Is one of your New Year’s resolutions to read the Bible in a year? Have you ever tried before? Do you usually get to the genealogies in Genesis, or the laws in Leviticus, get bogged down, and then give up? Chances are, it will happen again this year.

My advice? Don’t read the Bible in a year.

I get the idea. I’ve tried it a few times myself. That’s why I know it doesn’t work for most people. Starting something when the year stars, and having a goal to finish it when the year ends, gives you a nice, clean deadline with an end in sight.

Now, stop me if you’ve heard this one. I would either start with a plan that lays out the chapters I need to read every day, or I would calculate it myself. There are 1189 chapters in the Bible. That means I would have to read 3.25 chapters EVERY day to get it all done in a year. That’s pretty easy to do. That only takes about 10-15 minutes of my day.

The problem is that there is no room to miss a day. And life happens. Eventually, I would miss a day. Which meant that if I wanted to catch back up, I would either have to read twice as much on one day, or spread it out across multiple days.

After this happened a few times, I was stuck in permanent “catch-up” mode because the number of chapters I was behind kept compounding. I would start to get frustrated and feel like I was never going to catch up.

So, I would quit.

The solution? I sat back and evaluated what my goals *really* were. I came up with a method that has served me well for many years and has gotten me through the entirety of the Bible numerous times.

What Are The Real Goals?

The real goal of reading the whole Bible in a year isn’t the “in a year” part. It’s the “read the whole Bible” part. Putting an end date on it is there so we have a finish line in sight. I’m not any more holy if I read the entire Bible in a given time frame.

But this isn’t a race. If we don’t make it across the finish line at a given time, so what? What’s more important is that we took and finished the journey, not how fast we did it.

So, goal number one is to read the whole Bible.

The second goal is to develop a daily habit of reading the Bible. Developing this habit takes time. You may have to start smaller with a single chapter and then ramp up to more. Eventually, you’ll be reading more and more every day.

Reading the Bible shouldn’t stress you out. If you set a pace, say 4 chapters a day, and you can’t keep up with the pace, you might get overwhelmed and quit. If your goal is focused on a smaller time frame – a single day rather than a single year – it’s easier to start back in the next day if you screwed up the previous day.

So, goal number two is to read the Bible every day.

Now, if you’re the type of person who gets motivated by the “in a year” part, then please don’t let me discourage you from using that to get you through. I just know that it doesn’t seem to work for most of us. Especially me. So, I’m just trying to offer a way to refocus our efforts on what’s important.

A word of warning. The goal of reading the Bible every day should never be to add another check to your “to-do” list. The point isn’t to say you did it. The point in reading God’s word is to be transformed by it. If that’s not happening, then stop right now and take a self-inventory of what’s going on.

I’m pretty confident, though, that if you approach each morning with humility and a desire to learn, you’ll be more than satisfied.

How I Read The Bible In A Year-ish

Once I set the goal to be much smaller in focus (daily instead of yearly) it helped me to keep going if I got off track. More importantly, it helped me to finish the entire Bible in a reasonable time.

When I tried to read the whole thing in a year, and I missed a day or two, I scrambled to catch up and get back on pace. Now, if I miss a day, I realize there is no getting that day back, I just pick up where I left off and keep going. No weight of catching up anymore.

With this method, and a pace of 3 chapters a day, that’s 396 days. So, a year and a month. In reality, I miss a day here and there. So it ends up being a year and 2 months. Maybe 3. I don’t know. The point is, I read the whole Bible. And I’m better off for it.

Get Started Now!

One great thing about the daily mindset rather than the yearly mindset is that you can start at any time. If you missed your January 1 start date, you don’t have to wait for it to come back around. Start today!

You could start in Genesis and read all the way through the books as they are organized. It’s the easiest method to track. You just turn to the next page as you read.

But my favorite way to read the Bible is in chronological order. The Bible isn’t ordered chronologically; it is organized by genre. Many of the prophetic books of the Old Testament were written in the timeline of the historical books like 1 & 2 Samuel and 1 & 2 Kings. Many of the epistles in the New Testament were written during the same time as the events in Acts. I like reading this way because I can see how the entire story unfolded historically. You can print out this chronological reading plan and cross it off as you complete the chapters. Or, if you use a Bible study app like Logos, it probably has a plan in it you can use.

So, what are you waiting for? Get started today! I bet you’ll thank me in a year. Ish.