Aside from daily Mass and a commitment to silent prayer, the most important spiritual practice I’ve adopted as a Christian has been spending time in Scripture every day. Even having read the Bible 12 times, I still have to read with a pencil in hand. I’m always finding new insights, being shown new connections, and falling more in love with the Lord as I come to know him better. For me, it’s not enough just to read the books that I enjoy or the readings offered me by the liturgy–I need to wrestle with the hard stuff and find meaning in the boring stuff. And I need to know it all–not just so I can argue with it but so that I can live and breathe and love it. I need to replace the Beyoncé in my head with some Baruch and the Frozen (much though I love that movie) with Philippians. The only way that’s going to happen is if I’m in the Word every day. So that’s what I do.
The first time I read through the whole Bible, I started at Genesis and read till Revelation. It took me 5 years. Every subsequent time, I’ve managed it in a year. The problem with my cover-to-cover approach (among others) was that I’d get bogged down in Leviticus or Ezekiel and it was hard to motivate myself to keep going. When I switched to a yearly Bible schedule, I had a few chapters of Numbers each day but also a Psalm and half a chapter of a Gospel to keep me motivated. Plus the readings were associated with dates, so I couldn’t afford to get behind. I’ve used that schedule1 ten times and it’s served me well, particularly since it’s loosely linked with the liturgical year.
But people have been asking me for years how to start reading the Bible, and my trusty old schedule wasn’t it. I began to realize that zipping through all of the Epistles in a month and then trudging through the Pentateuch wasn’t the best way to get much out of either. So I sat down and wrote out a whole new schedule. This one still gets you through the whole Bible in a year (and the Gospels twice), but it goes chronologically through the Old Testament (more or less) with New Testament books and fun books like Ruth and Jonah interspersed throughout to mix things up. It also gives you a chapter of some poetic stuff every day instead of dragging you through Proverbs for 200+ days. This schedule is more user-friendly, more reasonable for those who haven’t read the Bible before, and can start any day of the year. So now I’m passing it on to you!
I will warn you: I didn’t start with the easy stuff. I can ease you into the Bible by giving (relatively) simple, pleasant stuff first. My approach here wasn’t to leave the hard stuff for the end but to put it in an order that made sense. So if you’ve never read the Bible before at all, you could take two days for each day on the schedule or start with just the Psalms and the Gospels. The important thing is to start.
If you print this schedule double-sided, you can fold it up to fit in your Bible. And when you print it, do yourself a favor and print out my Bible timeline, too. It’s one piece of paper that I keep in my Bible at all times–a quick explanation of how everything in the Old Testament connects to everything else. So when you’re reading Hosea, you can take a quick look and see that Hosea was prophesying to Israel before the Assyrian Exile. And you can even see that there are two kingdoms in the Old Testament, a fact that I missed until my third time through the Bible.
Bible TimelineDownload the document here.
Halfway through Lent (Laetare!) probably isn’t the best time to hand this to you guys, but Easter doesn’t mean the end of prayer, fasting, or almsgiving. Maybe you can start this schedule on Easter? Or any other day of the year. Or read the Bible through using some other schedule. But if you’re a Christian and you haven’t read the whole Bible, I really think you need to change that.
One Year Bible ChronologicalDownload the document here.
- Which I got off the internet and don’t have a source for, unfortunately. [↩]
Thank you Meg. I had a one year read through the Bible and Catechism that I did once. It all tied into each other too.
I am going to do your one year program starting with April 1 -day one.
God bless you. Hope you are doing great. I know you are, but you remain in my prayers.
Your Brother in Christ,
Ed
Ooh, this is exciting! Maybe I will start on my birthday! Now I’m sounding like Cecilia . . . 🙂
Awesome Meg! We are gently studying the scriptures over at Plain Grace this month. We’re easing into the practice of lectio divina. I hope {please} join us! Your love the Word of God is so beautiful.
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I will have to check this out.
I started your original schedule with Advent this year and made it halfway through January, but I found that somedays I couldn’t do the readings and I ended up trying to do 4 or 5 days worth of readings in one day. For the Gospels, that wasn’t too bad- but even several chapters of Isaiah were rough. And I couldn’t let myself fall behind, panicked, and finally gave up.
To be fair, I just have a lot going on right now. I am in RCIA, so I have weekly readings for that. I have been consistenly reading the readings for Daily Mass, plus a bio of the Saint for each day. I started trying to read Divine Office everyday, but that got to be too much on top of my daily life with a 4 year old, a full time job, and a wedding to plan. Plus, I am devouring Scott Hahn books before Easter. I know there shouldn’t be an excuse, but I feel like all of that makes it somewhat excusable, for now.
