My family walks the same loop at the local state park on Sunday afternoons. We’ve trekked the three miles around Lake Erie marshes and lagoons nearly every week for almost six years in all sorts of weather. Our experience of the park is enriched because we walk the trail so often. We know where to stand to see the eagles’ nest. We know where the nightcap heron could make a rare appearance. We can tell by the feel of the air when the turtles will be sunning on their logs.
Repeatedly reading through the Bible during different seasons has a similar effect. Over time, we see new things in new ways. In early years of study, we may only see what’s obvious: the evil of sin and the goodness of Christ. At first, there’ll be a lot of names we don’t know what to do with. But as we pass through the Word time and again, our experience becomes deeper and richer. Seasoned Bible readers see texture in the stories and interconnections between books that require deep familiarity to recognize.
At first, there’ll be a lot of names we don’t know what to do with. But as we pass through the Word time and again, our experience becomes deeper and richer.
Regular Bible reading forms Christians. Whether we read through the Bible every year or take several to make it through, the difference between being a regular Bible reader and someone who simply wants to be one is having a plan. Knowing what you should read next is better than wondering where to begin and how far to go.
Suggested Bible Reading Plans
Here are some reading plans The Gospel Coalition’s staff have found helpful.
1. M’Cheyne Reading Plan
Robert Murray M’Cheyne’s reading plan walks through the entire Bible in a year (twice through the New Testament and Psalms) and readings from different sections of Scripture each day. Download the PDF reading plan to keep in your Bible. You can sign up for a daily newsletter with Don Carson’s devotional reflections along with supporting information. There’s also a daily devotional podcast (Apple | RSS | Stitcher) with readings from Carson’s For the Love of God (vol. 1) that follows along with the plan.
2. Five Day Bible Reading Program
Melissa Kruger’s favorite Bible reading plan allows flexibility so that if you’re overloaded you can skip a day or two and not fall behind. It, too, has a free PDF to check off as you work through the canon in a year. The Old Testament readings are roughly chronological, with daily New Testament readings as well.
3. 5x5x5 New Testament Bible Reading Plan
New believers and those new to daily Bible reading may find the Navigators’ 5x5x5 New Testament Bible Reading Plan a way to establish a new habit and get deeper into the text. The plan calls for reading one chapter each day (about five minutes), five days a week, and recommends five different ways to understand and apply the text.
4. Straight Through the Bible in a Year
My own preferred method of reading the Bible is simply to move straight through the Bible in a year. Every day of the year I read three or four chapters (except for the day I read Psalm 119!). I use a simple checklist as a bookmark to track my progress, and each year I’m reminded just how much of the Bible is Old Testament. When I get to the New Testament my anticipation for Christ’s coming has built up. I’ve used this plan with different translations for over a decade, and the reading experience gets more rewarding every year I do it.
Get into the Habit
Adopting a plan won’t keep your kids from getting sick, work from piling up, or family from coming to visit. It’ll still be easy to get out of your Bible-reading rhythm. But getting back to the habit and picking up where you left off is more important than finishing the plan “on time.” Like the Sabbath, Bible reading plans are made for man, not man for reading plans.
Yet I want to encourage you to pick up one of the plans above and get into the habit. Executing any plan requires discipline, but it also builds discipline.
Executing any plan requires discipline, but it also builds discipline.
I’ve been reading through the Bible for more than a decade, and now if I miss a day, it feels strange—like if I forgot to brush my teeth. Looking back, I can see clearly how this discipline has helped my progress toward sanctification. Now-familiar passages sometimes rise in my mind to help me see things from a different perspective than I might have years ago, which can make it easier to resist sin.
If we believe that the Bible is God’s special self-revelation to humanity and the final standard for Christian life and practice, we should make sure we’re people who consistently feed on the Word. Familiarity comes through careful, repeated reading. Perhaps this is the year you become a habitual Bible reader.
The Gospel Coalition