Reading through the BibleI was pretty bad at consistently reading my Bible up until shortly before we moved from Oregon to North Carolina in 2006 when I started keeping track of my reading (here) on one of my blog pages. I started out with a plan to read a chapter a day until I had read through the entire Bible three times, with a couple of extra readings of the New Testament after each complete pass through the whole Bible for a total of nine individual reads. Here are some notes on how it has gone:

  • The first time I read through the whole Bible, it took me 1363 days or 3 years, 8 months, and 25 days.
  • My last pass through the whole Bible took me 584 days or 1 year, 7 months, and 6 days.
  • My first pass through just the New Testament took me 11 months and 9 days.
  • My most recent pass through the New Testament which I completed today took 127 days or 4 months and 5 days.

I really have only missed a handful of days in this entire time where I did not read and have made up for all the days I have missed to the best of my recollection. The thing that is most interesting to me is that I am not really reading any faster now than I did previously, I am just taking more time. In addition, I am enjoying it more and more every time and find myself “reading ahead” on a fairly regular basis, especially on Sundays.

I have one more read through the new Testament to finish the original plan, then I need to make a new plan. I want to do some topical studies, but I also want to read some other version. My current thinking is that I will do a read through the NASB and the RSV using the same plan as before (one read of the Old Testament and three reads of the New Testament), then switch over to some topical studies. In the meantime, Lorena and I want to read through the Reina Valera (1960) translation together using that same trajectory.