Peter once exclaimed, “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life.”1
While His Word is precious to me, there have been moments when my passion for God’s Word waned, and the Lord was gracious to use other godly believers and divinely orchestrated circumstances to draw me back. Whenever I hit a season of dryness in the Word of God, I usually continue in my scheduled reading plan in a mechanical way. I also spend additional time in the Psalms. The inspired Scripture in Psalms almost never fails to open my heart to the Lord, especially when I am in a deep valley of despair and disillusionment. The precious Word of eternal life we need for every life season is found in the Holy Bible.
In this book, I will use phrases such as the Word of God, God’s Word, the Bible, and the Scripture interchangeably. I am under the conviction the Bible in its original manuscript is inerrant, infallible, and authoritative to all matters pertaining to life and godliness. In the context of this book, the Bible covers all sixty-six books of the Protestant canon, and essentially includes thirty-nine Old Testament books established in the Hebrew canon but arranged according to the Septuagint division. I believe the entire Bible, every jot and tittle in its original manuscript, is the inspired Word of God. I understand some within scholarly and various Christian traditions do not share my conviction, but like Peter of old, I have been fascinated by Christ’s words of eternal life and His attitude toward the Law and Prophets.2
This fundamental premise defines my zeal in total engagement with the Bible. I desire to engage with the Bible with every possible part of my being, i.e., my mind, my heart, my soul, and my strength. The content in this book is at best introductory in nature. It is my prayer that readers of this book will be inspired to engage with the Bible and inspire others to engage with the Bible. It is also my prayer the Lord will release much grace to this generation as we labor to see a billion souls worldwide engage with the Bible daily, including one hundred million souls in America. Ending Bible poverty in our generation is an attainable goal for a generation consumed with the vision of proliferating Bible engagement.
Next Steps to Vibrant Life!
1. The Word of God has enriched my life in Christ in many ways. How has the Bible enriched your life?
2. Every morning I wake up with the desire to know Him more and to make Him known to others. What is the main motivation that draws you to the Holy Bible?
3. There were days when I had no desire to touch the Holy Bible. What are some factors which discouraged you from reading or engaging with the Bible?
It usually takes me a little while to find ways to overcome my occasional lack of interest in the Bible. Lack of communion with Christ in His Word is tormenting to me, so I always find a way back to Bible engagement. I pray this book will help you discover ways to enjoy your Bible even more.
Read It
Then he took the Book of the Covenant and read in the hearing of the people. And they said, “All that the LORD has said we will do, and be obedient.”
Exodus 24:7
In 2011, I met a spiritual man of prayer from Egypt who has strong fervor for the gospel. In our casual conversation, he shared with me about a friend who had recently challenged him to read through his Bible in ninety hours. He had been intrigued by that proposal and had begun to set aside one hour a day for the next ninety days to read through his Arabic Bible from Genesis to Revelation. He was excited that he had accomplished this amazing and encouraging feat. Without his realization, he was sowing a seed of faith into my heart, as I recognized many in the Western world do not read through our Bibles because we subtly doubt it can be done systematically. Often we give up on our New Year’s resolution after several months of attempting to read the Bible consistently. I realized breaking the unbelief and mental barrier in Bible reading is crucial to help believers read through the entire Bible for the first time.
I decided to gather a group of students at the International House Prayer University to attempt to read through the Bible in seventy-two hours, in an initiative I affectionately dubbed a Bible Mania Marathon. Students were organized into pairs of Bible readers, with each pair reading the scripture text aloud for ten minutes before handing it over to another pair of readers. About fifty faculty members and students participated in this three-day Bible Mania Marathon. Many of them stayed in the room more than eight hours daily. Some were literally camping in the room for three days, merely taking short breaks for refreshment. The reading experience was rather mechanical and unexciting. Reading through the books of Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy was particularly difficult, but we persevered as we needed to collectively experience the fact that if we really read the English Bible non-stop at a leisurely pace, we can read it through within seventy-two hours.
I vividly remember I had to preach at a Saturday evening service at Forerunner Christian Fellowship, thus I left the room about 4:30 p.m. to prepare for the service. I decided to drop in to see the Bible readers on the way to the service. When I got in the room at 5:45 p.m., I witnessed many of them lying on the floor, visibly touched by the Spirit of God. The pair of Bible readers on the podium had stopped reading, so I asked them why had they stopped. The Bible readers told me the reading was mechanical and boring until they started reading the forty-seventh chapter of the book of Ezekiel. At that time, many people in the room were gripped by a seemingly tangible presence and power of the Holy Spirit. Consequently, they could not continue reading.
I recognized the Lord was honoring our devotion in reading and proclaiming His Word, and He was obviously highlighting the text in Ezekiel 47. I remember exclaiming, “Let us read Ezekiel 47, seven times.” The Bible readers obliged. After about five minutes, I left the room and proceeded to the church service. On Sunday morning, I had to preach in two morning services, and I knew the seventy-two hours would conclude after the second service. At the end of the second service, I hurried to the venue of the Bible Mania Marathon initiative. When I walked in, I was encouraged to hear the participants reading the second chapter of Revelation, the final book of the Bible. It was three long days and nights, but everyone in the room was encouraged, and many stood up to read the Scripture aloud. There was a sense of expectancy that we as a group of students and faculty would reach a milestone in Bible reading and engagement together. They gave me the honor of reading Revelation 22, the final chapter of the entire Bible. On Sunday afternoon, we completed the reading of the New King James English Bible from Genesis to Revelation in sixty-nine hours and eleven minutes. In 2012, the students who were part of the 2011 initiative decided to organize an annual Bible Mania Marathon on campus with the same two Bibles we used in 2011. This student-led annual event has been ongoing, using the same two Bibles. Every year, they manage to complete the reading within seventy-two hours.
Since 2012, as the Holy Spirit sends me to various nations to teach and proclaim His Word, I have taken the liberty to challenge believers in those nations to read through their Bible within ninety hours, either in three to four days continually or in ninety days. In my limited experience, the Arabic, Russian, Polish, Chinese, and Korean language Bibles can all be read within ninety hours. In fact, most can be read within eighty hours. Although systematic and consistent reading of the Bible does not always produce understanding and obedience, it does familiarize the reader with a very general overview of the biblical narrative, the language, and the flow of the Bible. Most importantly, it breaks the unbelief that says the Bible cannot be successfully read through due to its voluminous content and archaic context.
The English translation of the Protestant Bible contains sixty-six books (thirty-nine in the Old Testament and twenty-seven in the New Testament) written over a period of sixteen hundred years by forty different authors under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit. It was later classified into 1,189 chapters and more than 31,000 verses. It contains more than 770,000 words and was translated from the original Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek manuscripts. The longest chapter in the Bible is Psalm 119 and the shortest chapter is Psalm 117. The middle verses are Psalm 103:1–2. The longest verse in the Bible is Esther 8:9:
So the king’s scribes were called at that time, in the third month, which is the month of Sivan, on the twenty-third day; and it was written, according to all that Mordecai commanded, to the Jews, the satraps, the governors, and the princes of the provinces from India to Ethiopia, one hundred and twenty-seven provinces in all, to every province in its own script, to every people in their own language, and to the Jews in their own script and language.
The longest word in the Bible is found in Isaiah 8:1, 3 and refers to the name of a person:
