Reading Through the Bible in a Year

 On Christmas Eve, I finished a yearlong goal: to read the Bible through during the calendar year 2024.

This is the first time that I set that goal for awhile.  It is encouraged at our church, and it is a Bible-reading plan that can be helpful at times.  I found there to be both positives and negatives in the process.

Good reasons for reading through the Bible in a year:

--It is good to see the Bible as a unified book, one knit together by 40+ authors over several thousand years, all with the same message and all pointing to the Messiah.  This is the best reason for accomplishing this plan!

--Knowing that I had to get through a certain number of chapters each day, or I would get behind, was motivating to keep at the job day after day.  Reading through in a year is a good plan to keep a person on task, and in the Bible, without falling behind.

Possible drawbacks in this reading plan:

--As the year progressed, I found myself falling into a habit of my younger years - reading the passages for the day without getting as much out of it.  Knowing I had to get through Chapter 14, or whatever, sometimes caused me to read the words - while my mind wandered.  That was obviously not effective Bible reading.

--Also, having that daily goal sometimes caused my Bible reading to be just that - a daily goal.  I was not as motivated to think closely about each passage, or stop when something was speaking to my heart, but rather to get done.  I say that to my shame.

Other comments:

--I did not use a prescribed Bible reading plan.  I found a listing of the chapters of the Bible on the internet and printed it off.  It was very effective!  I did not attempt to go straight through but rather moved around through the Bible (reading Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and Daniel in a row was more than this reader could handle), sometimes reading Old Testament and sometimes New; sometimes reading in two books at a time and at the beginning of the year, reading in three or four.

--Sometimes I read in the ESV, sometimes in KJV.  Sometimes I listened using an online source read by Alexander Scourby.

--After checking off chapters that were read, I used yellow highlighter to indicate that the book was completed, and pink highlighter for entire sections.  The numbers at the end of each book were just the numbers of chapters in it, to make adding up how far I was a little easier.  Same for the numbers at the top.  1189 is the total number of chapters in the Bible, and at the right were the number of chapters I needed to complete each of the months listed.  (That kind of fell by the wayside.)

--I started with a goal of four chapters a day.  That meant I would have been finished by late October.  But that was a good thing, because several occurrences over the course of the year, including the passing of my father, meant that some days did not get the reading done.  So therefore I had plenty of padding to get done by the end of the year.

A former student posted that she read through the Bible in three years.  That is an appealing method.  It means that there is more time to read the commentator notes and digest what the authors are saying.  

I recommend reading through the Bible from time to time, and next time I will probably slow down, take my time, and therefore get even more out of it.  

Overall, reading the Bible this way was a blessing to me.