The Bible in 90 Days Part 2

Welcome to Haven Today. I’m Charles Morris where we tell the great story that’s all about Jesus. And the great story is found in God’s Word, the Bible. The question is, have you ever read the Bible and if so how much? And have you wanted to read it all the way through? Did you know that 80% of the people who start reading the Bible on a one year plan never make it all the way through. Well, in the next few minutes I want you to meet someone who was on the program with us yesterday. His name is Ted Cooper. He was an Agnostic, so was his wife. They were taking their kids to church and finally he challenged God to prove that God was God and that was how he read the Bible in 90 days. This is part 2 and I want you to stay with me. And also, if you’d like a copy of the 90 Day Bible or a copy of the 90 day plan to use with your own Bible, stay tuned and we’ll tell you more about that later in the program or you can read about it online at haventoday.org. We’ve also started a special blog site and you might want to check that out as well at haventoday.org. Let’s get started now. Before we talk to Ted, let’s spend some time worshipping and fellowshipping with the God who loves us so much that he sent his Son Jesus to die on the cross.

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Welcome back to Haven Today we’re on a part 2 of “The Bible in 90 Days” and joining me from KHCB Radio in Houston, Texas is my friend Ted Cooper. Ted thank you for joining me again on the program.
TC: Thank you for having me.
CM: Ted, I said I’m going to do it. I am doing it. You’ve done it. It’s actually how the Lord brought you from being an Agnostic into not only believing that there is a God but also that he sent a Savior, his Son Jesus Christ. And even though it’s been a few years now I’m sure you praise God every day don’t you that he moved in your life in a quiet sort of way but yet a profound way?
TC: Absolutely. In fact, what I’ve found you know, sometimes you think, you know once you become a Christian all your problems go away. In fact I haven’t found that to be true at all. I’ve had a very interesting 8 years since I became a Christian. And what happens is as we move from crisis to crisis to incredible positive things is just a thankfulness that, “Thank you God. I’m not sure how I would have gotten through that particular crisis if I didn’t have you to look towards.”
CM: You’ve actually started an organization now, which we’re going to talk about a little more in just a few minutes, “The Bible in 90 Days” but that’s what the Lord used. You kind of threw this challenge out to God. You were the good father, the good husband. Both you and your wife were Agnostics but you wanted your kids to be in church so you took them to church. And then you were sitting there and you really weren’t agreeing with what was going on. You told us that story on our last program together and people can listen to that if they missed that part of your story, but just in brief detail, once you finished reading the Bible in 90 days, believing there was a God, believing in Jesus Christ as your Savior, knowing you were born again, you started sharing that with some other people and it actually had a profound impact on your own church, didn’t it?
TC: Well, it did. One of the things that, initially I started sharing it by just letting people know, they say, “Hey Ted, what’s new in your life?” And those that seemed sincere about wanting to know I would say, “Well, I read the Bible.” And all the lay people were just incredibly interested. “You read the Bible? How did you do that? I’ve tried to do that before and I failed. I didn’t –“
CM: Well, not just that, you read the Bible in what?
TC: Yeah, you read the Bible in 90 days? Exactly. And that is one of those things that people go, “You can’t do that.” And is say, “Well, the thing was I didn’t realize I couldn’t do it and so did.” At any rate we would lead people to that particular Bible which we thought was a very good reading Bible, but found that just by telling them about it was not a good way to help them to actually be successful in doing all of the reading. So we developed a course, a program for our local church, taught on Wednesday nights and just said hey we’re going to read the Bible and to tell you the truth, the pastors that were incredibly supportive of this really didn’t think anybody would show up. They had just had too many people come to them and say, hey I want to read the entire Bible and who never did it and they had just had too much experience with people who failed to follow through on it.
CM: And you found that other people who showed up, they started reading the Bible in 90 days and things started happening in their lives too, spiritually.
TC: Absolutely. One of the first classes we taught, a woman was struggling. There had been some difficult circumstances surrounding her mother’s death and it was an extreme struggle for her. And she came out of this with just a whole new understanding of Christ, what this was all about, has become a very committed person at the church, committed to a Christian life. She tells this incredible story of how when she was going through the process and doing the reading her children were watching her the whole time and this became a great witnessing to her children and it has made a significant difference in her life.
