Free Chronological Bible Reading Plan & How to Stay on Track

If Revelation were the first book of the Bible you read, you’d be very confused. Chronologically, it comes last. But what about the other books of the Bible? They’re not in order by date. (Most scholars believe Mark was written before Matthew, for example, but Matthew appears first in most modern Bibles.) And most of us can’t say where each book falls in history. That’s where chronological Bible reading plans come in handy.

With a chronological Bible reading plan, you can start at the beginning of events and read all the way through to the end, just like the plot in a story.

Grab the recommended free plan below, see how to stay on track with your Bible reading, then dig into frequent questions like these:

• Are all chronological Bible reading plans the same?
• Is it a good idea to read the Bible in chronological order?
• What’s the purpose of a chronological Bible?

Back to the Bible 365-day chronological Bible reading plan 

This plan, courtesy of Back to the Bible, is an excellent way to read the whole Bible in a year, but with the added benefit of reading chronologically. 

Plus, you can start this year-long plan any day of the year—not just January 1. 

Here’s a look at the first month’s chronological readings. 

Day 1	Gen 1:1–3:24
Day 2	Gen 4:1–7:24
Day 3	Gen 8:1–11:32
Day 4	Job 1:1–5:27
Day 5	Job 6:1–9:35
Day 6	Job 10:1–13:28
Day 7	Job 14:1–16:22
Day 8	Job 17:1–20:29
Day 9	Job 21:1–23:17
Day 10	Job 24–28:28
Day 11	Job 29:1–31:40
Day 12	Job 32:1–34:37
Day 13	Job 35:1–37:24
Day 14	Job 38:1–39:30
Day 15	Job 40–42:17
Day 16	Gen 12:1–15:21
Day 17	Gen 16:1–18:33
Day 18	Gen 19:1–21:34
Day 19	Gen 22:1–24:67
Day 20	Gen 25:1–26:35
Day 21	Gen 27:1–29:35
Day 22	Gen 30–31:55
Day 23	Gen 32:1–34:31
Day 24	Gen 35:1–37:36
Day 25	Gen 38:1–40:23
Day 26	Gen 41:1–42:38
Day 27	Gen 43:1–45:28
Day 28	Gen 46:1–47:31
Day 29	Gen 48:1–50:26
Day 30	Exod 1:1–3:22
Day 31	Exod 4:1–6:30

Expand each section for more or get the whole plan from Back to the Bible in the free Logos app.

How to stay on track with your Bible reading

Try these three things to stick with your Bible-reading goals. You can do this in a few different ways.

1. Set aside time daily

Schedule time for Bible reading in your calendar. Set an alarm, if you need to. Choose the same time every day or silo off a block of time each day, depending on your schedule. (It’s more important that you read the Bible than that you absolutely do it in the same place at the same time every day.)

Another life hack is to use a technique called “habit stacking,” a term from Atomic Habits. Habits are easier to build when they’re paired with something you already do, so pick something you do daily—for instance, making coffee. Tell yourself “After I make coffee, I will read my Bible,” then follow through. Making coffee will then serve as a trigger to remind you to read your Bible.

2. Start smaller

The reading plan above takes one year to finish, but let’s say you’re still building the habit of reading Scripture daily, and let’s say you usually only read a few verses. Following the plan as given may leave you falling behind and then getting discouraged. Or you may stick with the plan but rush through reading for reading’s sake, never stopping to meditate on what you read or study further. 

Don’t be afraid to split each day’s reading across two or three days until you’ve built the habit. 

3. Flatten barriers

If your bike is hanging behind boxes in the garage, you’re much less likely to lug it out and go for a ride. If you don’t have water nearby, you’re much less likely to drink enough of it. If you only have one way to follow your reading plan, chances are you will be much less likely to stay on track. 

You can come to this article every day or print it out and keep it in your Bible—nothing wrong with that. But that would mean that in order to follow your plan, you always have to have it with you.

Free yourself to read your plan anytime, anywhere, by following along in the free Logos app for mobile, web, or desktop. 

You’ll be able to pick up where you left off even if you start reading with coffee in the morning and finish reading while you wait at the dentist’s office. You can even use voice-to-text to listen to the day’s passages.

Besides being able to keep track of your progress, with Logos you’ll also be equipping yourself to go deeper with your Bible study. Logos comes with a free study Bible, Bible dictionary, commentaries, and tools like Bible Word Study. It’s the only Bible app you’ll ever need.

Get Logos today and jump into your reading plan! Here’s how to start it in the web app. Create an account or sign in, then: 

• Tap the + icon from your Dashboard on the home screen. 

• Click Reading Plan. 
• Check the box next to 365-Day Connect the Testaments Plan, then click the Add button.  

Frequently asked questions about Bible reading 

I asked Dr. Mark Ward to answer these common questions about Bible reading and Bible reading plans. You’ll find his answers helpful!

Where should I start reading my Bible?

