I have tried and failed a one-year Bible reading plan before, basically reading a single book at a time with three or four chapters each day. I did plan on breaking it up into five cycles of seven different themes. Even still, I eventually got stuck in Isaiah and didn’t follow through with the rest. Just today, I am trying to start again. This time, my plan will still call for usually three to four passages each day, but those passages will be pulled from various books throughout the Old and New Testsment. So I will still read through entire books, but I will read a little from two to three books each day rather than focusing on a single book at a time. Hopefully this will keep me from getting too bogged down in any one book. Has anybody here successfully made it through the entire Bible in a year, or any amount of time for that matter? If so, what was your reading strategy? What struggles did you face along the way? Any words of wisdom you would like to share?
I’m six months into my two year plan. I bought a one year Bible that is separated by days with sections of old and new for each day. I decided to do one testament at a time. On days I’m ill or run ragged, I give myself permission to skip and then catch up on the weekend. If I demanded a strict schedule for myself, I’d get behind and eventually quit.
Unless the Bible changed when you stopped reading, I would pick up where you left off and get the reading that stopped you cold when you are fresh and motivated. You may find once you are able to push through the part that stopped you that other sections won't be a daunting when you find them harder to read for whatever reason. A goal is great, but if it stops you because you aren't being completely successful then the goal is a weight and not being utilized for what it is meant for. Read on. Stop tying your progress to a pre-set goal. Question: Why a year? What is so important about that timeframe?
Thank you for your reply. My wife recently bought a bible similar to what you described. That is a good idea to focus on one testament at a time. I also like what you have said about giving yourself permission to get behind and then catch up later. I am sure that even if reading is part of a daily routine, there will be days that routine is broken up and plans need modified. I will keep that in mind. Good luck to you!
I’ve tried them in the past and just lose focus. I do better with short reading plans that go through a specific book or group of books. Isaiah is tough but definitely worth the read when you get there! I mostly reread Psalms and the epistles anymore. Sometimes one of the major prophets or John.
Here is the reason I did not decide to pick up where I left off on the old plan from a few years ago. As I mentioned, I had split it up into five cycles of seven themes. Now that I think about it again it was really eight themes (nine if you count Revelation as its own since I saved it for the very end as it did not seem to fit with any others). The details of this were I would plan on reading (roughly) a fifth of the Pentateuch, a fifth of the history, a fifth of the poetry, a fifth of the major prophets, a fifth of the minor prophets, a fifth of the gospels and Acts, a fifth of the Pauline epistles, and a fifth of the general epistles, then repeat with the second fifth of each, the third fifth of each, and so on. The way that broke down for the first cycle was Genesis, Joshua through Ruth, Job, Isaiah, Hosea through Joel, Matthew, Romans through 1 Corinthians, and Hebrews... I never made it to Matthew. Job and Isaiah are both very long and carry very melancholy themes. After about a month of reading through mostly melancholy themes for twenty to thirty minutes every morning, I just couldn’t take it any more. I understand they have their purpose and am not discounting the importance, but you can see why I got bogged down. This is why I am hopeful that this new reading plan I will follow mixes in different sections each day so that those difficult sections will be more manageable and balanced with other readings. As for the goal of a year? I don’t really have a good answer other than that it is a goal that is both challenging and manageable. Thank you for your response.
I can relate with the losing of focus. Something I have done this time to help is I have created a Google Keep checklist for each of the readings. Hopefully this will help to keep on track. It certainly helps me keep up with daily tasks while teaching. Good idea about the short reading plans of specific books. I may go back and try some of those after I get through the entire thing. Thanks for your reply.
Is there a reason people don't read it front to back like any other book? It would be a lot easier to keep track that way because all you'd need is a bookmark.
Some people do, which is perfectly fine. However, the Bible is not one singular, continuous narrative. Though physically it is a single book, narratively it is sixty-six different books with a variety of authors, purposes, themes, settings, etc. which are interconnected more like a web than one continuous flow chart. This is why it lends itself to a variety of different ways to read it or just parts of it, depending on one’s particular focus.
