1500 Consecutive Days of Reading the Bible

 Five hundred and twenty-five (525) days ago I published a post about having read the Bible on the YouVersion mobile Bible app each day for one-thousand (1000) consecutive days. I have now been reading the Bible each day on the Bible app for 1525 consecutive days.

Since then I have completed one other plan and I am more than halfway through the next.

Completed Bible Reading Plans on YouVersion

The last completed reading plan on the list is Prof. Horner's Bible Reading System. In this system, you read 10 chapters a day with each chapter from a different book of the Bible. If you read every day, you will complete the plan in 8 months. To put things in perspective, if you start from the beginning again, after your first year on this program, you would have "read through all the Gospels four times, the Pentateuch twice, Paul’s letters 4-5 times each, the OT wisdom literature six times, all the Psalms at least twice, all the Proverbs as well as Acts a dozen times, and all the way through the OT History and Prophetic books about 1½ times." See the plan's PDF here. This is a very enriching program, but also very intense. If you are a fast reader, unlike me, this will be no problem for you.

Currently, I am busy with the Canonical plan. This plan is a simple plan to read the Bible from cover to cover starting in Genesis, and ending with Revelation, in the order the books are found in the Bible.

When I have completed the Canonical plan, I am going to start with the John MacArthur plan. This plan is very New Testament oriented. In this plan, you will read the same 7-8 chapters each day for a month before moving on to the next set of chapters. You can really start the plan with any New Testament book. You can start with reading 1, 2, 3 John every day for a month, then move on to Matthew 1-7 for the next month followed by Matthew 8-14 the month after that. I will start with Matthew, and work my way through to Revelation.

Example of the John MacArthur Reading Plan

The way that I set it up as can be seen in the image above is to read 1-2 chapters of the OT a day, and then 7-8 chapters in the NT. It will take 3 years and 3 months to complete this plan. When you are done with this plan, you would have read through the NT about 30 times, and the OT twice (Americans: two times 😂). By reading the NT this way, you will really get to know the NT. The idea is to make it part of you, not just getting to know it, or finishing a plan. This plan is NOT available on any Bible reading app as far as I know, so completing it will not give you a plan completion medal.

Reading the Bible consistently is very important to every Christian, especially to read all of it. Apps like YouVersion can be a great help in doing so, but on the other hand, it can also be a distraction from eating the meat of the Word. Mobile Bible apps have all kinds of reading plans. There are 5-day plans, topical plans, seasonal plans, etc.

YouVersion Bible Reading plans

My contention is that if you as a Christian are not reading through the Bible on a regular basis, you are not being fed enough of God's Word. Reading a little plan here or there, or a chapter here or there, or a verse here or there, will not feed you sufficiently. 

Many of these plans are set up around a certain topic. If you only read topical plans, you are probably only reading those that you deem relevant to you. Topical plans are not bad in themselves at all, but when we only read those type of plans, we will become malnourished.

Remember, in God's eyes, ALL of Scripture is relevant to us, not just certain topics.

I would like to challenge each one of you to use a plan that will guide you from cover to cover through the Bible in a year. If you think it may be too much, then try a 2-year plan. There are many plans out there. Most mobile Bible apps have such plans to choose from.

If you don't want to use a Bible app to read the Bible, and prefer to use a physical Bible, check out the plans at Ligonier.

Finally, you can generate your own plan by using the Bible Reading Plan Generator. With this web app, you can generate your own reading plan by selecting all kinds of options: Time Frame, Format (Calendar, List, Weeks, Books, etc), Bible Books (All, OT, NT, selected books), Chronological, and more.

Tolle lege! Tolle lege!