000: 2024 DDeeper Trailer and How-to's

Hi there!

I’m so glad you have clicked to listen to this trailer to the Digging Deeper Daily Bible reading plan for 2024. If you want to read the Bible in a great reading plan that will hold your attention and enable you to stay with the program, you are in the right place.

My name is Phil Fields. I’m almost 74 years old and happily married to Gale. We have three children, and five grandkids. In 1983, when our kids were still small, our family went as Bible translators to Papua, Indonesia. We finished a New Testament translation for the Orya people in 2005. Since that time I have been leading an organization which is translating the Bible into the national language of Indonesia. We’re hoping that the entire Bible in the Plain Indonesian Translation will be finished at the end of 2025. Our sponsoring organization is Pioneer Bible Translators.

When I started the Daily Bible Reading Podcast in 2014 the audience I had in mind was my grandkids. I wanted to make a set of Bible recordings for them, to leave behind what I would tell each one of them if and when they fall into difficult times. 

Here’s a list of what I will cover:

• Remember this new Web address: DDeeper.today.
• Please Sign up for email
• Why it’s a good idea to use a good Bible reading plan.
• Choose a Bible translation that makes sense for you for daily reading.
• Different ways to follow the Digging Deeper Daily reading plan
• Pointers about podcast listening
• How to contact me.

Remember this new Web address: DDeeper.today. I realized recently how hard it is to find my websites when they are named DailyBibleReading.info. When I started podcasting in 2014, there were not many podcasts or blogs with that name. So I am hoping that the oddity of the new web address will help everyone looking for information on the Digging Deeper Daily reading plan and podcasts. The site is DDeeper.today with two D’s. I figure most other podcasters won’t misspell Deeper like I have. Even though it starts with two D’s, I’m pronouncing it like it started with just one.

Please Sign up for email: There are times when I want to announce a special episode or a new feature in the YV Bible app. And listeners often like to hear about our Bible translation ministry. That is why I suggest that you sign up for my email updates. You will join a special list that is only for 2024. You will receive no more than 5 emails. I won’t ask for donations or try to sell you something. Please sign up by going to DDeeper.today, click the How-to’s link, and choose the menu item entitled 2024 Email Sign-up.

Why it’s a good idea to use a good Bible reading plan: If you start at the beginning of the Bible and attempt to read straight through, you will likely get bogged down somewhere in the Old Testament. The Bible is not organized like a novel. The Digging Deeper Daily reading plan will help you be successful. If you are looking for a reading plan that covers the whole Bible, I highly recommend you choose a reading plan that contains something from the New Testament every day.

For more information about the 3D reading plan, please click the How-To link at DDeeper.today and scroll down. I suggest that you view the short video on that page entitled How to Study the Bible.

READ in a real-book Bible: You’ll want to download the Digging Deeper Daily reading plan. The link for that is found right on the front of DDeeper.today. It is labeled Plan.PDF.

READ the 3D reading plan using Bible apps on your smartphone or tablet: Subscribe to the Digging Deeper Daily reading plan in the YouVersion Bible app. This app is available for Android and Apple devices.

LISTEN to the DDeeper.today podcasts. The podcasts have an introduction to each of the three daily readings. The introductions remind you of what you heard yesterday, and the podcast ends with a prayer that I normally don’t close with an Amen, hoping that you will continue to pray.

How about READing and LISTENing?! Open your podcast player and start the introduction to your next episode. While listening to my greeting, you’ll have time to open the YV app to your next day in the Digging Deeper Daily reading plan. You’ll get way more out of each day’s readings if you have time to do it this way, reading and listening.

When you sign up for a YV reading plan, you are given an option to do the plan privately or share it with your friends. If you share the plan with friends, at the end of each day’s readings, you will be given the opportunity to share something you gleaned from the readings. This is fabulous and a great way to connect with your friends through the Bible app. But since the Digging Deeper Daily plan is for the whole Bible in 365 days, I suggest you share with a select group of close friends, or maybe 1-2 other people, or just do the plan privately.

Choose a Bible translation that makes sense for you and for a year-long reading program. Many of you will be using a translation like the ESV for taking to church. My own church uses that translation. But it is not very well suited to a year-long reading program, especially if this is your first time reading the whole Bible. I strongly recommend the NLT or the GNT for following the Digging Deeper Daily reading plan. Please take my advice as a Bible translator: Using a translation like the NLT or GNT is even more important if you will be Listening to the Bible readings while doing something like driving to work. See more information about Bible translations under the READ heading in the How-To’s.

How to listen to podcasts: Please see the Listening How-To’s by clicking the How-To’s link at DDeeper.today. I recommend you use a podcast aggregator app that

• makes it easy to see the episode notes,
• that remembers your place and will automatically queue up your next episode,
• and that lets you speed up my reading to 1.20% speed.

If you use smart speakers to play the DDeeper.today podcasts, please help me improve the instructions found in the How-To’s.

My favorite way for you to contact me is via the contact button at the top of all my websites. If you are using an Alexa device, I recommend controlling the playback with the Amazon Music app.

The three older domain names for my two Bible-reading websites will still take you to the same pages. The main old website is dailybiblereading.info.
Also: dailyNLTbiblereading.info
dailyGNTbiblereading.info

For any long-time listeners, I believe that the change of the name of the podcast to DDeeper Daily and the new domain name will not change the way your podcast player is interacting with the podcasts. If you find otherwise, please let me know.

When I chose the odd extension for the DDeeper site, not dot Com, or dot info, but ‘today’, I thought of two places where the word ‘today’ is highlighted in the New Testament. One is

‭‭2 Corinthians‬ ‭6:2‬ ‭NLT‬‬

[2] For God says, “At just the right time, I heard you. On the day of salvation, I helped you.” Indeed, the “right time” is now. Today is the day of salvation.

‭‭Hebrews‬ ‭4:6‭-‬7‬ ‭NLT‬‬

[6] So God’s rest is there for people to enter, but those who first heard this good news failed to enter because they disobeyed God. [7] So God set another time for entering his rest, and that time is today. God announced this through David much later in the words already quoted: “Today when you hear his voice, don’t harden your hearts.”

That last quote is one you will need to read in context to really understand. My point in sharing those two verses is to encourage you. Each day that you read the Bible with the goal of reading all of it, the Holy Spirit will be helping you experience the amazing spiritual transformation that God wants for you. Find salvation, and enter the place of rest and safety God has for you.

Please Sign up for email by going to the How-to’s at DDeeper.today.