There is a tradition among many believers of reading the entire Bible through each year. Check-off sheets are available from many places to indicate which chapters should be read on each day of the year in order to achieve the goal.
Perhaps it is good for believers to read the entire Bible once in order to grasp the scope of it, but it doesn’t have to be done in a year or continually repeated. There are several very good reasons why we should not pursue this annual practice.
The Bible – Pixabay
1. Left on Our Own Most of Us Begin in the Wrong Place—the Beginning
Starting in Genesis is actually interesting for the first few chapters, and then BAM! we come upon a story in which angry god destroys all of humanity in a violent flood. If we press on to Exodus we encounter the story of God bringing plagues on Egypt and even killing all first-born Egyptian sons. Harsh, vindictive god then kills Korah’s followers in the wilderness and suddenly we are in a new kind of wilderness—Leviticus.
Leviticus is a difficult trudge and I am sure a lot of readers get bogged down right there and read no further, but if they do continue they soon come to Deuteronomy which is a repeat of what they have already read. The story picks up in Joshua, but it is a terrible story of violence, blood, and genocide. I don’t think we can find a more terrible and frightening depiction of God than by reading this early sequence in the Old Testament—no wonder so many people are deathly afraid of God.
If we really want to read the entire Bible through, I would suggest that we begin with the Gospels and the rest of the New Testament and pick up the Old Testament books later. This gives us a much better introduction of God through Jesus to offset some of the Old Testament stories.
2. Reading the Bible in a Year Takes Us from the New Testament for Far Too Long
Not all parts of the Bible are equally important and, in my opinion, the New Testament—especially the Gospels—is far more important to believers than the Old Testament. The Gospels are where we find the teaching and example of Jesus, and they provide our clearest understanding of the character of God. The rest of the New Testament tells us about the impact Jesus had on his followers and how they put his message of the good news of God’s kingdom into effect in the real world.
3. The Books of the Bible are not in Chronological Order
The books of the Old Testament are not listed in chronological order. For example, the prophets are mostly written around two events—the Assyrian conquest of 722 BCE and the Babylonian conquest of 586 BCE, but in the Bible the books are mixed together. If you wish to read the Bible through systematically once, I suggest you find a guide that uses chronological order to make better sense of the context.
4. Reading Through the Bible so Quickly Does Not Allow for Sufficient Study
Reading the Bible through the first time might be interesting, but it will be a shallow reading–especially if done within a year. And frequent repetition does not provide depth and new learning.
It is much more rewarding and beneficial to study a segment of the Bible than to just read and read and read. Choose a biblical book or group of related books and actually study them. Collect good study tools such as commentaries, a Bible atlas, and a multi-volume Bible encyclopedia like the International Standard Bible Encyclopedia.
Choose one reading project at a time and devote a longer period for reading and studying it. Also take notes as you read and learn.
5. Annual Bible Reading Might Represent a Legalistic Devotional Practice
Many believers have several goals of discipline they try to achieve. I call these the 7 Habits of Highly Evangelical People. There is nothing wrong with any of the practices, and they can be very beneficial; one can derive comfort and growth from spiritual disciplines. But I think approaching them in a legalistic way in order to gain spiritual credit with God or other believers is misguided.
I would not wish to discourage helpful practices, but I do oppose the baggage of doing them legalistically. These practices are not spiritual obligations or requirements, nor are they measures of true spirituality. Some believers judge each other on whether they are spiritual Christians, or mature Christians, by how devoted and consistent they are in following these practices.
The motivation for reading the Bible through each year could fall into these legalistic practices, and I think reading the Bible each year for these reasons is terribly misguided.
Here is my list of the 7 Habits each with a common ‘scriptural’ support.
