Reading the Bible in 2019

Reading the Bible is one of the best things we can do in our journey of life. I like to read the Bible through at least once per year. Of course, any amount of Bible reading is good, but reading it through in a year is an excellent way to keep God’s Word on your mind and in your heart. January 1st is an excellent day to start because of the number of yearly reading plans available. Many Bibles and apps include them and they’re prominent online. Here’s a look at some of my favorite plans for reading the Bible through in a year.

Multiple Locations

There are several plans that let you reading from more than one location.

The M’Cheyne plan gives you two readings per day that takes you through the OT once and the NT and Psalms twice in two years. It provides a morning and evening reading. You can use it as a one-year plan by reading both plans in the same year. This gives you four readings per day from different places in the Bible.

This plan can be found in the back of many Bibles such as the TBS Westminster (as seen in the image above). TBS also has a PDF and print version, called Bible Word List and Reading Plan, that you can download or order. It’s also available within a lot of apps and for download online.

There are several yearly reading Bibles that print the daily reading in order. We’ve used the ESV and NKJV. You can also download the ESV plan online.

Chronological

Reading the Bible chronologically takes you through the events in the order that they happened. Some chronological plans are more detailed than others. They’re available within chronological Bibles and online.

Biblical Order

This plan takes you through the Bible in our standard biblical order from Genesis to Revelation. Many Bibles include this type of reading plan and you can find them online. Some that print the books in a different order also include them for their specific order.

Custom Plans

Most reading plans have you reading 365 days. We did this for three years of our family reading and found that it would be better for us to not reading on Thursday nights. We were behind one day every week and we had to catch up. We decided to create a custom plan for 6 days per week.  There are several ways to create your own custom plans.

Logos software has a custom reading plan tool that lets you choose the translation and the days per week you want to read. It then generates that plan and lets you track your reading using the app.

Another option is to divide the number of pages in your Bible by the number of days you want to read. We’re using this method this year. This works best with a text-only or a reference Bible that doesn’t have a lot of blank pages.

Thoughts and Tips

There are many others, but these are my favorites because of their simplicity and how easy they are to find. We’ve tried several plans including the M’Cheyen plan as a one-year instead of two years, a plan from the ESV Daily Reading Bible, a chronological plan, and a custom biblical order plan built in Logos for 6 days per week. This year, we’re creating our own. One of the Bibles we’re reading has 1200 pages. We’re reading for 300 days (6 days per week with a few extra days in case we get behind by taking a trip or two). This gives us roughly 4 pages per day.

Set aside scheduled time every day. Be consistent and stick to it. Of course, it’s not a race. It’s okay to not read in a year. Don’t feel bad if you get behind. Not everyone has the time to read every day. The point is to keep reading.

How about you? are you using a reading plan to read the Bible this year? let us know about it in the comments.