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The St. James Daily Devotional Guide for the Christian Year
Often people ask me what I would recommend as a framework or guide to use in personal Bible readings and devotions. There are many excellent guides available. I mention many approaches to personal devotions in a writing entitled “Devotional Ideas” on this site. Above all other devotional tools, I recommended a devotional guide called the St. James Daily Devotional Guide for the Christian Year. As I have often said, this is the best guide for devotions and bible reading I have come across in my 25 years of being a Christian.
Some of its features are as follows:
There is a daily reading from the four Gospels (Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John) to be read in the morning. If you stay with the schedule you will read through the four gospels once each year. The readings are pretty short, so if you get behind you can catch up, or, since you will read though each of the four gospels you can just hope to catch that part later!
There is a daily reading from another part of the New Testament to be read in the evening. Sometimes this is replaced by a special reading from the Old Testament. Following the schedule you will read through Acts – Revelation once per year. This is the second reading listed each day in the guide.
There are daily readings from the Psalms, both morning and evening. If you stay with the schedule you will read/pray through the Psalter several times a year. The evening Psalm is marked by a cross symbol in the guide.
There is a daily Old Testament chapter to be read morning or evening or whenever. Following the schedule you will read though the Old Testament in two years.
The readings are designed as well to correspond roughly with the Christian calendar. So for example the gospel readings during advent are from the birth narratives in Luke and Matthew.
Sometimes the readings are organized so that they will throw light upon one another.
At the top of each page is a prayer, that the author suggests be prayed after the Psalms are read/prayed for each time during that week. These are eclectic prayers, taken from different parts of the historic orthodox Christian tradition. Many are very very old.
In the latter part of the guide there are study-guide type notes which can help in the daily reading. For example, for January 31 (in a guide a few years back as of this re-editing in December 2005) there is a brief description of the Prophecy of Obadiah, as Obadiah is the reading for that day. For February 1 there is an extended note for the book of Jeremiah introducing Jeremiah’s life and ministry, as Jeremiah 1 is the OT reading for that day. There are often also special notes on the Psalms. The author wrote a great book called “Christ in the Psalms” which I recommend, and his notes on the Psalms are outstanding.
In addition, there are also notes on special days in the liturgical calendar. So for example on February 2 there is a note about Candlemas Day, which falls 40 days after Christ’s birthday, the day according to the tradition of Moses that a male Hebrew child was presented at the temple. The second NT reading on that day is the song of Simeon from Luke 2:22-38, when Jesus was presented at the temple. On February 17 there is an extended note on the historical background of Lent.
The author of the guide in the introduction also provides suggestions for the flow of a morning and evening devotion time. I presented this flow in a bulletin insert this past Sunday. I will present this again below with some comments. Obviously the use of such a guide will be customized by each person using it. But I find the suggestions helpful.
The guide can be used minimally or extensively. For example, if one could only fit in one devotional time per day, the readings can easily all be done in one sitting rather than in two. Or, since there is a cyclical nature to the readings, particularly the Psalms which are read through several times in a year, on a given day when there is more than one Psalm one could be skipped.
But what about getting behind? After all, I did say in a sermon that I would discourage Bible reading schedules tied to the calendar, since one tends to get behind and then quit altogether out of discouragement. But now I am encouraging a reading schedule tied to the calendar. So what’s with that?
I offer three suggestions for those times when you get behind or miss days. My first suggestion is simply to take a little extra time and catch up in the readings. They tend to be short, and catching up would not be too laborious. My second suggestion would be simply to pick up on whatever reading is there for the present date and just not worry about what you have missed. You’ll get around to it next time. My third suggestion is that you would not actually do the readings in a way tied to calendar dates. Rather than follow the calendar dates, simply read the readings in consecutive order checking off each day as you read it, and don’t worry about keeping with the calendar schedule at all. The readings will still provide a very well balanced diet, and so what if you end up reading the birth narratives in the summer or the resurrection in the fall!
In a sermon a while back I mentioned four Word disciplines – Bible reading/listening, Bible memorization, Bible study, and Bible meditation. I also spoke about the discipline of prayer. I tried to make the point that Word and prayer tend to go together as we take in God’s Word and then respond to Him in prayer, seeing this Word and response in some ways as our “conversation” with the God to whom we have been restored through Jesus Christ. I have used the word “devotional time” to express a time given both to the Word and prayer, and which allows the “conversation” to take place.
Now, there are three prayer disciplines which I have also spoken about. These three prayer disciplines are taken from the Old Testament, from Jesus, and from Paul respectively. These are “praying the Psalms,” “praying the Lord’s Prayer” (praying using the Lord’s Prayer as a guide), and “praying with thanksgiving.”
The question is, how do we pull all these Word and prayer disciplines together into some coherent approach, say into one devotional time. Well, perhaps we cannot pull it all together into one devotional time. For example, for myself, I simply cannot keep my focus for an extended times of “asking” prayer while just sitting down or kneeling or even just standing still. I do best at extensive intercessory prayer if I can move, if I can walk. Plus, it is hard for me to memorize just sitting there still. Movement helps me there too.
