Newbie's guide: Reading the Bible regularly
In the last section, I tried to emphasize how important the Bible is to the Christian life. I’m sorry to be repetitive, but I’ll say it again: the Bible is super important to the Christian life! If someone claims to be a Christian, but is not following the principles outlined in the Bible, that is a serious reason to question anything they say about God or Christianity. Even more important than just reading the Bible, though, is understanding the Bible and applying it to your life daily. James 1:22 says, “But don’t just listen to God’s Word. You must do what it says. Otherwise, you are only fooling yourselves.” (NLT)
It is therefore very important as a Christian to get into the rhythm of reading or listening to the Bible regularly. A lot of Christians grow up going to church every Sunday (and maybe Wednesday), and they make the mistake of having church be the only time they engage with God or the Bible. Life is lived 7 days a week. If you only engage with God and the Bible on 1 day per week, you’ll inevitably find yourself drifting away from God during the other 6 days. This is also one major reason why in the Western world, it’s really easy to find people who claim to be Christian because they go to church, but don’t behave like Christians in their daily life or when you meet them. It’s because they aren’t engaging with God or the Bible enough.
So how do we incorporate reading and understanding the Bible into our daily lives?
Honestly, the answer will vary by person! We are all made by God with different personalities and styles of learning, and there is no one-size-fits-all approach. Over our 2,000+ years of history, Christians have come up with many different ways and resources to make the process of incorporating the Bible into your daily life relatively easy, and with the advent of technology over the last 50 years or so, access to the Bible has become easier than ever.
The following guide only covers a few of the ways you can engage with the Bible:
Reading it directly
The Bible is a book, after all. Therefore, it is meant to be read! And it is very important for each Christian to know what the Bible says for their own self. Even with the other methods and resources that I mention, you should always have a Bible of your own, whether physical or digital. This helps you to understand the Bible for yourself, and it is also helpful so that you can defend yourself against 1) the devil and 2) people who falsely use the Bible for their own gain.
If you would like to read the entire Bible, there are plenty of Bible plans that can help you do so. One of the most common ways to read through the entire Bible is to read it in a year. Most yearlong Bible plans available online will have you read 1-3 chapters of the Old Testament, 1 chapter of the New Testament, and 1 chapter of Psalms or Proverbs per day. This helps you get a good balance of different sections of the Bible, instead of getting stuck in a chapter or section. The following are just a few of the many yearlong Bible plans that are available to read or follow online. Most of the below plans (besides the first one) are available through the Bible App by YouVersion:
The Bible with Nicky and Pippa Gumbel, available through its own app
The One Year Bible (Tyndale House Publishers), available on YouVersion
Taylor University One Year Bible, available on YouVersion
New Testament in One Year (Bible Project), available on YouVersion
The One Year Chronological Bible (Tyndale House Publishers), which takes you through the Bible in the order in which the events happened in history. Available on YouVersion.
Listening to the Bible
I get it; not everyone is a reader. Even seeing the word “read” in this section may have made you cringe. If you don’t like reading, can’t read, or prefer to listen, audio Bibles are a very good way to keep yourself engaged with the Word. In the YouVersion Bible app, many versions of the Bible are not only available to read, but also to listen. The aforementioned Bible with Nicky and Pippa Gumbel has audio available as well. If you want to use an audio Bible separate from an app, there are multiple audio Bibles available on Audible, the famous audiobook app made by Amazon. These, however, do cost more than listening to the Bible via the Bible App.
Listening to the Bible can be good for when you want to read the Word but don’t have time or energy to sit and read it. You can listen to an audio Bible on your daily drive to work/school and back, while exercising or even while doing chores around the house.
Devotionals
A daily devotional is a book that is meant to be read over several days, usually a month or two, but can last up to a year. Each page or chapter of the devotional contains 1-2 Bible verses and then a short reading by the author which interprets these verses and applies them to daily life. The idea is to do one reading per day. Devotionals can cover a wide range of topics, from specific issues (like anxiety, or Christian womanhood) to a more generalized devotion to God. They can also be adapted for many different groups, such as men, women, teenagers, children, specific ethnic groups, and pretty much anyone else.
Daily devotionals are very good resources that can help us as Christians with specific life issues that we face, and can be good if you’re starting out and trying to get into reading the Bible regularly, or want help from God on a specific issue. However, reading a couple of pages of a devotional per day is not a good substitute for reading or listening to the Bible itself. Devotionals are written by people, and no matter how well-meaning they are, they can occasionally fall privy to people’s biases and narrow ways of thinking. Again, it is important to read the Bible for yourself so that you can understand what God is saying to you through it.
