A New Bible Reading Plan

UPDATE 9-25-11: The link at the bottom will direct you to the corrected plan - the original one left out the book of Lamentations. I also reordered the OT books into more of a chronological sequence.

If you read my earlier post about digging deeper into the Bible, you may have noticed I'm not a huge fan of daily checklist Bible reading plans that have you reading multiple chapters per day from different books of the Bible. I feel it destroys the cohesiveness of the Scriptures and doesn't give you the continuity that the original hearers experienced. After all, chapter and verse divisions were not introduced until the 14th and 16th centuries, respectively. These plans also turn Bible reading into a checklist that can cause discouragement if you fall behind. So I decided to create my own Bible reading plan, one that allows you to read the Scriptures as they were meant to be read, a book at a time. I've only discovered one other Bible reading plan that is structured this way, the Discipleship Journal reading plan, which can be found here.

My plan is different, however, in that it does not give you a daily reading to check off the list. It is simply a list of the books of the Bible, alternating between OT and NT books (with a few exceptions). If you decide you still want to read through the entire Bible in one year, the plan does include approximate dates of when to start reading each book, and how many days it should take you to get through each one, but the plan is designed so that you read at your own pace. You can spend as little or as much time as you like each day reading, and you are not limited by a checklist. You can read an entire book in one sitting if you prefer. If you decide to follow the dates and read through the Bible in a year, the plan will take you through the OT once, the NT twice, and Proverbs three times, averaging 4 chapters per day. For the most part, OT books are ordered chronologically, with Psalms and Proverbs interspersed throughout, and NT books are ordered as they are found in the Bible, with smaller books grouped together as a single reading.

The link below will take you to the plan. You can enter any start date, and all the dates will autofill for you.

Book-at-a-Time Bible Reading Plan

I would love to hear your feedback!