But how can we get as much as possible into one devotional time? Well I think both the reading schedule and the recommended flow in the St. James devotional guide pull as many of these strands together as is possible. Simply reading the passages and saying a few short prayers can be done in about ten minutes. Even at this minimalist level I still recommend using the guide. But, if one wanted to weave other Word and prayer disciplines into a longer devotional time, then this is very doable as well. The Psalm reading can be done more slowly so that the Psalm is not merely read, but prayed. Or, using commentaries and other books about the Psalms, one can take fifteen to thirty minutes to study a given Psalm. The gospel reading, which is very short, can be done in thirty seconds. Or it can be expanded into a ten to fifteen minute meditation time, using a journal. Or, using commentaries, it could be expanded into a half hour study time. The same could be said for the daily Old Testament chapter.
The author of the guide recommends a time of intercessory prayer after the gospel reading. He provides an excellent standard prayer which can be prayed slowly in 1-2 minutes. He also recommends praying aloud the Lord’s Prayer. What I recommend here is a time of “asking” prayer built around the Lord’s Prayer as a guide, and done “with thanksgiving.” I strongly urge the use of the Lord’s Prayer as a guide for our prayers, and this is a good place to fit that in while using this devotional guide. But there is so much to pray for, how do we have a decent prayer time that is not of impractical length? How can we possibly pray for everything every time we pray? Well, it is hard.
Thus I suggest dividing the week up into themes for your intercessory prayer time. For example, On Monday you could focus on your immediate and extended family, on Tuesday on your church family, on Wednesday on your community, on Thursday on the nation, and on Friday on missionaries. At any rate, the guide allows for either a very short intercession or a very long intercession, depending upon what you can manage.
And so we see how various of the word and prayer disciplines can be woven into this daily devotional schedule.
In the introduction to the guide the author suggests an order that would end up looking something like what I have laid out below. Of course the guide can be followed in a more cursory manner – I am just laying out the full suggested plan to show what is possible.
Morning Devotion
Opening Prayer: standardized or spontaneous * below
Psalm Readings: read/prayed aloud or silently, or studied
Following Prayer: standardized or spontaneous ** below
Gloria Patri: See note *** below
Gospels Reading: as prayerful reading only, or using meditation journal, or studied
Intercessory Prayer: beginning with thanksgiving, and using the Lord’s Prayer as a guide **** below
Benediction: prayer of commitment ***** below
Evening Devotion
Opening Prayer: standardized or spontaneous * below
Psalm Readings: read/prayed aloud or silently, or studied
Following Prayer: standardized or spontaneous ** below
Gloria Patri: See note *** below
NT Reading: as prayerful reading only, or using meditation journal, or studied
Intercessory Prayer: beginning with thanksgiving, and using the Lord’s Prayer as a guide **** below
Benediction: Prayer of Commitment ***** below
OT Chapter
Read during morning or evening or at some other part of the day
* The author suggests that morning prayer be begun with: “Lord, open Thou my lips, and mouth shall declare Thy praise” and that evening prayer be begun with “O God, make haste to deliver me; O Lord, make haste to help me.”
** The prayer for the week of January 27-February 2 is as follows: “We beseech Thee, O Lord, mercifully to correct our wanderings, and by the guiding radiance of Thy compassion to bring us to the salutary vision of Thy truth, through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.”
***. The Gloria Patri –“Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Ghost; as it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, world without end, Amen.”
**** The author suggests a time of intercessory prayer for personal needs and the needs of others. He includes in his notes a very nice general intercessory prayer that could be prayed in one or two minutes every day. He encourages the recitation of the Lord’s Prayer. I suggest using the Lord’s Prayer as a guide for a time of intercessory prayer.
***** The author provides a benediction taken from the NT both for morning and evening prayer respectively.
About the St. James Guide, I need to tell you that the gentleman who has put together this guide, Patrick Henry Reardon, is himself pastor of All Saints Antiochian Orthodox Church. Yes, it is true, he is “Orthodox” in the sense of “Eastern Orthodox.” But he has put together this guide so that it would be of use to all those Protestant, Catholic, or Orthodox folks who stand within the stream of historic Christian orthodoxy. He obviously holds to a very high view of scripture. I have found his study guide notes to be succinct and quite excellent. He is successful in making his notes useful and acceptable to the range of those using the guide. On rare occasion his Orthodox theology may come through, but I haven’t seen it in the notes yet.
For example, his introduction to the book Romans is short, to the point, and excellent, putting the doctrine of justification by faith at the forefront of Paul’s concern in the letter. Though his Orthodoxy does lend a liturgical flavor to the guide, with the suggested set prayers and attention to the Christian calendar, it also puts him in touch with important aspects of our historic faith, aspects which in my view Protestants have been too quick to throw away. The church of Jesus Christ has been around a long time, yes, even before Martin Luther. Many of his suggested set prayers are drawn from the Anglican Book of Common prayer, and his schedule for Psalm reading is taken almost directly from the Book of Common Prayer. So he draws from Protestant sources as well as ancient sources.
I heartily recommend the St. James Daily Devotional Guide for the Christian Year, published four times per year, by the Fellowship of S. James, and sold and via a yearly subscription. You can click here and find out all you need about ordering it for yourself, or for a friend. It would make a great gift.
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