7 Habits of Highly Evangelical People
- Daily prayer time (or more). Pray continually (without ceasing, KJV) – 1 Thessalonians 5:17
- Daily Bible reading. Study to show thyself approved unto God (KJV) – 2 Timothy 2:15
- Daily personal devotions. I have hidden your word in my heart – Psalm 119:11
- Constant church activity. Not giving up meeting together – Hebrews 10:25
- Tithing. Bring the whole tithe into the storehouse – Malachi 3:10
- Witnessing to others. You will be my witnesses – Acts 1:8
- Defending correct doctrine. Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks – 1 Peter 3:15
Conclusion
Reading and studying the Bible systematically is good practice, but I don’t think mechanically reading the entire Bible each year is the best way to go about it. What do you think?
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I read through the Bible in one year…once…and I’ll never do it again. I know that I didn’t get out of it what I really should have. Rather I ‘checked those boxes’ of something I ‘should’ be doing and so I read it in a year. There is much of the Old Testament that I feel I glazed over. And I feel I lost a lot of context. I also found a lot of ‘proof-texting’ went along with reading the whole Bible – again losing the whole context of the certain book, or chapter I was reading, and rather taking from it what I wanted to take from it. I’m only now starting to refocus my heart and eyes on God and Jesus, though I’ve been following your blog for quite some time now, it’s only been the past few weeks that I’ve been actively praying and seeking the Lord in the things I do daily. I feel the need to read the New Testament more than the Old, but want to dig deeper, so I feel focusing on one book at a time would really help that. Tim do you have any suggestions on websites or books that help a reader dig deeper into certain chapters in the New Testament?
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Myra, I am really glad that you want to dig deeper into the New Testament! And I agree that focus on one book at a time can help. Unfortunately, I am not familiar with any websites like you are looking for; I am much more of a book person. My recommendation would be a commentary but commentaries come in many levels of complexity.
Assuming that you are not looking for heavy scholarship, I would suggest you check out the popular commentaries of William Barkley. He has a paperback commentary on each book of the Bible, his writing is very easy to read, and he has a lot of good insight into each passage. I think you would like him.
I hope this is helpful. Let me know if it is not and I will try to think of something else.
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Thanks Tim, I will look into his commentaries!
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Myra, as an observation, if you take someone else’s interpretation of the bible, you might be missing things that would be important to you as an individual
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Thanks for your insights Chas…I didn’t think about that which is odd because that’s one of the reasons why I walked away from Church, God etc to begin with – people quoting scripture yet not giving the full context of the chapter, book etc – proof texting. What do you suppose would be the best way to go about getting an understanding of what is written? I could just read it and pray but I feel a need for a deeper understanding of what is written.
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By the way, it was in studying the Bible that I ended up walking away from theism. Putting the promises of Jesus to the test led me to lack belief in any god at all. Good luck with your studies. I still read the Bible. I have the NRSV Bible on my smartphone. The Bible Gateway is also a great resource. You can compare various translations of passages in the Bible. Good luck to you!
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I’m with Sheila on Bible Gateway. It is very easy to read and to search in a wide variety of translations. Check out the site here:
https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Mark+1&version=NIV
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Myra, maybe ask God to give you the understanding that He/She wants you to have.
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I agree with Tim. Guides are out there. Beware of those which automatically confirm what you already believe. Being challenged is a good thing. It helps us correct our natural biases.
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Well said, Sheila! Reading guides that simply reinforce what we have always been taught does not open us up to possible better insights and learning. Challenge IS a good thing.
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Hmm. I’ve read through the Bible almost every year since I was a teenager, and while I agree with your observations about the dangers that practice may present, I’d add that it was that habit that led my understanding of the Bible to evolve away from a literalist stance. Repeated readings caused me to see contradictions, not only in the recording of events, but also in the way the authors understood God and his relationship with human beings .It also caused me to question some of the interpretations of Scripture passages I’d always been taught were the “correct” ones, because when I read the passages in their larger context, their “clear meaning” was not at all what I’d been told they meant.
