Read the Entire Bible for the First Time First Year Intro & 365 Day Plan

If you’re new to the Bible and haven’t completed our introductory reading plans, or if your an experienced reader, who has read thru the Bible before, we suggest you check out our main Reading Plans Page for alternate plans.

Navigation Notes:  For speed of loading, and ease of navigation and printing, we've split this into multiple pages and placed “Jump to Reading” Links near the top of each page.  You may click on the “[TOC]” links within the pages to return to these links.

Thru the Entire Bible for the First Time

We’ve developed this first time thru the Bible reading plan to avoid the common pitfall of getting bogged down in the details before obtaining a good basic overall understanding of the whole of scripture.  In attempting to read thru the Bible for the first time, most folks breeze through the history in Genesis and Exodus, then get bogged down in the details of Leviticus and Numbers.  While an accurate interpretation of both the Old and New Testaments depend on a proper understanding of these books, it’s difficult to appreciate them without a general understanding of the entire Old Testament.  To get around this problem, our first year plan allows for reading the OT books in the order shown in the "Additional Information" chapter below.  This will allow each reader to develop an overall historical picture of the OT before filling in some of the more difficult details.  This same strategy is also followed for the New Testament readings.

To begin, we suggest getting four bookmarks and placing them at the beginning of Genesis, Psalms, Proverbs, and Luke.  We’ll then divide each day’s reading into two parts, consisting of a reading from the OT and the NT.  Every other day, we’ll begin with a selection from either the Psalms or Proverbs, then continue to our Old and New Testament reading.  We break down each day's readings at the links below.  As we've mentioned, we use day numbers rather than dates so that a reader may begin any day of the year.

If you don’t finish a reading or miss a day (or two) and fall behind, just continue where you left off.  Be cautious about trying to do too much to catch up.  As I stated before, I’ve never finished at exactly one year.  I think the one year plan helps with discipline and keeping us on course, but sometimes we miss and at other times, God may want to deal with us for two or three days on a single reading.  I’ve sometimes repeated a reading several days in a row when felt led.  The most important thing is to be consistent.  Try to set aside a certain time and place for your readings.  Before long, you’ll find yourself craving the Word.

Links to Reading Plan

For ease in measuring the reader's progress, we've arranged the daily readings into four pages.  There are additional navigational links located on the various pages.

Jump to Daily Readings:

Additional Information

Two questions that we get quite often are "How much should I read each day?" and "How long does it take to read thru the entire Bible?".  To answer the second question first, at a moderate rate, a person can read thru the entire Bible in 72-76 hours.  I haven’t actually timed it, but most audio Bibles are in this range.  This means that a person, reading at a moderate rate, can read thru the Bible in a year by reading less than 13 minutes a day!  If you dedicate 30 minutes a day, even with reading book intros and a few study notes, you should be able to make it thru in about six months (or three months at one hour per day).  The more important objective is not to see how fast you can complete the plan, but to increase your knowledge and faith, so don’t get into too big a hurry.

The following is a description of the reading plan contained in the above links:

Concurrent reading throughout the year:

[TOC]    [Daily Readings]    [Top of Page]

Hebrew Scriptures (Old Testament) Reading order:

[TOC]    [Daily Readings]    [Top of Page]

New Testament Reading order:

[TOC]    [Daily Readings]    [Top of Page]