I know a person (who recently went to Heaven) who preferred to read the Bible cover to cover 3 times each year. I've read the Bible through myself--I made a photocopy of the contents page and marked the books off with a highlighter as I completed each book. (Note for any unfamiliar with the structure of the Bible, the Bible is one large book of many different books, each divided into chapters, and each chapter divided into verses for ease of locating passages). I didn't use a time frame, just read. Reading through the Bible can be a slow process. There is so much even in just a single verse, and it's easy (and profitable) to get bogged down studying just a single small passage. Personally, I vary what I choose to read each day. Sometimes I read along in a book that the pastor or a radio pastor might be discussing or sometimes I just choose a specific book to read. Sometimes I do a topical study. Sometimes I read a book by a contemporary author that focuses on a specific Bible book or theme. (That is what I am currently doing now with Dr. David Jeremiah's book, A Life Beyond Amazing). Of course, the purpose for reading the Bible corresponds with one's religious beliefs. Personally, I believe that whatever I read becomes part of me. It constantly changes me.
Just to add to this, you also have material that is repeated and expanded upon. For example, the two books of Chronicles repeat (and add to and take away from) material in Samuel-Kings. A good reading plan will keep the passages covering the same material in all three sets of books together.
I use the following plan: http://bibleclassmaterial.com/BibleReadingSchedule2018.pdf. I really like it because it has readings for 5 days a week; if you miss a day you are fine as there are 2 days a week without a reading. I've done this for a couple of years now.
I started on a couple plans for two years in a row, but just lost focus by February. Not too proud about that, but I do want to read the Bible in a year, OP. It's a worthy endeavor and manageable (I believe the plan I was on had me reading 7 chapters a day).
You and I sound similar. It is indeed a worthwhile endeavor and easy to get off track. But I realized I didn’t have to wait until January 1 rolled around again, I could start any day and still read it in 365 days. In the link at the bottom is a list of various plans with descriptions of what kind of focus they are designed for. If you click on the blue-font title of each plan, you can see how each is broken down by day without having to sign up to be a member. I chose the Thematic plan toward the end of the list and am liking it. I believe if you create a username on the site, it has tools to help keep track of what you read, or you could just print off the list of days and cross them off as you go. One thing I have done on my checklist I created for my readings is highlite the days corresponding to Wednesdays and Sundays, with the idea being that if I get behind, my new mini-goal would be to get caught up by the next highliged day, just to keep from getting too far off track. https://www.biblestudytools.com/bible-reading-plan/
Welp, I did it. Just today I finished the readings for Day 365. So I have now read through the entire book in a little less than a year!
Thanks. It really became a morning routine. After waking up and pottying the dogs, I would spend 20 or so minutes in my daily readings with a cup of coffee. The question now is, do I sleep an extra 20 minutes, or find something else to do this new year in that time? I am a morning person, so likely, the latter. I got a daily devotional as a birthday gift, so maybe I will read that.
Every year the church I used to go to laid out the reading plan of what we're to read each day to have the entire Bible read in a year. I never tried to do it myself. I'm sure you can Google this & it will tell you what to read each day.
I'm starting this today. I've never completed a year-long reading plan before (though I've tried many times) but I definitely need something more structured right now. Wish me luck!
Good luck! Where I had failed in previous attempts was missing a day and then giving up soon after since I was no longer on track. In 2018 on my daily reading list, I highlighted each day corresponding to a Sunday in yellow, and each day corresponding to a Wednesday in green. I did this at the beginning, because I anticipated falling behind from time to time. However, this gave me mini goals of getting caught up by the next highlighted day, and that help me stay on track.
Jim I commend you on accomplishing this feat. I won't lie and say I've ever felt any desire to do the same, but my husband did uh year before last I believe. It was a whole spiritual adventure for him, he gained a lot of valuable insights. I hope the adventure was equally fulfilling for you.
Congrats. I am too! I have done it before, and it is always tough to be faithful. It is really hard to grit it out, but it is so worth it!
I happened to stumble upon this app: https://itunes.apple.com/au/app/bible-in-one-year/id504133402?mt=8
Reading through the Bible in a year is one of my goals for 2019. I've already read through the Bible a couple of times in my life, but it's mostly been over an expanse of 2-3 years and was very disorderly. I've done the whole "read through the Bible in a year" thing by following a 365/366-day reading plan and have completed it the two times I've done it (my church assigned it to us in Sunday School), but I found that doing it that way was really draining for me. I also didn't like reading an inconsistent number of chapters per day due to following a "by the book" schedule. So, for this year, I'm planning on reading 3-4 pages per day, regardless of the book or chapter. All I did was look at the total number of pages in my Bible and divide it by the total number of days within this year lol, and I came out with 3 pages per day (counting each front and back as a page, so one front + one back = 2 pages). I tried this at the end of last year when I felt like I was dragging my Bible reading out too much and that it was taking too long for me to finish reading it, so I just took the number of pages I still had to finish reading and divided it by the number of days I had left within the year. I ended up reading 6-7 pages per day until the end of 2018, but it worked for me and I finally finished getting through my Bible at the end of last year. Now, I'll be able to take my reading a bit more slowly with 3-4 pages a day and really get to think about what I'm reading. If I finish my reading mid-way through a chapter, I'll usually go ahead and finish the whole chapter or page in order to "get ahead." I also time myself and keep a reading chart on a Google Sheet to take note of how much I'm reading and what I've learned from my daily reading. I don't know if keeping a chart is what other people do, but I've found that keeping a data log helps me and keeps me accountable (I also really like the "reading progress" bar on Goodreads). It generally takes me about 15 minutes to read through what I need to for the day, and I really like knowing how long it's going to take me to read through something.