Last year, I decided to start writing something about each book as I made my way through from Genesis to Revelation, and that’s how my blog began. I found it to be an incredibly meaningful spiritual exercise to have to pick one story, or condense what I thought was the overall theme of the book, into a blog post each week. Sometimes it was very challenging to look for “good news” in certain books…like Joshua for example!
I do agree with you that the through-the Bible-in-a-year method spends proportionately too little time in the New Testament, and that time is often rushed. This year, rather than going straight through as I’ve always done, I’m using the complementary lectionary readings as writing and personal devotional prompts. I’m finding that practice interesting and meaningful as well, as it helps me to see connections and themes in new ways. And it’s helping me to appreciate Psalms, too. That’s where I always got bogged down in my yearly pilgrimage through the Bible!
Lorraine
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This is a helpful and thoughtful insight Lorraine, thanks a lot for posting! Could you put a link to your blog on here..? I’d be interested to follow your thoughts and themes.
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Sarah, it’s joantheexpatriatebaptist.wordpress.com If you click the little icon with the Micah 6:8 quote at the top of my comment, it should take you to it, and thanks for reading!
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Lorraine, I am glad reading the Bible each year has been beneficial to you, but it seems that you did more than just plugging through the checklists. I think using the lectionary readings as an additional guide is a good idea!
And of course you now have a blog in which to expand on what you are reading. I think this is excellent. I have no difficulty with people reading the Bible each year when it is so helpful as it has been for you. Legalistic, mechanical reading is what concerns me.
So I say keep on reading!
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I started with the New Testament as was suggested above. The New Testament touched my heart and I was excited to start delving into the Old Testament. After reading some of the books that were suggested by a Christian Website I found my faith starting to get shaky. So much death and destruction, I just could not justify this God with what I had discovered in the New Testament. This has caused me a great deal of confusion and left me with questioning my faith. I found your website ,which does help, but it has been almost 7 months now, The New Testament filled me with hope and the Old Testament did the exact opposite. Not sure where to go with this anymore since I am finding it difficult to pray also.
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Teria, I am glad you were excited about reading the New Testament, and I can also understand your response to the way God is depicted in some parts of the Old Testament; I agree that the two perspectives of God are inconsistent.
You might be interested in an article I wrote some time back about this issue:
I don’t think God is always represented well in the Old Testament because the stories were written by people who were limited by their eras, their cultures, and their grasp of who God is. It is Jesus that gives us the clearest insight into God’s character. I suggest that we listen to Jesus and not worry too much about the Old Testament writers.
Are there other things you would like to discuss?
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Teri, if the New Testament fills you with hope and the Old Testament does the opposite, it would seem to be a good idea to avoid the Old.
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Terri, Abba hears, I am certain, even when we can’t feel His presence. This great old hymn has always helped me in such times. Hope it can provide a lift to you, as well.
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Thank you, that was lovely.
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Newton, I love the hymn!
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There are a couple of verses left out of the above recording, which also are most meaningful to me.
I ask no dream, no prophet ecstasies,
no sudden rending of the veil of clay,
no angel visitant, no opening skies;
but take the dimness of my soul away
.
Did you not bid us love you, God and King,
love you with all our heart and strength and mind?
I see the cross there teach my heart to cling.
O let me seek you and O let me find!
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I read through the entire Bible in a year when I was 14. It was a good experience, and I did like being able to talk about it knowledgeably….Still, many years later, after having read it through several times using different Bibles (though never again rushing it into one year), my eyes are starting to glaze over as I read it again.
First time through, I thought I had to read all the laws and descriptions of the temple, only to hear a few years later that most people skip that. Okay, now I do, but then I hit the Prophets or the genocidal sections or the part where everybody is told to abandon their Canaanite wives/children…. For some time now, I’ve been wondering, Do I really have to keep reading the Bible all the time, or can I say I’ve read it a dozen times now and can stop? Even Jane Eyre made me tired after reading it a couple of times and then being assigned it for school.
