Do you want to read the Bible, but you:
- aren’t sure where to start or what to read next?
- have tried and failed at other Bible reading plans, which left you feeling guilty?
- have a busy life, and can’t find an easy plan that works with that?
ALL these things are true for me, so I made this plan to help myself. I hope it will help you too! Keep reading for more info, or just grab it below.
If you just want the plan now, DOWNLOAD IT HERE. It’s a simple free PDF download. My prayer is that God will use this to bless your life as you read through His Word, and meet Him on every page.
How is this plan different from others?
Almost all other plans divide the Bible into a certain amount of time, then tell you exactly what to read each day in order to keep pace and meet the end goal.
If your goal is to read the Bible in a certain amount of time, that’s fine.
If you just want to read the Bible regularly though, this becomes a problem. What if you miss a day or twenty? You either have to continue on, and miss reading those parts, or try and make up for lost time by reading one or twenty days worth of reading. This leads to frustration and guilt.
Everyone has different lives and schedules, which is why there are so many plans out there. Some have daily readings, some take the weekends off, some have “catch-up days” built in to try and get around this. This is not what I wanted.
I needed something that would help me pick up my Bible and know exactly what to read next, no matter how long since I last touched it. I didn’t want to miss reading any parts, or have to catch up. And I wanted it arranged in a way that gave me the best chance of success.
And that’s exactly what this plan does, in such a simple way that you could use it for the rest of your life.
How it works.
The whole plan is just three simple bookmarks. Print them off, cut them out, and stick them in your Bible.
The first bookmark begins with Genesis, so place it at Genesis chapter 1.
The second bookmark begins with Proverbs, so place it at Proverbs chapter 1.
The third bookmark is all New Testament. Place it at John chapter 1.
You’re ready to go! The next part is up to you. The bookmarks will not tell you how much to read (zero guilt plan!), only what to read next, the next time you pick up your Bible.
Here are some examples:
Goal → I want to try and read the New Testament, one chapter a day.
Excellent! This is actually how I started when I made this plan for myself a couple years ago. If you are new to Bible reading, or just getting back to it, this is a great way to go.
So today, read John chapter one, and when you are done put the bookmark facing John chapter two. The next time you pick up your Bible, whether it’s tomorrow, or next week, you know exactly where to start reading – John 2.
Goal → I want to try and read the whole Bible, one chapter a day.
Same as above, but just use all three bookmarks and rotate through them. So today read Genesis 1, tomorrow read Proverbs 1, and the day after read John 1. Forget which one you read last time? It doesn’t matter at all. Just pick one and read, then continue rotating next time. You’ll still get through the whole Bible without missing a single chapter.
Goal → I want to read 3 chapters a day.
This is my current goal, after (successfully!) reading through the New Testament a couple times. Simply read one chapter from each bookmark, and move on to the next one.
Goal → I don’t really have a goal or much time every week, I just want to read the Bible sometimes.
No problem! I would put in all 3 bookmarks, and whenever you feel like reading, pick one at random and see where it leads you. Even if it takes 50 years to get through the whole thing, you’ll always know what to read next and not miss a chapter.
These are just some ideas. Don’t overthink it. Just read however much you feel like today, whether one chapter or thirty, and let the Word impact you. You can’t mess this up.
Here’s the cool thing though. You will find that this simple plan ends up being very dynamic and personal, so even after reading through the whole Bible once, your second experience will not be the same, but completely fresh based on where you are at in life.
Let’s say your goal is to move each bookmark forward one chapter a day. But you hit the life of Joseph in Genesis and are so taken with the story you plow through 13 chapters in one afternoon without realizing it. Or a similar thing happens in Acts reading about the adventures of Paul. Or maybe you hit Psalm 34 and are so overwhelmed by it that you just keep reading that one chapter over and over for a week. Well, the mix of books/chapters you are reading concurrently will change, and probably be entirely different the next time around. Make it your ambition to just be in the Word of God regularly for its own sake, not to check off boxes from a list. You will be blessed and encounter God speaking to you through those words!
The approach of this plan also makes it super practical if you are already involved in a church, small group, or Bible study. If there are times where your church puts out daily readings for a season (Advent, a special month of prayer, etc), or you take part in a group study for a number of weeks where you have to focus on those readings, you can just put this plan on hold. When you are done with your other commitment, you haven’t missed weeks or months of specified readings. You are not behind at all! Just return to wherever you left your bookmark, and keep going.
Why aren’t the books in order?
You will quickly notice that this plan is not in a traditional start-at-the-beginning and read-to-the-end order. It might look random, but it’s quite deliberate.