CM: Now, that Bible you happened to be using was an NIV translation it doesn’t have to be an NIV, it could be any Bible. It happened to be, because I’m holding one, it’s actually what I preach out of. I’ve got a leather bound version of it, it’s the large print, ultra thin NIV Bible, but the one I’m doing for the 90 day readings itself is a hard back. Now, you happened to run into a guy who happens to be the chairman of the board of Christianity Today. He actually got you in contact with Zondervan who publishes the NIV because he got excited about it, didn’t he?
TC: Well, exactly. In fact Jack Modesett Jr. who was the chairman of Christianity Today not only got excited about the notion, he got so excited that he actually developed our very first video series. And as we were wrapping up that process we were talking and I said, “You know I think this is something that we really need to speak to Zondervan about.” And he said, “Well, as a matter of fact, I think we’ve got a way to do that.” So –
CM: so he did and so actually now the 90 Day Bible that I’ve got and we’ll tell people later how to get a copy or they certainly can get it at their local Christian bookstore too or order it. It actually has marked here where you start day one, end day one, start day two and it goes all the way through. And there is a little secret about this. Do you mind? Can we share the secret? It turns out it’s not 90 days is it?
TC: Well, then it won’t be a secret anymore Charles but –
CM: Oh, alright, we don’t have to give it away Ted. Alright, alright.
TC: Actually there’s some grace involved in the Bible in 90 Days as well, so there are a couple of grace days.
CM: OK, OK, alright thank you. Not bonus days, grace days there.
TC: Grace days, that’s right.
CM: Let me share a few facts here. The average Christian has never read the Bible all the way through, much less the average person. 80% of the people who would seek to read the Bible in a year and have started out doing it, fail to do it. The average person who does read the Bible reads the Bible for 7 minutes a day. The average person who watches TV, and I will through Christians in on that too, spends 5 hours a day. Now there’s a great void, a great discrepancy in time. Are you telling me that somebody can start this and actually finish it?
TC: Absolutely. As a matter of fact, we find that people who are really committed to the process and go and participate in the programs that are offered through the churches, the success rate is phenomenal. And the reason for this is a lot of people who go and try to do this by themselves are surrounded with people who’ve never done this. As you said the vast majority haven’t done this so they will be told, “You can’t read the Bible. You can’t read all of it. And you certainly can’t read it in 90 days.” And the fact is that you can and so surrounding yourself with the appropriate tools to do this, with the fellowship and accountability that comes with being a part of a group or either through a radio audience or through your church, having a little bit of the contextual information to help you to understand what it is that you’re reading is incredibly important, and mostly having just the focus and persistence to do it. And that’s why doing this in a group, however that group is formed, allows people to be much more successful.
CM: I would like to just invite Haven Today listeners into the group with me and we’ll share with you about our internet blog that we’ve set up and we’ll do that at the end of the program. We’ll also tell you how to get a copy of the 90 Day Bible. But also if you’re saying, “I’ve read the Bible through 20 times but I’d sure like to try it.” Or “I don’t believe in that translation of the Bible. I only use the ‘whatever’ translation.” Or, “I only use my late grandmother’s Bible and I wouldn’t use anything else.” Well, we will make available to you at no charge on the internet or we will mail you a copy of the reading plan for the 90 Day Bible. So you can do it. We are not out here to sell Bibles. We want to see you read the Bible in 90 days and not just so that you can get a gold star at the end of 90 days. We’re doing this because we believe it will help you spiritually. Now Ted, I met you last year. We talked. I did it for 45 days and this is the contrast. I stopped in the summer because I spent the whole summer studying one book of the Bible, John. There are different ways to study God’s Word but I can just say as a testimony myself you get a big picture by reading the Bible in such large sections that you’ll never get any other way. And 12 pages a day is not that hard. Now Ted, you’ve had a lot of people do this now. And you’ve got a lot of different kinds of churches doing it. You’ve got Baptist churches and Assemblies of God churches, Presbyterian, Quaker, Roman Catholic; you’ve got all kinds of people doing this. Think back with me now and think of somebody, a story maybe that you could share where someone else – that you haven’t shared with us already – where they started doing this and all of a sudden God came into their home. Jesus came into their lives.
