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HPD Bible Reading Plan

We should always approach reading the Bible with intentionality.

Reading the Bible in its entirety should not be a bucket list item, but rather an ongoing lifestyle of being in The Word daily until He calls us home. If you’ve never taken this journey before, set your expectations appropriately. There are going to be challenges, and at times you may end your daily reading feeling more confused than when you started! This is normal – and frankly expected. Much of His Story comes to shape like a puzzle – things that once confused us makes so much more sense each time we read through another plan and see the bigger picture coming to light piece by piece.

Perhaps the first time you read through; your goal may simply be to “do it”! Yet if you are like us, each subsequent time seems to take on a new level of energy, excitement, and goal. Ultimately however, our goal should simply be to know Him more intimately and deeper each coming day, month, and year …

So how do we read the Bible? Well, it’s changed over the years … We've read cover to cover, chronologically, and most of the time even followed various plans that sprinkled in readings from different sections of the Bible daily. However, nothing has been so helpful (at least to us personally) as the plan that we have developed here. There is no wrong plan for reading the Bible, we just have found that this plan has been very helpful and may help you as well. Why? What’s different? Well, a few things …

• Focus: In this plan you will find that you are not bouncing across the pages of scripture reading from various books at the same time. For us this was very distracting. This plan is designed to give you an order of reading that will keep you in a book from start to finish. We truly feel that this helps give us a better understanding of the writing, the bigger picture, and helps us retain the knowledge for longer term memory. • While the plan is written for 29 “weeks” you certainly can just view that as “periods”. If you read faster or slower, feel free to adjust. We just feel that a weekly/period plan helps remove that “checkbox” mentality that a daily plan can bring. While we strongly encourage you to always read daily – this still allows you to read 10 chapters one day while reading 1 chapter another, and still being on plan to your goal.

• This plan is open to tweaking (We updated it from the plan we are just finishing as we continue to hone what we believe to be the best order and structure for us as a family - and we hope it reads well for you too). If you have any comments, always feel free to share.

• Some weeks you may find less or more reading – this is normal. Some of the books (like Romans) we felt were significant enough to spend a devoted week on, while some of them group well so we wanted to keep them together.

• As far as the Psalms, we contemplated and tried to present them chronologically, but there are so many ways to interpret this, and much varied information on the dates. Thus we ended up (properly I feel) leaving them in the inspired order with one exception being Psalm 119. We felt it went very well with the Leviticus/Hebrews reading period so we dedicated Psalm 119 to be read during that time.

While this is very general, and rather subjective, we grouped them into 8 groups as you will see:

- Group 1: What we call the foundation. The Pentateuch (first 5 books of the Bible), The Gospels, Hebrews (which fits well with Leviticus) and The Acts of the Apostles. We felt that starting the year in these books gives us a solid foundation to build on for our future reading.

- Group 2: A short group that speaks to our trials well, using a couple key books such as Job from the OT and James from the NT.

- Group 3: Wisdom literature from Solomon.

- Group 4: A couple weeks spent on the minor prophets.

- Group 5: A significant mid-plan period on the letters of Paul.

- Group 6: Rewinding a bit to talk about the history of Israel.

- Group 7: While a bit of a varied collection, much is in here from both the NT and OT about truth, warnings on straying from that truth, times of captivity, and other messages.

- Group 8: Then finally we end with some of the major prophecies (including the Messiah) as well as leading into the end times. We feel that coming right off Isaiah, Ezekiel, and Daniel leads very well into Revelation, our final reading of the plan.

For all that this plan is, there is something that it is not – and that is a replacement for quality study of His Word. While you will undoubtedly take notes, make highlights, and pause for reflection, it is also expected that with the amount of reading that you will be doing, you won’t be able to deep-dive all this information.

And that’s ok, because at the end of this plan that you will start over again – ready for continued learning and understanding. This cycle is meant to wash you daily with His Word, and actually “enhance” your times of study – not replace them.

Don’t let that intimidate you though – we are still only talking about 20 minutes a day if you follow this plan – maybe even less. Though we truly believe that daily reading will actually inspire you to get to know Him and His Word even more – changing the desires of your heart to Him and study – and that this slower-paced study will just be a natural overflow from this journey as you go through the plan.

So be encouraged and join us on this amazing journey that will never end until He calls us home – all the while increasing our intimacy with our creator and sanctifying us in His Truth – His Word.

Link to plan below!

In Him, the HPD family