Let’s face it, we know we should read the Bible every day. Maybe you even set aside time to do it (I recommend the morning). But what should you read? Everyone needs a plan for their scripture reading time.
Failing to plan is planning to fail.
Maybe you have a tried and true Bible reading plan. If so, I’d love to hear about it in the comments.
However, most of us have great intentions about reading our Bible daily but somewhere around the third week of the new year, we’re missing a few days each week. Come the end of February and we’re missing more days than we’re no missing, so we toss up our hands, conceding defeat.
The devil does a little dance.
I hope the thought of his glee has you scowling. It makes me more determined than ever to do whatever it takes to keep him from being even a little bit happy.
Here are three possible ways for you to develop a daily reading habit. Yes, I’ll be linking to a digital means of reading, but I still love to open my Bible and read, too. You can use the application I mention as the source for your plans and do the actual reading in your Bible, if you’d rather.
There’s no wrong way to read your Bible. Except for NOT reading it.
Read Through the New Testament
Using this method was the foundation for my daily scripture reading in 2020. With the exception of reading the most horrifying parts of Revelation during the Christmas season, I really enjoyed it.
It doesn’t mete out to a chapter per day. Some of the longer chapters in the Gospels were divided over several days. It didn’t take more than five to ten minutes to read the passage each day, though. I recommend keeping a journal to jot down the verse that stands out to you each day and what God was telling you from it.
You can find the plan here.
Read Through the Bible
There are multiple methods for reading through the Bible in a year. And let’s be honest, they’re all a bit daunting.
This year, I’ll be utilizing the Bible app again. It breaks the plan down by month. Each day you read a chapter in the Old Testament and one in the New Testament and something from the poetic books.
Honestly, I glad it is a month-by-month plan because although I’ve read through the Bible in a year a couple different times, it always bogged me down. Rather than making me hungrier for God’s truth, it made me feel overwhelmed.
So, if the first month of the plan puts me on that path, I’ll revisit my plan. I’ll figure out another way to read through at least a portion of the Old Testament this year. After all, as long as I’m spending time reading and meditating daily on scripture, that’s what truly matters.
The Proverbs and Psalms Path
Years ago, I started reading through the book of Proverbs each month. It’s easy enough. There are thirty-one chapters in the book and thirty-one days in half the months.
That means, to do this plan you simply read one chapter in Proverbs and one Psalm each day. It will be easy to remember, although I recommend keeping a bookmark in Psalms so you don’t have to do math each day to figure out which Psalm you’re reading.
In months like February, April, June and September, you can either read multiple chapters in Proverbs on the last day of the month, or just skip chapters 29-31 in February and 31 those other three months. You’ll still read the whole book eight times this year.
You’ll read through the book of Psalms twice in the year at the pace of one psalm per day.
At the end of the year, you’ll have upped your spiritual wisdom and found hundreds of reasons to praise the Lord.
How do you plan your Bible reading? Have you ever done one of these?
A Pew Perspective 