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I like the Daily Office lectionary in the Episcopal Church’s Book of Common Prayer for daily reading. It provides an OT reading, one or more psalms, a Gospel and an epistle (or Acts or Rev.) reading for each day. If you’re curious you can check it out at http://bcponline.org/.
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“Do I really have to keep reading the Bible all the time, or can I say I’ve read it a dozen times now and can stop? Even Jane Eyre made me tired after reading it a couple of times and then being assigned it for school.”
Nyssa, I agree. If it is no longer useful then don’t do it. I haven’t read the Bible through in many years, but I still put a lot of time into deeper study certain biblical books–like the Gospels.
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I skipped ahead to the Apocrypha, since I’ve only read it once and that was years ago, so I forgot it all. I think I’ll read through the NT once more (since I want to read the New Oxford Annotated Bible’s notes) and then stop for a while…a long while….
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Nyssa, this sounds like a good plan to me. I have read a good bit in the Apocrypha but I have never read it all. I have also read a lot of Josephus which is not in any canon at all but is very informative about Jewish culture and history at the time of Jesus.
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I’m starting a theology program as preparation for the diaconate in the Episcopal Church. The program is taking an interesting starting point in covering the Bible–the Babylonian Exile and the period immediately after. The reason for this is the pretty solid scholarly consensus that that’s when much of the Hebrew Scriptures came together in their present form. As a result Genesis and Exodus, for instance, even though they are set in a time much further back, see those events through a post-Exilic lens (so that, for instance, the captivity in Egypt parallels the exile in Babylon). In college I reread the Bible pretty much all the way through (skipping some of the boring bits) and it helped me to rethink some of the things I’d been taught.
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Alan, I understand the same thing you said–much of the early books of the Bible was written or edited during the Babylonian exile. Of course, this is difficult for inerrantists to accept. But the exile and the questions raised by the exile are part of the context of the entire OT.
Reading the Bible through does help in rethinking things we were taught, but I don’t know that we need to do it every year. And I think it is good that you skipped the boring parts.
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It was difficult as an inerrantist to wrap my mind around that when they taught that “exilic” view in seminary, but the OT sure made a lot more sense when viewed through the lens of that view.
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Fish, you are right. It does make more sense.
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There are books, like the prophets and the psalms, that are very important, because Jesus quotes from them and also, if you don’t know about the world of the Old Testament, you don’t really understand why Jesus is there and why He says the things he says. It is the culture from which He came. I think the Old Testament provides the back ground to the New Testament.
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Charlotte, I agree. I really like the Old Testament–and it IS important. But I do think Jesus and the New Testament are more important. Perhaps balance is the proper approach.
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Tim: I heartily agree with your recommendation to find a guide to read the Bible through in chronological order. That method allowed me to read passages in context, and led to me dropping my belief in Rapture. As a Catholic for more than a decade, I read through the Bible via the daily liturgical readings for Mass, as well as the Liturgy of the Hours. In a three year span, nearly all of the Bible (73 books) are covered. On Sunday the Old Testament reading is paired with a Gospel reading which is relevant. I also read the Bible alongside various articles, books and blog postings I read. Reading the Bible straight through from Genesis to Revelation only leads to confusion, IMHO.
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Sheila, I think it is much better to read the Bible in chronological order when one reads through the Bible. I am glad to hear that it worked well for you–and you discarded belief in the rapture. That’s good!
I think reading the Bible with liturgies and other helps, as you do, is much more rewarding that reading straight text.
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I think Jesus and the New Testament certainly helps us understand that the books of the Old testament were written by people who were limited by their eras, cultures and this had to influence their grasp of God in the way they formed their perceptions as they strongly identified closely with God. I think it is important for us today to keep in mind the historical and cultural context of the Old Testament without losing faith in the teachings and the example of Jesus which ultimately it is the base on which we learn and form a more balanced insight into the character of God.
