What are your favorite Bible reading plans? My favorites are M‘Cheyne and George Guthrie’s Reading God’s Story.
Any others I should be aware of? I’m looking to pick one to read through with college students in 2019.
If you’re not aware of Guthrie’s, it’s a really good chronological-thematic plan which organizes readings based mostly on when parts of the Bible were written, but also on what passages are about. For instance, Day 1 has you read Genesis 1–2, then on Day 2: John 1:1–3 (i.e., the NT’s creation account) and Psalms 8 & 104 (creation psalms).
Guthrie’s sounds intriguing! I haven’t used any plans except the one Christ Kirk has put out the last year or two. They’ve attempted a little bit of the same chronology/thematic idea, and I did enjoy it and find it useful & enlightening. The best thing about that plan, though, is the fact that so many others are reading the same thing simultaneously, and pushing each other to keep going.
I use one I made up myself for the jail I serve at. Since sometimes the only Bible an inmate may have is a Gideon NT, I broke the readings up into OT, Psalms, Proverbs, and NT. With OT I pretty much go off of Jim Jordan’s suggested canonical order, trying to divide up the weekly readings equalish and using Dorsey’s chiastic structures to divide up books if I need to. With NT I go for five chapters a week with Jordan’s suggested time of writing. I do the readings weekly instead of daily due to space, and to tie it to a calendar, so that inmates will want it, because calendars are sought after items, and I tied mine to the church calendar. I recently finished the Bible in a year with it for the first time in my life. I had started the Bible in a year many times, but never finished. A lot of them got handed out, so I am hopeful that it at least encouraged some inmates to take up and read.
That’s really great. I have to say, though, I think weekly reading goals would mean absolute failure for me. I need the daily structure. More for me! Big fan of how the YouVersion Bible app does reading plans, where it gives you passages each day, and you check them off one by one. So satisfying.
Yep. Me too. But I hate the way the app has developed into such stupid other stuff. Also, how all that other stuff slows down my ability to just get to reading the Bible.
I use Logos to keep track of my reading and switch around, this last year doing M’Cheyne’s again. Do you know if Guthrie’s is in there or if not where to find it?
I’ve been slack lately. I’m looking forward to beginning a through the Bible in two-years plan next year. More time for meditation. Whole family will be doing it…
I’ve had the most consistency when I do something like 4 chapters every day. That’ll take you through the whole Bible in about 11 months. What do you do with that last month? Well, if you follow the calendar year that will be Advent/Christmas, so it is a good time to study themes like Christology, The Trinity, the Incarnation, etc.
I normally start in Genesis, and start splitting it between the OT and NT around Psalms, again, as long as you are hitting 4 chapters a day you’ll make it through the Bible in just under a year.