It depends on whether you already have some familiarity with the Bible, perhaps by growing up in church or hearing good sermons. If you have no familiarity at all, I don’t think that you should start by trying to read the entire thing in one fell swoop. 

I don’t want to discourage people who really feel that’s the way forward, but I would hit the high points first. Read the book of Genesis and then read a Gospel, like Mark or John.

It’s really okay to skip around.

I do think that along with that, you’d probably want to pick up a book to help you, like God’s Big Picture: Tracing the Storyline of the Bible by Vaughan Roberts to quickly give you the big picture of what the Bible is all about. 

If you have more background knowledge, go for it, read the entire Bible starting in Genesis. I recommend picking a translation that’s more readable, something like the NIV or the CSB or the New Living Translation.

Does it matter the order you read the Bible?

I think it does matter. It would be difficult to make good sense of what you read without starting where the Bible does—Genesis. 

Those first three chapters of Genesis are so foundational for the rest of the Bible story. 

It’s difficult for me to imagine how you could read the Bible with understanding and not have those pieces in place because the Bible is fundamentally not a book of rules—although it has rules. It’s not a book of facts—although it’s full of facts. It is fundamentally a story, and who starts the story in the middle or at the climax?

Jesus’s sacrifice for sin and his resurrection make sense because they are the climax of a story that begins in Genesis. So I would say start at the beginning. And if you can, read the whole Pentateuch (the first five books of the Bible) to lay that foundation so that the Gospels and the explanation of Jesus’s life found in Paul’s epistles make sense.

What is a chronological Bible reading plan?

You would assume that because the Bible is a story that it’s laid out in historical order, but that simply isn’t the case. A chronological Bible reading plan puts the books into historical order for you and tells you which passages to read each day. 

Are all chronological Bible reading plans the same?

Theoretically, all chronological Bible reading plans would be the same, but there are some judgment calls to be made. Because of that, there will be some differences.

We don’t have precise knowledge about the timing of every single element of all of the Bible. There are Psalms, for example, that don’t list authors, so we have no way of knowing when they were written. For the New Testament books, we don’t know for sure who wrote Hebrews. (And if anybody gives you a confident opinion, I would be a little suspicious.) 

But all chronological Bible reading plans would be very similar to each other and to a chronological Bible. They would also tend to take you through the Gospels as a harmony.  

What does “chronological Bible” mean?

A chronological Bible means a Bible edition that prints these judgments of editors as to the chronological order of the Bible text. So a chronological Bible, for instance, takes you through the prophets surrounded by the historical sections of the historical books during which those prophets lived and wrote and spoke. 

Is it a good idea to read the Bible in chronological order?

Yes, I would absolutely say that it is. It makes sense to try a chronological Bible reading plan at some point in your life.

I don’t invest particular significance in the ordering of the Bible books aside from some of the obvious things like the New Testament after the Old Testament, Genesis at the beginning of the Old Testament, Malachi at the end of the Old Testament, the Gospels at the beginning of the New Testament, and Revelation at the end of the New Testament. 

Outside of those linchpins, it gets a little more complicated, especially when you get in the wisdom books and in the prophets. 

But what I would say is reading the Bible in chronological order should probably come after reading it in the traditional order because you do want to ask yourself, “What is the contribution of this book or of this author?”  

What is the purpose of a chronological Bible?

The purpose of the chronological Bible is to make judgments for you as to when Scriptures were written and then to help you gain an overall sense for the narrative flow of the Bible. It can be very illuminating. 

Why isn’t the Bible in chronological order?

God could have done it that way. One of the biggest answers to that question is that God decided for purposes of his own (some of which we can probably guess at and some of which we may not know till heaven) to reveal his word in different literary genres. 

So it’s not all story—but it all slots in the story. Proverbs or Song of Solomon, for example: these are compositions that actually aren’t narrative. 

The other answer I would give is that books like the Psalms are collections spanning centuries—at least five centuries and probably substantially more than that. It makes a lot of sense to have all the songs together because they’re the same genre. The minor prophets and the major prophets too. This is the way it’s come down to us over the centuries. 

What books would you recommend for Christians reading through the Bible?

• Just starting out: God’s Big Picture by Vaughan Roberts and Literarily by Kristie Anyabwile.
• In general: New Dictionary of Biblical Theology.
• For kids: The Jesus Storybook Bible.
• A little more advanced: Dominion and Dynasty: A Biblical Theology of the Hebrew Bible by Stephen Dempster.

Editor’s Tip: If you purchase any book in Logos, you’ll be able to read it from the same place as the chronological Bible reading plan above, create notes, tap a reference to go to the verse, and much more. Get Logos free today.

God’s Big Picture: Tracing the Storyline of the Bible

Regular price: $13.99

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Literarily: How Understanding Bible Genres Transforms Bible Study

Regular price: $7.99

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New Dictionary of Biblical Theology (NDBT)

Regular price: $39.99

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Dominion and Dynasty: A Biblical Theology of the Hebrew Bible (New Studies in Biblical Theology, vol. 15 | NSBT)

Regular price: $19.99

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