I'm a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, and we have the entire bible (King James Version, 1,590 pages) plus the Book of Mormon (531 pages), the Doctrine and Covenants (295 pages), and the Pearl of Great Price (61 pages). Combined we call them the "standard works." Combined it is 2,477 pages. One year in college my friend and I challenged ourselves to read the entire standard works in a year. We could have broken it down by pages, but instead we did chapters, that way if the page requirement ended mid-chapter we wouldn't have to reread to catch up on where we were at. We made a calendar with what needed to be read on that date (e.g. January 1; Genesis 1-7). We also built in catch up days, about once a month. Some days required a lot more reading than other days (Psalms and Proverbs took much less time than the days that included very long chapters), and those days that didn't take long I usually used to get ahead in case I fell behind one day. It worked out to be 7 chapters per day. We actually did it. How? Holding each other accountable. We checked in with each other daily to make sure that we were caught up and had done our reading. I had two sessions per day: one when I woke up, and one before bed. Depending on the day some of the sessions were longer than others, but average was about 20-30 minutes. I actually think that these days it would be easier because everything is available on your phone and you can just pull it out and read it when waiting in a line or where ever. We still did it though. We got pocket sized versions of the different standard works and carried them with us (backpack during classes, purses when not at school). It was hard. I usually spent make-up days reading, and there were some areas (looking at you Numbers) where it was mind-numbing to read. But having the accountability of my friend and the built in make-up sessions made it much easier. That being said, would I do it again? Probably not. It was a wonderful experience, I'm glad I did it, but I don't think I got as much out of it as I do when I take my time and study the books, chapters, and verses, rather than just read them. There were days when I was reading just because the calendar told me to, but not because I wanted to, and those days I got literally nothing from it, but to finish I still had to do it.
I have tried this approach, but it didn't work with me. I am taking the four gospels slowly like we do at my church (one book at a time, chapter by chapter, verse by verse) expository teaching. I am now in in chapter 16 in the book of Luke. I like to slow down so that I can really understand how to be an obedient servant to the Lord. It's more than just attending church on Sundays, Wednesdays and other days which have specific Bible studies. I take my Christian walk seriously and I want to know that I am doing the things that produce good fruits of righteousness. I wish you blessings on this approach if you feel more comfortable studying the Bible in a whole year. In my men's Bible study group at church, we have been studying Genesis for the past 3.75 years now and we are only in chapter 43 right now. I am grateful for my fellowship with fellow brothers and sisters in Christ too.
I wish I had some good advice for you, but I don't. When I pick the Bible up at night, I will read until I can't keep my eyes open. ( I have been up reading until 5 am before many a times.) I have been that way for a few years. I am careful not to pick it up on school nights. 1 thing I really like now is the audio Bible. It is really nice to listen to it in the mornings before work. I set the timer on my phone to remind myself when to leave. I wish you the best in your endeavors to read it in a year. It is kind of like a diet. If you mess up and forget 1 day do your best to just start back up the next day.
Not to brag, but I did it under 6 months along with my faith's three other books of scripture (ala @kellzy , same religion). The goal was a year, but I was single at the time and I'm a fast reader and I found I had the time to commit more daily time to the task. I believe I aimed for thirty minutes a day. I want to do it again, perhaps keeping closer to the comparatively leisurely year goal. It was good. I liked the increased comprehension of just taking everything in closer together. I recommend the challenge.
After failing a few times, I made it through in a little over a year. For me it helped to begin with a book in the gospel (Matthew), then read an old testament book (Genesis), then another gospel (Mark) then another old testament book (Exodus) and continue like that. When I got to Numbers and Leviticus (tough books for me), I found some commentary online to help me understand these books better. I got this idea from someone else, and it worked well for me.