11 Tips for Bible Reading in 2025

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11 Tips for Bible Reading In 2025

Happy New Year! Below I am reposting an article I wrote in 2023, and I want to repost it with a few edits for 2025. I’ll likely rewrite it and repost it every year the Lord allows me to keep doing this work.

I’m often asked about my Bible reading plan, so I posted it as a PDF with some tips for reading. This little article I wrote with some tips has been one of the most read articles I’ve written, so I edited it to remove some of my errors and remove some negativity (yes, I can get in my feelings about things and it comes through in my writing and speaking), and repost it for your benefit.

So, here it is in its entirety with some “improvements”:

Happy New Year TRC and Friends! I’ve had folks ask for my favorite Bible reading plan, and I have pointed them to an old post I wrote a couple of years ago. It’s time for a new blog post with some tips for 2023.

I did not create this plan I share with you guys. I have been using this plan since I was a new Christian, and I’m beginning year 30 utilizing this plan. Somewhere along the way, this plan was published along with the ESV and used as an ESV Bible reading plan. The M’Cheyne Bible reading plan is similar and has been around longer as far as I can tell. The copy I now have has an ESV stamp on it. You can use it with whatever Bible translation you prefer.

This plan I have been using was given to me as a young Christian before the era of the interwebs, and I’ve had it in paper form, then in a digital format from the ESV people, I transferred it to my digital calendar. I also have it printed, laminated, and folded in my Bible and journal. I also have this plan scheduled on our family digital calendar to pop up daily to remind the family what our reading is for the day. I love this plan.

I don’t know who created it, but I’ve used it so long that I refer to it as “mine”.

We all have excuses for why we can’t or don’t read through the Bible. It’s amazing how easily we can fall asleep, get distracted, believe that good “habits” are anti-spiritual because it’s a rote habit, or just bail on our plan because we don’t understand something.

No one uses the “rote habit” excuse about eating or breathing, so can we just stop using that lame excuse about Christian disciplines?

Let’s kick excuses to the curb and get after it this year!

Here are some tips on your Bible reading for 2025. Of course, I’d have to give you 11 and not 10. It’s my “uniqueness” working itself out.

I truly work to give you content from my own experience and soul, not a regurgitation of what someone else does, and this is not AI-generated, or it’d be better. I’m not the most concise or readable writer. But, here are my 11 tips that I believe will help you.

Just do it. No excuses.
1. You won’t regret it, and you’ll learn something you didn’t know last year.
Reading is not studying.
1. You need to read and do deeper study later.
2. Reading builds a framework for you to hang your study on later, but you need to read it all and have the Holy Spirit build the entire construction of the meta-narrative of the gospel in your soul. You need to see the cohesion from front to back.
3. Take note of places you want to come back to for a deeper dive.
Use a plan.
1. If you don’t like “mine”, then pick one. Google it and select one.
2. Without a plan, you’ll falter. Aim at nothing and hit nothing.
If you miss a day, then just start the next day with that day’s reading, and don’t worry about trying to catch up.
1. This is a marathon, not a sprint, and you will catch those Scriptures next year.
2. Or you can go back and catch up on that missed day on a lighter day of reading or do that catch-up instead of some social media time. Your call.
3. NOTE: No good reading plan is super heavy. I can do my little plan in 15-20 minutes a day.
Read and share insights with church friends who are reading the same plan.
1. The Lord works mightily in church fellowship over his word. God gives insight together when we come together and talk about his word.
Focus on obedience not the accumulation of knowledge.
1. Knowledge puffs up and loves builds up. I believe I read that somewhere.
2. Jesus told us to hear and then obey. Give space in your day to obey the Holy Spirit.
Try to read in a place where you can get focused and quiet so that you can learn to listen to the Spirit working in your soul through thoughts and holy desires.
1. Quiet creates space for us to listen to God and converse with him.
Acknowledge the Holy Spirit’s presence as you read.
1. If you are a Christian, God is never absent from you. Acknowledge his presence and ask him to speak to you, and make space to listen.
2. If you are not a Christian and you want to read the Bible, the Bible says that God is not far from you.
  1. Acts 17:26-27 (ESV) 26 And he made from one man every nation of mankind to live on all the face of the earth, having determined allotted periods and the boundaries of their dwelling place, 27 that they should seek God, and perhaps feel their way toward him and find him. Yet he is actually not far from each one of us,
  2. So, acknowledge that although you are not yet a follower of Jesus, God is near and wants you to know him through faith in Jesus.
Journal.
1. It’s good to keep some record of your thoughts and feelings as you read the Bible.
2. Journal digitally or on paper in any manner that works for you that you will use and reference.
3. Journaling helps to firm up what we learn and turn it into real action and knowledge.
Bible reading is spiritual warfare.
1. Listen, do you really believe Satan wants us to know God, hear him clearly, and obey him?
  1. Satan wants to keep us from God’s good and cloud our judgment.
  2. When you feel that tension and difficulty of Bible reading, fight back by reading your Bible and refusing to give an inch of ground to Satan.
Worship.
1. Bible reading should lead us to enjoy the Lord, his presence, and giving back to him our joy in him in worship.

I hope these tips help you get through your Bible this year.