Reading the Bible Through in One Year
The Center for Biblical Studies is encouraging and helping people to read the Bible through in 2012.
Here’s the method that worked best for me in reading the Bible through yearly (thanks to my old friend Dave R for teaching me this method!). You actually read the OT once and the NT twice using this method.
It’s 3 chapters a day, and it works like this:
1. You put a paper clip or other bookmark on page one of the six sections of the biblical library: Genesis (pentateuch), Joshua (history), Psalms (poetry and wisdom), Isaiah (prophets), Matthew (gospels), and Romans (epistles and apocalypse).
2. On Monday, you read 3 chapters of Genesis and move your bookmark forward. On Tuesday, you do the same with Joshua, on Wednesday with Psalms, and so on.
3. You get Sunday off … since you’ll be hearing the Scriptures at worship.
4. When you finish a section, you go back and start again, or focus on other sections that are uncompleted.
What this method doesn’t supply is a sense of the overarching narrative of the Bible. If that’s something you’re looking for, may I recommend two resources?
1. My book The Story We Find Ourselves In …
2. My podcast series Bible Overview …
Both would make a great Christmas present …