Finished Reading the Bible!

I have done it! I have read the whole Bible in 6 months. I have read the Bible through before, but this was the fastest I had ever achieved it. We aimed for 50 chapters a week, and on the whole we managed it; adjusting sometimes depending on what was going on in our lives. It wasn’t easy going, but I am glad I have done it.

Whereas I read every word (I am generally a fast reader anyway), my study partner read some of the books, and listened to others whilst cooking or driving. The idea behind such a read-through is to see the over-arching themes of the Bible, see how books relate to each other, rather than a deep dive into specific topics, so it’s possible to get the gist of what is happening whilst doing other activities. For me, I like to read as I take DD2 to bed. She still doesn’t like going to sleep on her own, so my husband or I stay in her room with her until she drifts off. I know some parents may consider that to be a huge ask, but for us it works – on the nights I take her to bed, I get to do reading on my phone in the dark, and the nights my husband takes her to bed, I get to watch my programs/films in peace.

Having read the whole Bible, I’m not going to dive straight back into Genesis (though there are some people who can do that). By focussing on completing my 50 chapters each week, meant that I couldn’t read the other books I usually do. Normally, I read 1 chapter (or ‘Day’ if reading Bible-in-a-year) of the Bible, 1 chapter of each of the non-fiction books I read, and then as-much-as-I-can of the fiction book I’m reading (and I only read 1 fiction book at a time). As I haven’t had as much time to read, or when I did it was late in the evening, it has meant that I have not read my current fiction book as fast as I usually would. I won’t say to much about it now, as I’ll describe it when I finally do finish it, but I’m only just over half way through the book, and have been reading it for months now. It’s not helped by it being set in the 1600s, so uses very old language, which means I need to concentrate when reading it (hence why I can’t read it late at night). I am enjoying it though, so am looking forward to having a bit more time to read it. What I will do, Bible-wise, is read some daily devotionals/readings books, and then in January, I’ll read a Year-in-a-Bible again.

If you haven’t read through the Bible, and it is something you would like to do (whether because you’re a Christian or because you like the kudos of being able to say you’ve read various works of literature) it isn’t as daunting as it first seems. 50 chapters a week, and it takes 6 months (or 25/wk and it takes a year) or you could get a Bible-in-a-Year which takes all thought away as you simply look up the date and it gives you a reading from the Old Testament, New Testament, Psalms and Proverbs, such that you’ve read the whole thing by New Year’s Eve.