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A Bible Reading Action Plan
Did you know if you read 10 chapters of the New Testament each day, you can read the ENTIRE New Testament in ONE month.
If you read 25 chapters of the Bible each day, you could read through the entire Bible in roughly TWO months.
We want to put out a little challenge for you. We challenge you to either read through the New Testament or the whole Bible. Take it slow, don't beat yourself up if you skip a few days and by all means keep going.
Here is a plan for reading through the Bible in two months:
*Notice that we have mixed up the order of the Prophets and the New Testament a little on the chart below. The simple reason for it is it's hard to read all of the long books (Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekial, Daniel) in a row. If you look at the order we put them in, it gives you one long book followed by a few short ones from that same section. This makes it easier to keep going.
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When you get done with a section, start again on it. When you finish the Genesis–Ruth section, meaning that you start at Genesis all the way through Ruth, then you start again with Genesis.
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At the same time you're reading 5 chapters from each of the other Sections.
You will be surprised at how quickly you will be reading each section over again and at how much more sense it makes each time you read it. The beauty of this plan is it keeps varying things up for you so you don't get bored and quit. Another fun testimony I've heard again and again is that you'll often read a prophecy and its fulfillment, or a story about David and then the Psalm he wrote during that time, both in the same day. The Bible starts to come alive in a whole new way when you do this.
Can you do it? Reply to this article and tell us how you're doing.
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Section 1 (Genesis–Ruth)
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Section 5 (New Testament)
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Matthew
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Section 2 (1 Samuel–Esther)
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Romans
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1 Corinthians
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Section 3 (Job and Psalms)
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2 Corinthians
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Galatians
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Proverbs–Song (1 Chapter/Day)
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Ephesians
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Section 4 (Prophets)
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Mark
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Isaiah
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Philippians
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Hosea
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Colossians
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Joel
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1 Thessalonians
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Amos
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2 Thessalonians
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1 Timothy
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Jeremiah
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Lamentations
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Luke
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Obadiah
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2 Timothy
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Jonah
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Titus
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Micah
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Philemon
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Hebrews
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Ezekiel
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Nahum
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Acts
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Habakkuk
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James
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Zephaniah
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1,2 Peter
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Jude
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Daniel
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Haggai
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John
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Zechariah
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1,2,3 John
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Malachi
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Revelation
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For more on Reading the Bible, check out:
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Joseph Taylor, 4/17/2007 |
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| | Andrew Busch | 2/19/2007, 3:21 PM | | I too am enjoying using this plan in a modified way. I'm enjoying using a journal and writing out prayers after each readthrough.. I think this just postures my heart into a listening position as I read. I praise God for you all (you who post messeges) and for IHOP.
| | | Seth Silvers (Guest) | 2/19/2007, 3:21 PM | | This is crazy, i have wanted to do something like this for the last week, and than God showed me this. i am pumped and i will see you all in castle rock.
| | | sarah (Guest) | 5/16/2007, 8:32 AM | | I’m so excited to start this plan, but I have to watch out for reading for the sake of crossing it off, never stop praying the scriptures, and if you find something that touches your heart, its ok just to stop and meditate on it, so what if it takes you three months instead of two, you will have gained much more = )
| | | Andrew Bertapelle | 7/13/2007, 11:38 AM | | I'm excited to try this plan out - but i think I'm going to start small and gradually add on chapters until I get up to the 25 a day, as I'm usually a pretty slow reader - thanks for designing this! :)
| | | Jason Ostroski | 11/2/2007, 7:27 AM | | I have a very hard time submitting to the point where reading the Bible is feeding my spirit and not just bouncing off the old man. For me to read one chapter sometimes will take the better part of an hour. Do you all find that in this amount of reading that you are able to abide in God the entire time, notice the finer parts of scripture, as well as have time to go to college, work, be involved in church and hang out with friends and family?
| | | Hannah Beene (Guest) | 1/8/2008, 12:00 PM | | after being set ablaze at onething, i'm more than ready to seek after gods heart in this and other ways.
| | | Joseph Taylor | 2/9/2008, 4:27 PM | | Jason - I love your question! You're right that we need Bible reading to be more than a mindless exercise that we do. If that's all it is, it's pointless. I remember facing a two-fold challenge when I first started getting in to reading the Bible.
1) I had a hard time seeing how the Bible as a whole fit together. I had memorized a bunch of verses and understood the "major" themes of the Word but couldn't connect how Isaiah had anything to do with Zechariah, etc.
2)I was challenged by Mike's teaching to read the entire New Testament each month. After I'd done that a few times it began to bug me that I knew the NT pretty well but still couldn't grasp the OT. Since the New Testament is mostly a quote-festival of the Old Testament, I knew I needed to grasp the OT as well.
So now to your question:
"Do you all find that in this amount of reading that you are able to abide in God the entire time, notice the finer parts of scripture, as well as have time to go to college, work, be involved in church and hang out with friends and family?"
The answer: Yes. I find that most people really have almost no clue what the Bible is saying until about the 3rd or 4th time they read it. And the best way to see and understand the finer parts of scripture is to know it as a whole.
As for the question about spending time with friends and family, that's more of a time management question than a Bible reading question to which I recommend "The Power of a Focused Life" series but if you want another short answer, again, yes I think it's possible.
| | | Heather Wax | 3/1/2008, 9:45 AM | | I find that I have to tell myself ahead of time WHY I am reading the Bible - a rapid reading plan like the suggestion above, I almost have to discipline myself NOT to try to drink too deeply (I know that sounds wrong, but stay with me and let me explain) but just plow through it.
Basically - I know that if I just READ it - that it will be whirling about in my head for the rest of the day and the Lord will start to "underline" and pick through things He wants to engage with me about after I'm done reading - but if I get all wrapped up in making sure I'm taking each word in deeply WHILE I read it, I just never will get through it. So, if I want to have a deep meditative time with the text, I will go BACK to it later on, AFTER I've done my reading for the day, and spent as much time on individual verses or segments as I want to - but for the sake of overall exposure, I try to not do that when I'm on a plan, unless the Lord really nudges me (He always gets all the veto rights :) ) to stop and pay attention on a given day.
| | | Joseph Taylor (Guest) | 8/22/2008, 8:35 AM | | Heather, I love your insight on this. That is absolutely what I was thinking. Thank you for putting it into words for me.
| | | Mary Anderson | 9/8/2008, 5:56 PM | | I was challenged to read through the Bible in two months a few years ago and it changed my understanding of scripture. It was like seeing an entire painting for the first time after spending years looking at individual brush strokes. Are the brush strokes amazing in their perfection and detail? Of course, and so much more when you begin to see how each contributes to the whole.
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