#155: On Reading through the Bible in a Year
One significant benefit.
A Popular Evangelical Habit
I realize that people have been reading through the entire Bible in a year for a long, long time. However, what seems somewhat recent (last 30 years?) are the countless products generated by Christian publishers and parachurch agencies and marketed toward believers for the purposes of yearly Bible reading.
There are many devotional Bibles structured to be read through over the period of a year.
There are quite a few Bible studies or devotional guides that combine reading/studying through the Bible in a year.
There’s more than one Bible app that will help you read through the Bible in a year.
And, of course, there are a lot of Bible reading plans. Just perform an online search for Bible reading plans, and you’ll have them coming out of your ears.
I suppose the first time I read through the Bible in a year was when I was 12 or 13 years old. It was probably the kind of thing my home church promoted, and so I opted in. I remember feeling so proud that I managed to do it, though I shared the feeling of unease that many Christians feel when they’re done: I kind of rushed through that.
Then there are the New Year’s resolutions. People start to slack off by mid-late January. By February, they’re dead in the water. Except with Bible reading, you can always attempt to catch up if you get behind.
However, that kind of “catch-up reading” feels somewhat artificial, forced, and often unspiritual. What doth it profit a man if he read the entire book of Exodus in one sitting, but doth not remember when (or if) the Hebrews ever made it out of Egypt?
Nevertheless, I join the chorus of Christian adults and leaders who believe that annual Bible reading is a wonderful goal and discipline for Christians to do from time to time. For the first time in a couple of years, I’ve returned to it in 2025. (I’m only one day behind as of today.)
The Many Benefits
I appreciate some of the writing that Melissa Kruger has done on this topic, namely here and here. I found some of her benefits for reading the Bible annually to be very true and helpful. I’ve included her list below, along with a brief explanation of what she means by each benefit:
Reading the Bible through in a year helps you:
Go Places You Normally Wouldn’t Go. We need all of Scripture, not just the parts that may be personally interesting or easy to understand. As we read the Bible in a year, it naturally takes us to the places me may not usually go, allowing us opportunities to reflect upon the full counsel of God and consider: Why did God include this passage? What does it teach me about God? How can I live in light of this truth?
See the Big Picture of Redemptive History. Taking a year to read the Bible in its entirety allows us the opportunity to back up and observe the full picture. We see the larger story of Creation, Fall, Redemption, and Consummation in the midst of all the individual stories.
Learn New and Unexpected Things About God. Whether you’ve walked with the Lord for one year or for fifty, there is still so much to learn about God. Each time I read through the Bible I realize that the theological boxes I try to fit the infinite God of the Universe into are insufficient.
Avoid Reading the Bible as a Self-Help Manual. Following a reading plan encourages a hopeful, listening posture that asks, “What do you have for me today?” We put ourselves under the Bible’s direction, trusting that the passage we are reading is beneficial for whatever circumstances we are facing.
Come Down From Your Theological Hobby Horse. We all have theological issues we like to emphasize. Reading the entire Bible helps each of us to stop and consider what we may be missing. Are we overemphasizing one truth while neglecting another? Are we defending a theological point that is true but in a manner that is wrong? Are we weak on a particular doctrine because we are afraid it will offend others?
Enjoy the Surprising Ways God Meets You. God’s providence has met me each and every time I’ve read through the Bible in a year…Like an old friend who knows just what you need when you need it, the Lord will meet you in surprising ways as you place yourself in His word.
Create A Healthy Habit of Daily Bible Reading. One of the best things about reading the Bible through in a year is that it builds a regular habit of daily Bible reading.
Kruger is right on. I’d like to point out one instance in which this approach to Bible reading is helpful, though I think it straddles a few of the benefits from her list (probably #s 1 and 6).
I was recently behind a few days on Bible reading, so I had to attempt the dreaded “catch-up” reading. (Cut me some slack. January was a wild month!) This meant that I was reading a lot in one sitting, although I was still reading the individual selections for particular days. On this particular day, my plan had me reading the latter part of Genesis and the book of Galatians.
On the surface, it wasn’t a juxtaposition of books that looked promising. As it turned out, the contrasts gave way to the overlap.
To a large extent, Genesis is about the unfolding of God’s covenant promises to Abraham. (Genesis 12-50 is certainly that, if nothing else.) Even if you take the view that Genesis is about “what happened to Jacob’s family,” you still can’t help but remember that Jacob is Abraham’s grandson. That means something.
Then later I am reading about Paul’s conversion, early ministry, warnings to the Galatians, and explanation of how the law and grace properly relate. Then I read 3:29:
“And if you are Christ's, then you are Abraham's offspring, heirs according to promise.”
My brain immediately is thinking a few things at once. “Paul, did you mean to say that I’m basically just like those messed up kids of Jacob who are trying to patch things up at the end of Genesis?” “Paul, did you mean to say that the Abrahamic covenant is more about spiritual offspring than physical offspring in a future Israeli state?” “Paul, did you mean to say that I’m in a more privileged position among Abraham’s sons than Isaac, Jacob, and the whole lot?”
And the Holy Spirit whispers back, “Yes, yes, and yes.”
