Improve Your Bible Reading in 2024
2023 is almost over. Spotify has wrapped your year in music. Google put out its “Year in Search”. Before you and I know it, we will be in those awkward couple of weeks where we accidentally write “2023” behind the day’s date, only to scribble it out for “2024” hoping that no one noticed.
People often use the end of the year to prepare for the next one. And they look to improve all sorts of areas in their lives by making resolutions for the next year. This year’s top New Years’ Resolutions, according to a survey from Forbes Health/One Poll, are to “Improve Fitness”, “Improve Finances”, and to “Improve Mental Health.” These are certainly things worth improving in 2024!
But there’s one resolution that may be even more important than the ones listed in the poll: “Improve Bible Reading”.
Perhaps improving your Bible reading has been one of your resolutions in year’s past. Maybe you found some initial success at reading the Bible, before getting out of the habit. You could be among the 26 Million Americans who stopped reading the Bible regularly during COVID-19. Or you may have never read the Bible regularly before.
Wherever you find yourself when it comes to the Bible at the end of 2023, you can improve your engagement with Scripture in 2024! But that better Bible reading you desire is not likely to come unless you plan for it. With that in mind, let me give you my best advice when it comes to reading the Bible.
My Best Advice
There are many frustrations that make can make Bible reading difficult. According to the American Bible Society’s “State of the Bible 2023”, the top three frustrations respondents had with Bible reading were “Not Enough Time”, “Don’t Know Where to Start”, and “Lack of Excitement about Reading It”. You probably find it as easy to identify with those three frustrations as I do! But none of them have to keep you from reading the Bible consistently. Here’s my best advice on how to handle these frustrations.
1. Carve Out a Consistent Time to Read Scripture
Most of us live rushed lives, with schedules that are too busy for our own good. How can we find time to read the Bible? The same way we find time to make our morning coffee or brush our teeth in the evening. We make time in our daily routine for the things we find most important.
Find a time in your day where you can carve out somewhere between 5 to 15 minutes. That could be right after breakfast (which is works best for me). It could be before the kids get up. Maybe, your lunch break is a great time to read the Bible. Or it could be right before you go to bed. It doesn’t matter when you read as much as how consistently you will be able to read during that time.
2. Choose an Appropriate Bible Reading Plan
The Bible can be a daunting book to read if you go at it from front to back. Genesis and Exodus might go well enough, but Leviticus is a tough slog. Not to mention that it would be a very long time before you would see a page of the New Testament! But, if that’s not the best place to start, where is?
That’s where a Bible Reading Plan comes in. There are a ton of plans out there, which itself can be overwhelming. But you can narrow these down by how much experience you have in reading the Bible and by your interests.
For instance, if you don’t have much experience reading Scripture, you could start by picking a plan like the Navigators 5 x 5 x 5 New Testament Plan. It requires only five minutes a day, five days a week. And, by the end of the year, you will have read the entire New Testament! On the other hand, a more experienced Bible reader might choose differently. Perhaps you want to read the Bible every day and you are a fan of history. Then, you could choose the ESV Chronological Plan.
Once you choose a plan, you won’t have to worry about where to start the rest of the year. Let the plan do that for you. Just read what it says to read next!
You can find more Bible reading plans on our Bible Reading Resources page.
3. Take Advantage of Great Resources
There are many days when reading the Bible will not feel too exciting. It’s still worth reading when you feel like that! But I have found that those days seem to multiply if I am annoyed by the lack of readability of my Bible or if I am bored by my reading plan or if I am confused by the translation I am trying to read. If any of those feelings threaten your Bible reading in 2024, look for a resource or two that will get you excited about reading the Bible next year.
So many great resources have been published in recent years that it would be impossible to list all of the ones I have found helpful. But let me suggest a couple that could get you excited about reading Scripture in 2024:
- A Single-Column Bible
This is definitely more of a pet-peeve of mine, but reading from a double-column Bible with its super-small text is not too fun for me. When I come to the Bible, I want a reading experience that’s at least on-par with any of the other books I read. That’s why any Bible I read for devotional purposes is a single-column Bible. If you are going to read the Bible consistently for an entire year, invest in a Bible you will enjoy reading.
You can find a list of single-column Bibles on our Bible Reading Resources page.
- ESV Scripture Journals
If a Bible Reading Plan doesn’t sound too exciting to you, pick a book of the Bible and grab its ESV Scripture Journal. This will allow you to work at a slower pace or do a deep on a book of the Bible. The journal comes with a blank page on the right side of the text, so you can take notes or make observations. And you can feel free to mark up the text as you work through it. Just about every time I prepare for a sermon or a Bible Study, I use an ESV Scripture Journal to help me study the text.
- Immerse
The English Standard Version (ESV) is a great translation of the Bible, but it is not always the most readable one. That is because the ESV is an “essentially literal” translation, focused on “reproducing the precise wording of the original text…” This makes the ESV a great translation for studying the Bible. But it doesn’t always mean that it is the most helpful for the average devotional reader.
That’s why I have shifted to reading the New Living Translation (NLT) for my devotional reading. The NLT is a “meaning-based” translation, focused on finding the best way to re-express the text’s original meaning into modern English. This makes the NLT a great translation for reading large portions of the Bible.
Recently, I began reading through the Immerse series, a Bible reading experience featuring the text of the NLT. This series of six books treats the Bible like a sacred saga, allowing for a reading experience that feels a little more like a novel than your traditional Bible does. The great thing about reading the Bible with Immerse is that you do not need to follow a plan. All you have to do is pick up where you left off in the book. If you find the ESV difficult to understand or are tired of a traditional Bible reading plan, Immerse may be worth a try.
- (BONUS) The Dwell App
In the smartphone era, people are increasingly choosing access the Bible digitally rather than relying on a physical copy. That access is great, especially on-the-go. But I always recommend a physical Bible for devotional reading over a digital one. The physical book allows for better retention of the content and greater awareness of the context of each passage.
Still, there is one digital Bible resource I highly recommend: the Dwell app. This app has a yearly fee, but it’s intuitive design and brilliantly recorded audio make it my favorite way to listen to the Bible.
Dwell is perfect for those days when you weren’t able to fit Bible reading into your schedule. It’s a great way to meditate on a text of Scripture or even to memorize a verse, using the repeat function. Dwell can add Scripture to your commute or to your workout. You could even use Dwell to listen to the Bible with your family as part of family devotions. Dwell is no replacement for reading the Bible, but it is a great supplement to it.
Improving your Bible reading in the new year is a worthwhile goal. And to do so, it’s worth planning for now. By God’s grace, you and I can engage with the Bible better in 2024. May God bless the reading of His Word!