TC: What happens with this, you know, everybody wants a cataclysmic story and, or, you know a “Road to Damascus” story
CM: Yeah
TC: and I understand that but I think what happens with people doing this reading is, it is a different – there is certainly an intellectual aspect to this and so it is, one of the things that works for those people who are intellectuals who then do this reading and then they make either a conscious or subconscious decision, “Oh yeah, I get this. I believe this.” We really have not put this out as a conversion tool. It’s very much a discipleship tool and so what we’re really finding is that we’re taking people who, for the most part are already believers or think that they’re believers and I think in doing this reading they come to understand really what it means to be Christians. So as an example, you go in and say, and I think I’ve mentioned to you in the past Charles in our conversation a study by George Barna and a couple of different ones, but one is if you understand that somewhere between 74 and 80% of Americans will self-describe themselves as being Christians.
CM: Yes.
TC: But only 14% of them base their moral and ethical principles on the Bible. So really what is happening with “The Bible in 90 Days” more than anything else is you’re taking those folks, those 80% of the people who say, “Yeah, I’m a Christian”, and your taking whatever percentage of those who are actually doing this reading and letting them know what it means to be a Christian and what it means when they are sitting in the church pews and listening to a pastor and now they’re going, number one, “I recognize that story or I recognize that verse,” and “that’s how I read it.” Or “You know what? That’s not how I read that.” And being able to then do, I think, a little bit what the Reformation was all about which is to experience the Bible itself and to have that understanding and that relationship that comes from each person actually doing their own studying, and their own understanding of this. One of the things that you mentioned about, it’s not about getting a checkmark at the end of doing this. A lot of people start the process with that in mind
CM: They want to accomplish this.
TC: They want to accomplish it, and you know what?
CM: And it’s a great accomplishment!
TC: It is a great accomplishment and I don’t think anybody should be embarrassed to want to do it for that reason. But the fact is is that when people finish, 95% of them are telling us that now that they’ve read the entire Bible, they want to go back and study it more. And that’s what we’re looking for and the other 5% are telling us, “We’re already solid Bible students. We can’t do any more study than before.” So nobody’s telling us, “OK, whew! I’ve done that. I’m not doing that anymore. I’ve checked that off my list.” This is about acquainting people with what it really means to have a relationship with the Father, to understand what Christ did and to understand the context in which they can and will go do further Bible study. About 20% of the people who come and take the course have already read the entire Bible or at least think they have.
CM: OK
TC: They want to do it again and about half of those who believe that they’ve already read it find that they haven’t done this in the past.
CM: So, I think you’re right. I know what you mean. I’ve read the Bible through many times, over the course of a year, over the course of a year and a half. I’ve even done it in a 2 year plan, but you know what? Every time I go back and read the Bible I say, “I don’t remember that!” And to read the Bible in 90 days my memory banks are better at it than to just stretch it out over a 2 year period or even a one year period as well. The other thing I guess, I am intrigues by what you’re saying here to us. There really is learning to think biblically, on one hand and then also there is just by just getting into the Word by reading it all the way through, I mean a long novel is, Victor Hugo could write a novel as long as the Bible is. You read the Bible through, there are a lot of ways and instances there where God can in his power, through the Holy Spirit, enter into your heart and into your mind and let you know, “Hey, I’m here I am not silent and you know that issue that you’ve got going on in your life right now? What you just read today applies to that in your life right now.”
