You Should Start This Bible Plan in 2022!

Have You Ever Read Through the Whole Bible?

Many Christians, brand-new and veteran believers alike, have never actually read the entire Bible cover-to-cover. (I personally didn’t until the year 2020.) I don’t think I need to explain to you how important it is to do this; even a militant atheist would understand why a believer ought to read and understand his holy book in its entirety. In this day and age, we are without excuse for not doing so. The Bible has never been more available, whether in print or in digital form; and the Internet gives every layman instant access to libraries’ worth of commentary. Clearly, the impediment to most of us reading the whole Bible is not a technical or physical one, but one of simple laziness. This need not be! As with any regimen, physical or scholarly, the best way to get started is to just do it.

The 5-Day/Week Whole-Bible Plan

I’m not selling anything here. This plan is free and I even wrote a shell script to help you automatically follow it using kjv(1). There’s nothing mystical or magical about reading the Bible in this sequence; the reason I recommend this plan is that it:

1. Covers the entire Bible (or just the New Testament if you prefer) in one year,
2. Requires just five days of reading per week, allowing you time to catch up when life happens,
3. Places the events of Scripture in as nearly chronological order as possible,
4. Spaces the Gospels throughout the year so that the Bible’s most important message is always kept at the forefront of your mind, and
5. Is simple enough that you can just do it.

Because the plan is set up to read through the Bible chronologically in one year, the events in Scripture will not line up with your typical liturgy. Also, it does not cover the Apocrypha (sorry, RCC and Orthodox bros). Still though, I think this plan will work just fine for the vast majority of people. After all, there’s no shortage of detailed commentary and study material for each individual book of the Bible, and you can consult those things any time. The purpose of a plan like this is to give you a broad view of the entire Word of God from beginning to end, and to comprehend the scope of the Almighty’s plan for mankind and the story of his intervention throughout human history.

What Are You Waiting For?

Strictly speaking, you don’t have to wait until the new year to do this. However, when I read this plan for the first time, I found it highly motivating to align my progress with the calendar year. Time will be ticking away no matter how you focus your efforts in 2022 - how about setting a goal now to finally experience the entire breadth of God’s word?