How to Read the Bible in a Year

Reading the whole Bible in a year takes about fifteen minutes a day — roughly three and a half chapters, or seventy-five hours in total.

That is less time than most people spend on a phone in a fortnight, which is worth knowing, because the reason the attempt usually fails is not time. It is February.

The four kinds of plan

Canonical

Genesis to Revelation, in order. The simplest to follow and the hardest to finish.

It front-loads the difficulty: Leviticus arrives in week six, Numbers in week eight, and the momentum is gone long before the gospels. If you choose this, know what is coming and decide in advance how you will handle it.

Chronological

The events in the order they happened. Job lands inside Genesis, the psalms are scattered through the life of David, the prophets are interleaved with the histories they were shouting at, and the epistles sit inside Acts.

This is the most illuminating arrangement for a reader who already knows the material, and it makes the prophets comprehensible for the first time for many people. It still contains Leviticus.

Multi-track

Two to four passages a day from different parts of Scripture — an Old Testament chapter, a New Testament chapter, a psalm, a proverb. The M'Cheyne plan, from 1842, is the classic.

This is the most finishable kind, because no single week is all law or all genealogy. The cost is that you are never fully inside one book. For a first complete read, the trade is almost always worth it.

Thematic or lectionary-based

Follows the Church's year rather than the canon: Advent readings in Advent, the passion in Holy Week. The Sunday lectionary is not a whole-Bible plan, but daily lectionaries and the Daily Office cover a great deal of Scripture over their cycles.

Best if you want your reading to move with the liturgical year rather than against it.

Choosing

First time through? Multi-track. It is the one people finish.

Read it before and want it to make sense? Chronological.

Already keep the office or go to a liturgical church? Lectionary — it will line up with what you are hearing on Sunday.

Want simplicity above all? Canonical, with your eyes open about Leviticus.

Devout's reading plans are free to read and free to print, with the whole schedule laid out and every passage linked into the Bible reader.

Why February

Attempts fail in February with remarkable consistency, for two reasons that compound.

The first is Leviticus. Most plans arrive in the legal material somewhere in weeks five to eight, just as the January momentum is exhausted. Sacrificial regulations at 6.30am in the dark is a genuine test.

The second is arithmetic. Miss four days in late January and you are fourteen chapters behind. The plan now contains a debt, the debt grows faster than you can pay it, and somewhere around a thirty-chapter deficit people quietly stop. The plan that was meant to help has become an accusation.

What to do when you fall behind

Never catch up. This is the single most useful piece of advice about year-long reading plans. Missed five days? Read today's reading today. The missed passages are gone and that is fine — you are not settling a debt, you are reading the Bible.

Or shift the dates. If a datedless plan is available, use it and number the readings 1 to 365 rather than tying them to calendar days. Then a missed day moves the finish line, which costs nothing.

Cut the plan rather than abandon it. Behind by forty chapters in March? Drop to a New Testament plan, or switch to a six-month psalms-and-gospels plan. A finished smaller plan beats an abandoned larger one, every time.

Expect the third week and expect February. Knowing that a specific difficulty is coming, and that it comes for everyone, does a surprising amount of work.

Making it stick

Fifteen minutes, fixed to an existing habit. After the kettle, before the laptop, on the train. A practice that depends on remembering is a practice that will be forgotten.

Read the day's passage, not the day's chapters. Some days are three chapters of narrative and some are three chapters of census. Judge the day by whether you read it, not by how it felt.

Write one line. Thirty seconds on what stood out. It is the difference between having read the Bible and remembering that you did. SOAP is a fuller version.

Listen when you cannot read. Audio is a legitimate way through the harder stretches, and for the genealogies it is arguably better.

Do not study. A year plan is a read, not a study. Stopping to research every unfamiliar name will put you six weeks behind by March. Mark it, keep moving, come back.

Common questions

How long does it take to read the Bible in a year?

Twelve to fifteen minutes a day, about three and a half chapters. In total, roughly seventy to eighty hours. Some days run longer than others — a plan does not divide the text evenly by reading time, only by chapters — so budget twenty minutes rather than twelve if you want to be comfortable.

What is the best Bible reading plan for a year?

For a first complete read, a multi-track plan such as M'Cheyne, which mixes an Old Testament passage, a New Testament passage and a psalm each day. Nobody finishes a canonical plan by accident, because it front-loads Leviticus and Numbers; multi-track plans spread the difficult material so that no single week is all law.

What do I do if I fall behind on my Bible reading plan?

Read today's reading today, and do not try to catch up. The accumulated debt is what ends most plans — not the missed days themselves but the growing deficit that makes the whole thing feel like failure. If your plan is numbered by day rather than dated, simply move the finish line instead.

Should I read the Bible chronologically?

It is an excellent second read and a difficult first one. Chronological order makes the prophets intelligible by placing them beside the events they addressed, which is genuinely clarifying — but it assumes enough familiarity to appreciate the rearrangement. For a first pass, the shape of the canon itself is worth meeting.

Is it better to read the Bible quickly or slowly?

Both, for different purposes. A fast read gives you the shape of the whole — how the story moves, which books are talking to which — and that is hard to get any other way. Slow reading gives you depth in a passage. Most people who read well do a year plan for breadth and something like Lectio Divina or SOAP for depth, and keep the two separate.