TC: Absolutely. One of the things that we discovered in helping people to read in this way is that the Bible really is a very current manuscript. You know we’ve had people going through this through 9/11, through the Iraq War, through all kinds of different things, through deaths in their families and what people are finding is this really applies to now. And if you’re reading it as a novel that really impacts you much more significantly than if you’re just reading bits and pieces because if you’re just reading bits and pieces or doing a deep study you can still look at this as an historical document. When you’re reading this in this way this becomes a live document that speaks to you right now. And one of the things you discover just by reading Genesis is you know, there’s nothing really going on today that’s really worse than what was going on in Genesis. And so you understand how current the scriptures really are for us.
CM: The words getting out from Houston now and later, of course, we’ll tell people about your organization. We’ll have that posted on our website and we’ll tell them how they can do it personally or the kit that your organization has available, and we have that available for our listeners at Haven Today as well, but the word’s spreading, isn’t it? It just isn’t in Texas anymore.
TC: Well, it is and we’ve been very fortunate that people have responded so strongly to this and gotten involved in different ways and Zondervan has been a great partner with us in this in helping us develop the curriculum materials and the resource materials and the special Bible for it. So people really have responded. We have a non-profit organization that is designed to primarily help churches put this on. Really the ultimate way to experience the Bible in 90 days is in a group through your church and our non-profit organization is encouraging churches to offer the Bible in 90 Days either as a small group offering or even church wide. This week we’ve got a church in Oklahoma City. They’ve got 510 people signed up to do the Bible in 90 days and this is from a church that averages 650 in worship each Sunday.
CM: Wow, that’s a lot of people then that have agreed to start, right?
TC: Absolutely.
CM: Amazing. OK, well Ted a few little tips here. The Bible in 90 Days and if you missed Ted’s story about how he went from Agnosticism to believing that there is a God and certainty that there is a God and then in finding Jesus Christ as his Savior, we’ve posted yesterday’s program up on our homepage, haventoday.org for your convenience. Do you find mornings? Nights? What’s the best time of day to try to do this?
TC: The great thing is it’s really up to the individual. Some people love getting up and doing this first thing in the morning, some people do it last thing at night. Some people find that it’s helpful to carry this around with them and read a couple pages at a time. One of the things that happens is that as you become inundated with this process of reading 12 pages a day you will just get very familiar with your Bible and with the concept of, it doesn’t have to be one of those things that you read at a set time you can just do it as you need to. And I think getting very familiar and very comfortable with your Bible is a great byproduct of this.
CM: Ted Cooper, my brother in the Lord, I look forward when I’m in Houston later this year to sitting down with you over a chicken fried steak, hold the gravy please.
TC: Absolutely, absolutely.
CM: Thank you so much for being with us and I will tell people here in a few moments how they can join me in reading the Bible in 90 Days. God bless you my brother!
TC: God bless you Charles. Thank you very much.
CM: Well, what about you? Would you like to read the Bible in 90 days? Would you like to join me and do it together? I’ll tell you how in just a minute, but first if you’re interested in doing this with a group or with your church we have a special kit available and we want to send that to you as a thank you for your gift to Haven Ministries. You can find out more about the kit or just the NIV hardback Bible in 90 Days by going online to haventoday.org. We’ve also started a blog that you can refer to and will help you in doing the Bible in 90 days. Just go to our website, haventoday.org. Now you can also get the NIV hardback 90 Day Bible that tells you where to start and stop each day, 12 pages a day, or the kit which includes a copy of the Bible by calling us at 1-800-654-2836. That’s 1-800-654-2836. If you’re part of a church or a Bible study, or a special group that might want to read the Bible in 90 days we’ve given you a link to Ted Cooper’s ministry, The Bible in 90 Days there on our website as well so that you can get more information there too. One thing, let’s say you don’t have internet access and let’s say you want to use your own version of the Bible or you have your own Bible that you’ve been using for years and that’s what you want to keep using and you’d like this Bible reading plan. We have that available for you and we have that on our website, you can download it from there, or you can give us a call and we’ll get you a copy in the mail, no charge. So, would you join me and take the challenge? I’m Charles Morris with Ted Cooper. Thank you for joining me. Would you come back again tomorrow? We’re going to talk again about reading and studying and meditating on God’s Word and we’ll also tell you more about the Bible in 90 Days. And we’ll do it together as we take this challenge together here on Haven Today.