The Bible is hard, and I know it is worth it, but when you are just starting as a Christian/Catholic, reading “easier” spiritual things (i.e. Hahn) might be OK, right?
My plan was to get through this giant list of other books that I really wanted to read (all spiritual or apologetic in nature) and at the start of next liturgical year, my first full liturgical year as a Catholic, set a schedule to read the CCC and the Bible.
But, perhaps I will start it sooner rather than later.
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Thank you so much, this is exactly what I needed! I decided to read the Bible probably a year ago and got up to Joshua (skipped a lot of Deuteronomy and Leviticus, not gonna lie) before losing interest. Hopefully the schedule will work out better. I printed it double sided, just like you suggested. I have been looking for a good Bible timeline for awhile. These can all live inside my Bible case. I may start on April 7, my baptism day.
I’ve never read it all the way through. I’ve always started at the beginning and gotten bogged down. Thanks for this, I’m going to give it another try!
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Is the only way to get these by paying for Scribd? I couldn’t seem to find another way.
Thank you.
Oh, that is weird! Here’s the schedule: https://www.piercedhands.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/One-Year-Bible-Chronological.pdf
and the timeline: https://www.piercedhands.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/05/Bible-Timeline.pdf
Thank you Edna and Meg for the PDFs. I was also having a hard time getting them to load. Pax
Thank you for the reading plan and time line. One of my goals this year is to read the entire Bible. I was also bogged down by the books you mentioned.
Thanks for a marvelous posting! I definitely enjoyed reading it,
you’re a great author.I will be sure to bookmark your blog and will often come back
later on. I want to encourage you to ultimately continue
your great work, have a nice holiday weekend!
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Thank you, what a great and fun plan ! Exactly what I was looking for ! Tom
Thank you for this. I was wanting to start doing just this…and had been thinking of starting on Easter. How timely your post is.
This is fabulous. My husband and I are both using your chronological reading plan.
I’m on day 128, and I’ve noticed that it looks like Philippians is missing from the plan. We read Galatians on days 105 and 106, and then get Joshua through 2 Samuel, and then it goes right into Colossians? No big deal… Philippians isn’t very long, and I’m a stay at home mom, mostly bored out of my ever-loving mind. I can read it in a day or two in addition to the other readings you give.
Thanks for your work, and God Bless You!
You already read it! On days 26 and 27 🙂 It’s one of my favorites so I put it towards the beginning so that people would enjoy it and keep going. Thanks!
Dear Meg, I am a Catholic from the Philippines. I have a one-year bible reading guide from “Coming Home” website; but, I do appreciate yours also, as well. Thank you for sharing your own bible-reading one-year guide.
WOW! This is so great, and I think it is awesome you have read the Bible over 12 times. Thanks for sharing this schedule with us!
Thanks for sharing the reading plan.
As for the timeline, why is only for OT? What about for NT? How do we connect the timeline from OT to NT?
I have a print out of your schedule in which you start Jan 1 with 1 John. The time line is confusing . It is as follows : 1 John 1:1-3:10. How do I interpret that ?
Thank you?
Julie Puhr
Tjpuhr@msn.com
The first letter of St John chapter 1 verse 1 through chapter 3 verse 10.
Thank you
Thank you for this schedule on reading Scripture. I’m looking forward to beginning. God bless.
Thanks for this! I’m just wondering which bible version you used for the plan? Since some numberings might be different depending on the version? Thanks!
Now that I have read your wonderful tips, I rather believe that it is possible to read the Bible in a year. I am putting it into practice right away. Thank you.
Hello!
I’m looking for a chronological reading plan of the Catholic Bible. I noticed that you’ve placed the readings of Job with the prophets. My question is why place Job there when his story took place closer to Genesis?
I’ve had a really hard time trying to find a Catholic chronological plan. Any thoughts as to where the Catholic books of the Bible fit into the chronological timeline? Thanks!
Hi Meg,
I just downloaded this bible day-by-day reading program. I love it. I have always wanted to read the entire bible, but once I get a few months in, the reading becomes overwhelming and I stop all progress. I am excited to begin this bible reading program you are giving us. God Bless you for doing the holy work of bringing scripture to us in this form. I bought my new bible right before Christmas and I am reading along with your guide and making notes and for sure taking my time with His written word. Many blessing to you this year, Meg.
Thank you so much for this. Great help! I started using this guide and I found it very interesting and enjoyable. As we all know, even bible guides nowadays weren’t free, right? But you just give me a 1-year bible guide for free. Again, thanks.
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