How frequently do you quote a Bible verse and not remember exactly where it came from? Too many Christians today (and I include myself in this number) do not have a solid grasp of their Bible and what it actually says. We should be desiring to know our Bible better every year, and with this in mind I am proposing a reading plan to get us intimately familiar with our New Testament.
So what is this plan that will have us knowing the New Testament like the back of our hands? Simply this: firstly read a book of the New Testament (or a portion of the longer books) every day for a whole month and secondly write and memorise a summary sentence for each chapter. This will get you intimately familiar with the layout of the book, the themes that are covered and because you are reading a whole book at a time you will have a much better understanding of the context of the book and be able to interpret the difficult passages more effectively.
The reading order that I am suggesting for this plan is as follows:1
| Month | Reading |
|---|---|
| January 2014 | James |
| February 2014 | 1 Thessalonians |
| March 2014 | 2 Thessalonians |
| April 2014 | Galatians |
| May 2014 | 1 Corinthians 1–5 |
| June 2014 | 1 Corinthians 6–10 |
| July 2014 | 1 Corinthians 11–16 |
| August 2014 | 2 Corinthians 1–7 |
| September 2014 | 2 Corinthians 8–13 |
| October 2014 | Romans 1–5 |
| November 2014 | Romans 6–11 |
| December 2014 | Romans 12–16 |
| January 2015 | Matthew 1–7 |
| February 2015 | Matthew 8–14 |
| March 2015 | Matthew 15–21 |
| April 2015 | Matthew 22–28 |
| May 2015 | Mark 1–5 |
| June 2015 | Mark 6–10 |
| July 2015 | Mark 11–16 |
| August 2015 | Philemon |
| August 2015 | Colossians |
| September 2015 | Ephesians |
| October 2015 | Luke 1–6 |
| November 2015 | Luke 7–12 |
| December 2015 | Luke 13–18 |
| January 2016 | Luke 19–24 |
| February 2016 | Acts 1–7 |
| March 2016 | Acts 8–14 |
| April 2016 | Acts 15–21 |
| May 2016 | Acts 22–28 |
| June 2016 | Philippians |
| July 2016 | 1 Timothy |
| August 2016 | 2 Timothy |
| September 2016 | Titus |
| October 2016 | 1 Peter |
| November 2016 | 2 Peter |
| December 2016 | Hebrews 1–7 |
| January 2017 | Hebrews 8–13 |
| February 2017 | John 1–7 |
| March 2017 | John 8–14 |
| April 2017 | John 15–21 |
| May 2017 | 1 John |
| June 2017 | 2 John, 3 John, Jude |
| July 2017 | Revelation 1–7 |
| August 2017 | Revelation 8–15 |
| September 2017 | Revelation 16–22 |
On the first of each month I will post a reminder blog post indicating what the months reading is to both the website and Facebook. Use the comments on either to share your chapter summaries and encourage the others who are joining us in the readings.
For most people I expect this reading plan will take 30 minutes to an hour a day to complete. Don’t get disheartened if you cannot set aside this amount of time. Read what you can in the time you have and continue where you left off the next day. You won’t get through as many times but you will be able to join in the discussion.
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I have chosen to set the reading plan to follow a chronological pattern of when the books were written. There is debate around the exact dates of some books, but this is a fairly accurate order (except for Jude which has been moved later in the process to balance out the reading plan). ↩