The order of books came from a mixture of reasons, not a single overall theme.
It is not a chronological reading plan, but some books are more chronologically arranged than the traditional order. For example, reading about the rebuilding of the temple and return from exile (Ezra, Nehemiah) before reading that the temple is even destroyed or that there was an exile (Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Lamentations) has really confused my brain in the past. So I wanted to read them more in the order of events.
Some parts of the plan are to overcome my personal sticking points. Genesis, Proverbs, and John present a lower barrier to entry for me when trying to start a new habit. They are wonderful, easy to read, and foundational to the rest of the Bible. Leviticus is also great, don’t get me wrong, but it’s just moved a bit further down the list for when the habit has been established 🙂
The Gospels have been spread out in the New Testament so that you can read and appreciate each of them with fresh eyes, versus all in a row and feeling like “Wait, didn’t I just read this?” (I know, I know, I’m a terrible person for even thinking this! But I suspect I’m not alone…)
There are other arrangement tweaks in there as well, mostly to help my poor attention span, but in a nutshell I wanted to find a way to work with my weaknesses, and best set me up for success in overcoming them.
PLEASE NOTE: The problems are all with ME, not the Bible!
Why I made this plan
Hi. My name is Steve, and sometimes I feel like a bad Christian.
Let me explain–I love God with all my heart and gladly proclaim Jesus is Lord. I believe the Bible is God’s perfect Word to us and that we all should read it, every day. But I’m bad at that.
It’s not that I don’t want to. It’s not that I can’t make the time. It’s not that I haven’t tried.
I’m just terrible at doing it consistently.
I have successfully read straight through the Bible in about a year, a couple times in my life. But how many other times have I attempted to read through the Bible in a year, and failed miserably? Well, definitely more than a couple.
It usually goes something like this:
I have a desire to pick up my Bible and read. But I don’t know what to read, so I just pick something randomly. And by random I mean a short New Testament book I really like and have already read a hundred times (…I’m lookin’ at you, Ephesians…), never one of the many Old Testament books I haven’t read in years.
Or, I’ll just start at the beginning. I might even get all the way through Genesis. Sometimes I don’t. Sometimes I last a few days or weeks, sometimes it’s just one day. Then failure. Then comes the guilt.
Guilt is a funny thing. It will either drive me to try harder (usually for the wrong reasons), or just give up completely (which leads to more guilt.)
If I try again, I figure I need something structured to tell me what to read and keep me on track. So I look for some reading plans. If I’m feeling super ambitious/guilty, maybe I’ll try an advanced plan. Why read through one chapter a day when I could read twelve, and get through the whole Bible in no time! Wouldn’t that please God and make me a better person?!
If I give up completely, I’ll wander and wallow for a while then one day wonder what went wrong in my life. Then I’ll realize I need to repent and return but instead try and summon the willpower to fix things myself because I shouldn’t have to bother God for my mistakes, right? I can fix this if I just try harder this time? (Spoiler alert – you can’t. The whole point of reading the Bible is to get to know God, not earn His favor. “For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast. Ephesians 2:8-9”)
I don’t think I’m alone here. Many of us experience this, and the stupidest thing of all–none of it is necessary.
If you specifically want to read the Bible in a year, that is a very fine goal. Go for it! I’ve done it myself and I’m glad I did. But that is NOT the same thing as just wanting to read your Bible regularly. There is nothing inherently more spiritual about reading the whole Bible in 365 days, and there is no commandment to do so. Let’s get out of that trap!
Reading the Bible daily or regularly is a wonderful, rewarding spiritual discipline, and I wanted to make a plan that would facilitate that habit in my life. After all, the Psalms say things like this:
Open my eyes, that I may behold wonderful things from your law.
Psalms 119:18
NOT THIS:
Keep my eyes open, that I may get through all thy pages by year’s end. Amen.
Steve 1:37
This plan has helped me, and that’s simply the best endorsement I can give it. I pray that it will help you too!
- Open your Bible.
- Find your place.
- Read as much as you want.
- Repeat for life.
Yours in Christ,
Steve
How long will it take to read the whole Bible?
I don’t really want to answer this, because it’s not the reason I made this plan. How fast you read is completely up to you. Having said that, if you do have a specific time goal you want to meet, it can certainly help you get there. Here is some simple math if you’re just curious, or to help you set your pace:
There are 1189 chapters in the Bible, 929 Old Testament and 260 New Testament
1 chapter per day = 170 weeks (3.25 years)
2 chapters per day = 85 weeks (1.6 years)
3 chapters per day = 57 weeks (1.09 years)