That’s one of the glories of reading Scripture regularly, carefully, and systematically over a relatively brief period of time. You see things side-by-side. You are able to fast-forward and rewind. And of course, regardless of what you read and how much of it you read, the Holy Spirit is in it. Always.
So this past Monday, God met me in a surprising way, and I saw the big picture, too.
Maybe those Bible reading plans aren’t a relic, legalistic, or insignificant, provided we don’t think they’re the only way into God’s truth.
Follow Up:
I promise: this will be the last mention of Eastern Orthodoxy for a while! However, somehow this topic keeps popping up lately. I’m not sure why.
In a recent piece for The Dispatch’s religion section, Michael Reneau and Gregory Jensen discuss the various reports of growth in the Orthodox Church. Here’s a few key quotes:
Whatever else might be true about the reported uptick in men converting to Orthodoxy, we simply don’t have enough data to support the idea that this is a mass movement . . .
Elements of our worship today still give modern visitors to an Orthodox congregation the sense of entering a different world: our often small congregations, clergy in ornate vestments instead of business suits or skinny jeans, icons instead of white walls, chants sung from memory rather than praise music with lyrics on a screen.
The good news for the Orthodox Church is that there seems to be a renewed interest by young people in more liturgically traditional forms of Roman Catholicism and Anglicanism.
This latter observation parallels something I highlighted when I recently wrote about Orthodoxy, that is to say, people are often attracted to such traditions because they are distinct. Use whatever term or phrase you like—foreign, strange, a “different world”—these are all on par with this notion of distinctness.
Here’s one other very crucial claim:
Perhaps most noticeably, Orthodox parishes often don’t see much interest from Orthodox young people. Those raised in the church are often indifferent to her teachings and practices while it is those from outside the church who are most interested. I’ve received young people from Catholic, mainline Protestant and evangelical backgrounds. Many have also come from non-Christian traditions; Jews, Hindus, and secular Americans have all come seeking Jesus Christ. But I haven’t seen the same enthusiasm in young people raised Orthodox. Making new Christians is good, but that goodness is tempered when cradle Christians are leaving.
This is akin to what I observe in Newsletter 152 in terms of where different types of churches/denominations tend to receive their newcomers from relative to the larger Christian family.
Perhaps it’s now time to consider subscribing to The Dispatch so you can read the article in its entirety—“Men Flocking to Orthodoxy: the Good, the Bad, and the Ugly.”
Long before “tech criticism” and “screen-savvy parenting” became big themes in Christian circles, I wrote a masters thesis on how modern technologies were reorienting Christian social experience in some serious ways. Now, before I pat myself on the back too much, I stood then on the shoulders of at least a few, serious Christians who had taken up the challenge of technology from a theological perspective.
Since that time roughly 15 years ago, we’ve seen the emergence of many prominent Christian writers (of many stripes) in different fields challenge the incursion of technology into every domain of human existence. Moreover, some of the boldest and wisest have tried to push back, in tandem with a lot of interesting unbelievers, guided as they are by God’s common grace. Thank the Lord.
So I was intrigued by the release of a new statement on technology and the family, entitled, “A Future for the Family: A New Technology Agenda for the Right.” The authors and signatories are a “Who’s Who?” of conservative intellectuals from an array of different institutions. It’s short and well-written.
Writers are lost people.
Nobody would write a book if they weren’t lost. Nobody would write a book if they were not in search of paradise, and nobody would be in search of paradise unless they believed it might exist somewhere, which means out there, which means just beyond my reach. Writers can see paradise, but can never touch it. Writers want to belong to a place that is just beyond their reach, because if they were to reach the place they would have to do the hard work of being in it. Writers don’t belong anywhere, or to anyone, and they do not want to. They are driven by some severance and none of them understands it. Not just writers. Painters. Musicians. Artists. Art is the search for intact things in a world in which all things are broken.
The patriot sides with what is right, the nationalist for ‘the nation’—or its leader—right or wrong. America is not just an idea. But it is a nation formed around one.
The moral law is not only a standard against which sinners fail, driving us to need our Savior. God is love, and his law reveals both the image in which he created us and the image into which he is recreating us. Law describes loving well. It is not cold, legalistic, threatening, and impersonal. It is warm, humane, desirable, personal. God’s law describes how full humanness operates when walking free. It pictures how wisdom perceives and acts. It casts a vision for what we are becoming under the gentle, firm hand of our Savior’s grace.
John Piper, Future Grace: The Purifying Power of the Promises of God.
Paul Kingsnorth, Savage Gods.
John Dickson, A Doubter’s Guide to World Religions.
It’s Super Bowl week. As big of a football fan as I am, I’m rather disinterested. The last six Super Bowls have featured only six teams. That’s a lot of reruns.
Essentially, if you have a top 5 quarterback, top 5 coach, top 5 General Manager, and/or top 5 Owner, you will probably be in the Super Bowl about every other year. If you have a bottom-tier owner, you will probably be average or below average in these other areas, even if a franchise happens to stumble into a great quarterback after drafting high repeatedly over time. That star quarterback will always be hamstrung by who’s above him because those are the folks who choose the people around him. (I’m looking at you, Cincinnati Bengals.)
I’m not saying it’s not fair. I’m just saying that it’s predictable and boring.