Resources for Bible Reading

For getting into a good Bible reading rhythm, getting a balanced scriptural diet, and staying on track, a Bible reading plan can be incredibly useful. Different approaches suit different people, so here’s a few ideas:

1. The Five Day Bible


There’s lots to love about this plan. It takes you through the whole Bible in 52, 5-day weeks–that’s two days a week of wriggle room for when life happens. There’s an Old Testament and a New Testament reading for each day, plus a Psalm most days. Finally, it works through the Old and New Testaments more or less chronologically so you can track with the unfolding story. Just print it out, fold in half and keep it in your Bible.
Free download here: https://www.fivedaybiblereading.com

2. The Bible (or the New Testament) in a year

The ESV folks have some great free Bible reading resources. Their Daily Bible Reading Plan can be used to get through the whole Bible in a year with four chapters a day, or you could use parts of it to read, e.g., the NT in a year, or the NT and Psalms+Proverbs.
Check out the free downloads here: https://www.esv.org/resources/reading-plans/

 3. M’Cheyne Bible Reading Plan

Robert Murray M’Cheyne was a Scottish pastor who developed a classic approach to daily Bible reading. It takes you through the New Testament and Psalms twice, and the Old Testament once in a year. It is broken up into four readings per day. Two for the ‘Morning’ (one from the old and one from the new), and 2 for the ‘evening’ (though you can read whenever you like). A bonus of this is that there’s a great 1/2 speed option: You could do the plan over two years (morning readings in year 1 and evening readings in year 2), in which case you’d read the NT and Psalms each year and the OT over two years. Finally, Don Carson has written excellent short daily devotions to go along with the M’Cheyne plan.
https://www.thegospelcoalition.org/article/mcheyne-bible-reading-plan/


4. Read Through the Bible for Shirkers & Slackers


Finally, here’s one that takes a bit of a different approach. This plan isn't so worried about dates, but focuses on a different part of the Bible each day of the week. E.g. Sundays: OT books of poetry; Fridays: N.T. history. You just pick up where you left off according to what day it is. The benefit of this is that you don’t get bogged down in Leviticus or Job, and if you miss a day, or a week, that’s ok, you just pick up where you were and keep going… and eventually you’ll have read the whole Bible.

Read about how it works: https://ransomfellowship.org/article/bible-reading-program-for-slackers-shirkers/

Download PDF: https://ransomfellowship.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/bible-reading-plan.pdf