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Paz, I think so too. I really like your statement: “I think it is important for us today to keep in mind the historical and cultural context of the Old Testament without losing faith in the teachings and the example of Jesus which ultimately it is the base on which we learn and form a more balanced insight into the character of God.”
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Agree completely. I used to try to do this, but New Testament is more meaty and important, and there are many OT sections that are a beatdown to read even once, much less every year! I say NT yearly along with selected OT.
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Dawn, I totally agree.
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Dawn, I also like and totally agree with your comment!
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Reading Leviticus once or twice might be enough for a lifetime unless you have a scholarly interest in it.
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Alan, I feel the same way!
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I have heard that televangelist Joyce Meyer once got up before one of her conferences and asked the audience, “How many of you have read the Bible all the way through?”
There was a show of hands and then she continued, “Not me. One word…Numbers!”
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How interesting!
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I’ve mentioned this book before on this blog, but if anyone out there is interested in reading a cutting-edge account of “the historical Jesus” by a highly-regarded NT scholar who is also a devoted follower of Jesus, there is no better resource than Dale Allison’s “The Historical Christ and the Theological Jesus.” The last chapter, where Allison speaks personally about the meaning of Jesus’ life and teachings, is so inspirational and profound that I read it devotionally. Simply and elegantly written, the book is as accessible to the layperson as to the scholar.
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My problem with reading the Bible through once a year is it doesn’t seem right when I read so much other stuff. 4 or 5 times at least seems like a better number for me. And meditating on what I read. As a single woman working from home, I have extra time for it too.
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Tim,
Good points.
I hadn’t thought of that.
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My understanding of God being Triune and never changing makes it hard to come to the same conclusion that the OT is not as valuable as the NT. I can sympathize with your thoughts regarding perspicuity of the OT versus the NT, though when I read Jude I feel more lost than when I read Leviticus, but that might be because I have spent more time working through Leviticus than Jude.
I would like to propose a possible alteration to your proposal for reading.
Do not read the Bible through each year in the same manner. Read it in chronological order one time, then the next time read it Genesis through Revelation. Then, the next time you do it where you read units of Scripture from various sections each days. Then, the next time, read it one book at a time, alternating between OT and NT, but reading a chapter of wisdom literature each day the whole time.
I read the Bible through each odd calendar year. I alternate how I do it, as demonstrated above. During those years, I still will do intensive study over units of Scripture (mostly the ones I preach through or teach over), but then also over passages read that day for the read through (I will occasionally post blogs over them). On the even calendar years I usually will choose 4-20 books of the Bible to read through 5-10x.
But at the end of the day, I know that many will not pick up their Bible at all. This is more disheartening than someone legalistically reading their Bible through each year as a check list. For those who are legalistically tied to reading their Scriptures, I suggest to them that they spend time in prayer as well.
May God continue to bless your pursuit of Him. Your blog has a lot of great stuff. Keep up the good work.
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Grateful, your plan sounds fine; though, of course, it is not for me. I am not opposed to someone reading the Bible in a year if that’s what they want to do and it works for them. But my concern is that so many do it legalistically as a spiritual exercise and never get deeper into the Bible.
Thanks for your kind words about the blog!
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I like what Augustine once said, and that is that “The new is in the old concealed; the old is in the new revealed”
I think that unless that happens, the OT can be such a bore, and a dreary trudge instead. But still, ever so important. Which is why I really appreciate it when preachers are able to draw from the analogies found in the OT, and draw parallels with them into the NT. Pity so few preachers are able, or have bothered to do so.
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Pensive, I think you are right. The OT can be quite boring in many places, and it can also be very harmful, and frightening, if a person does not approach it from what Jesus tells us of the character of God. For preachers, or anyone, the OT should be seen in light of the NT and of its historical and cultural background.
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Too bad most preachers don’t do that. It would make for an interesting sermon! And a far more edifying one, I believe.
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