A couple of good devotionals to start with (in your author’s opinion):
My Utmost for His Highest by Oswald Chambers (general)
My Daily Pursuit: Devotions for Every Day by A.W. Tozer (general)
Morning and Evening by Charles Spurgeon (general)
Jesus Calling by Sarah Young (developing a relationship with Jesus)
Upon Waking by Jackie Hill Perry (general)
The Confident Woman by Joyce Meyer (Christian womanhood)
Unshakable by Christine Caine (insecurity, fear and anxiety)
And that’s just the tip of the iceberg. There are many, MANY more good devotionals out there than the ones I listed!
Bible plans
I already mentioned one-year Bible plans above, but there are a lot of Bible plans that last less than a year (thank God!). Many of them are like devotionals, covering specific topics with just a few Bible verses per day, and can last for as short as 3 days. Bible plans can also help with deep-diving into one book of the Bible; for example, if you want to understand the book of Galatians better, you can pick a 3-day plan that helps you read through that book. Some Bible plans will be like devotionals and have a short reading or even a video to go along with your Bible passages for that day; some of them will just let you read the Bible for yourself.
The major source of Bible plans that I use is the YouVersion Bible App. I know that I’ve been mentioning this app over and over again. I’m not sponsored by the company in any way, so I’m saying this honestly: it is truly the top Bible app of its kind (as of time of writing). It has thousands of different versions of the Bible in hundreds of languages, as well as thousands of Bible plans in different languages to guide your reading of the Bible. It has a Verse of the Day, complete with a different person every day to help explain the verse to you, as well as guided prayers to help you get into the habit of praying. It has loads of short teaching videos to help you understand the Bible. And it is COMPLETELY FREE with no ads or in-app purchases!!! It has been downloaded by nearly 700 million people since its inception in 2008, and it is showing no signs of stopping or being monetized anytime soon. So please download it for your phone, computer or tablet!
Bible studies (with a group)
Studying the Bible with friends or loved ones can really help you to understand the Bible, as well as to find good Christian friends. Many churches offer small groups that study certain chapters of the Bible together. Less formally, you can find a Christian friend and have them read a book of the Bible with you, just a chapter or part of a chapter per day, and discuss it with them. The Bible itself says that “two are better than one” (Ecclesiastes 4:9), and discussing the Bible with other Christian friends can really help you to understand and apply the Bible to your life, as well as providing some companionship on your journey.
Sermons
A sermon is simply a talk, usually given by a preacher or Bible teacher, about a certain passage in the Bible. Depending on what kind of church you go to, they can last from 15 minutes (a Catholic homily) to 2 hours (some very passionate Black churches). Most non-Catholic sermons I’ve listened to last anywhere between 30 minutes and an hour. Sermons can be topical, explaining what the Bible has to say about a certain topic, or they can be exegetical, where they simply take a passage of the Bible and explain what it means. Both kinds of sermons are useful and valid, as long as they are using the Bible as their main source of advice or content. Many times, sermons will involve personal stories, jokes, quotes from famous (mostly Christian) philosophers, or even statistics; these are okay in their rightful place and can even be useful, but any sermon you listen to should be centered on the Bible.
Done right, sermons are integral to the Christian life. There’s a reason that a sermon is preached every time you go to church — it’s to help you understand and apply the Bible! You don’t only have to listen to sermons in church though, especially in our modern era. If you find a preacher whose sermons you like, you can often find them and/or their church on YouTube, Spotify, or Apple Podcasts and listen to their sermons like you would an audio Bible.
I hope this gave you a couple of ways to start reading the Bible in your daily life! Ideally you should be reading the Bible daily, but don’t beat yourself up if you miss a day. Reading the Bible and praying aren’t boxers you have to tick off; they are ways for you to get closer to God. Start with reading (or listening to, or engaging with) the Bible every other day, or a couple days a week, and then build up as time goes on. If you’re not a big reader, start slow, with a devotional or a short book of the Bible, and just keep reading. Remember, as Romans 8:1 says, “There is NO condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.” You don’t have to read your Bible perfectly every day for God to love you or to be saved from sin — Jesus already took care of that.
I hope this section makes you excited to start reading the Bible for yourself.