One weekend, I was asked to preach at Roeh Israel. This meant both the Friday night service and the Saturday morning service. These services were not exactly the same – the main difference being that on Saturday morning there was a rather extensive reading from the Torah (the first five books of the Old Testament). I learned that this occurred every week and that in the course of a year, they read through the entire Torah. This was repeated every year.
This idea of a systematic plan for reading Torah intrigued me, and I began to do some research. I came across Acts 15:21 – a verse that I had never seen before (It impacted me almost as strongly as when I discovered 1 Cor. 14:26). In Acts 15, James is explaining the solution to the issue of Gentiles becoming believers. At the end of his brief statement he says:
“For Moses has been preached (proclaimed) in every city from the earliest times and is read in the synagogues on every Sabbath.”
While this was important in the resolution of the problem with Gentiles, it also opened my eyes to the way in which Scripture was studied in the New Testament. In every synagogue in every city on every Sabbath, Moses (the Torah) was read. It had never occurred to me that there was a very specific plan for studying Scripture that was followed by every committed Jew in Israel in the 1st century.
In doing further research I found that, although many synagogues today follow an Annual Torah Cycle (completing the Torah in one year), First Century Israel followed a Triennial Torah Cycle (completing the Torah in three years).[1] This study plan included not only the weekly Torah reading but also a reading from the Prophets[2] (called the Haftarah) and the Psalms. Later, after the New Testament was written, weekly Apostolic readings were added.
Jesus’ Bible Study Plan.
In the community in which Jesus lived as a child and as an adult, the triennial Torah cycle was followed in every synagogue every Sabbath. But that’s not all. This same portion was, no doubt, the weekly basis for an individual’s meditation (Ps. 1) and for a family’s dinner table discussion (Dt. 6:6-7).
As a Torah observant Jew, Jesus probably attended synagogue every Sabbath of his life.[3] Because of this, we know that the Torah cycle was Jesus’ Study Plan just as it was the Study Plan for every committed Jew living in Israel at that time.
Early Church’s Study Plan.
The centrality of the Torah cycle didn’t change when the church was born on Pentecost. The church was entirely made up of believing Jews who continued to attend synagogue every Sabbath.[4] Their study plan was that same one that Jesus followed – the Torah portion for the week.
For instance, when Paul instructed Timothy to “devote yourself to the public reading of Scripture” (1 Tim. 4:13), he was certainly speaking of the Old Testament and most likely had the Torah cycle in mind.
In any Christian bookstore there are many books on Bible study. Multiple plans and systems for Bible reading are available. However, Jesus, Paul, Peter, James, etc. learned the Word of God using a particular plan called the Torah Cycle. As disciples of Jesus, perhaps we should consider studying as He studied!
John White is a Simple Church Coach and co-founder of LK10: A Community of Practice for Church Planters
[1] “The term: Triennial Cycle applies to a practice of reading the whole Torah in three years. This was the practice in Israel, while the Babylonians read the Torah in one year. It is well known that the Jews in Israel completed the reading of the Torah in three years. The Babylonian and European Jews completed their reading in one year. This difference is mentioned explicitly in Bavli Megilla 29b: “… for the people of Palestine, who complete the reading of the Pentateuch in three years.”
As late as 1170 CE we have reports that Jews in Egypt were still using the three year cycle having been forced out of Israel by the first crusade. Most of our triennial cycle knowledge comes from Egypt which was the last major bastion of the triennial cycle.
The Masoretic text used in all synagogues around the world shows the Torah divided into 150 portion corresponding to the number of Sabbaths in the Triennial Cycle!”
-From The Triennial Cycle by Greg Killian (The Watchman website)
“The midrash (Midrash Yelamdenu) is divided according to a triennial cycle of Torah readings, the division used in the land of Israel in the first century A.D.”
-Encyclopaedia Judaica [Jerusalem: Keter Publishing House, 1971], 15:794.
[2] Acts 13:14; Luke 4:14-21.
Although the following passages do not speak specifically about the readings in the synagogue on the Sabbath, they do illustrate the centrality of “the Law (Torah) and the Prophets” in the thinking of Jesus and Paul: Matt 5:17 ; Luke 24:44-45; Acts 24:14; Acts 28:23; Rom 3:21
[3] Luke 4:14-21; Matthew 4:23; Matthew 9:35; Matthew 12:9; Matthew 13:54; Mark 1:21; Mark 1:39; Mark 3:1; Mark 6:2; Luke 4:44; John 6:59; John 18:20
[4] James 2:1-4; Acts 9:20; Acts 13:5; Acts 13:14;Acts 13:42-43; Acts 14:1; Acts 17:1; Acts 17:10; Acts 17:17; Acts 18:4; Acts 18:19; Acts 18:26