PBRAP

A Three Crosses framework for growing in Personal Bible Reading and Prayer

The Swordfish Framework is not compulsory – we have a right relationship with God by his grace. But we are highly recommending this because:

  • It means we can all be encouraged by participating in something together!
  • It means we all have a simple powerful system that we can teach others!
  • It means we can access the wide range of resources that support these components.

The Swordfish Framework consists of three components: Looking to Jesus in Prayer, Listening to Jesus in the Bible, and Living for Jesus putting it into action. To make the most of this we will need to commit AT LEAST 15 minutes per day. And then we will divide our time into rough thirds as follows.

 

Part 1: Looking to Jesus in Prayer

We are using the Lord’s Prayer as an outline to pray through.

The outline that we have provided gives some suggestions about the kinds of things that you would want to cover under each part of the prayer. And there is also a little diagram to encourage us to give thanks as well as making requests, and thinking of a range of concerns from personal to global. This space could be used to write prayer points in. We’ve also included a space at the end to record Bible verses to remember!

You could split your praying up over two or more days. For example, you could pray for a different group of people each day (eg. Family, friends, Australia, World) praying through the Lord’s prayer for them each consecutive day. Alternatively, you could print out more than one sheet and fill in different prayer points under each section on each sheet. So if you had seven sheets, you would just write each day of the week on top of a different sheet, to organize prayer points for that day. Or you could simply pray through the Lord’s prayer each day, and then in addition have a system for organizing prayer points you want to progress through. For example, a file of missionary newsletters of which you pray for one each day.

There are also plenty of other resources available to grow us in using the Lord’s prayer as a framework. For example:

  • www.monergism.com has a bunch of stuff on the Lord’s prayer including audio of sermons, and text of classic works.
  • Our Father by Richard Coekin (2009) is a book that reflects on what the Lord’s prayer teaches us about prayer.

 

Part 2: Listening to Jesus in the Bible

We are using the M’Cheyne Bible reading plan. This consists of four columns of readings for each day. This gives you the option of reading 1, 2 or 4 chapters a day. The 1 chapter option is highlighted, and is the part of the plan that the 2013 Bible Talks follow.

If you have a look at the way the chapters progress, it’s a nice simple logical plan. Reading at least a chapter helps us to see for ourselves what the Bible is saying. And means you will read the whole Bible in an achievable time period.

We are also providing a Bible reading “worksheet” which features two simple complimentary methods of Bible study.

  • Follow this link for a bit more on basic Bible study methods including the COMA method.
  • For a daily devotion following the pairs of readings in the plan, Don Carson has written a pair of books called
    “For the Love of God” which is also available online in various spots like here.
  • Also you can find the M’Cheyne Reading plan in heaps of formats including in Bible Reading apps like You Version, and a ESV Daily Reading Bible (paper or ebook).

 

Part 3: Living for Jesus putting it into action

Faith without works is useless! (James 2:20) So we need to be consistently putting our faith into action. There are some things we will want to do regularly, because of the gospel shape of prayer and Bible study, such as looking for areas we need to change in, trust God in, and share the gospel with others.

We’ve suggested a simple worksheet for reflecting on the implications of our personal prayer and Bible reading for life, or to put it the other way around, looking at our life through the Gospel.

There are lots of good resources for thinking about how the gospel shapes our whole life. Two that we recommend are:

  • You Can Change by Tim Chester (2008)
  • The Course of Your Life by Tony Payne (2011)

Remember: a couple of months of hard work will pay off exponentially once you form a new habit that won’t take as much effort to maintain!