Reading the Bible Together in 2025
Dear Agapian, Welcome to Agape’s Bible-Reading Plan for 2025! Let me introduce you to this plan – by telling you what it is NOT:
This is not a “read the Bible in a year” kind of plan. This is not a plan for you to “tick off” the daily assigned readings. This reading plan has been carefully curated to encourage you to spend quality time daily, in God’s word.Here are 3 possible ways you could use this reading plan:
#1. Old Testament (OT) Track: From Monday to Saturday, you will be assigned a chapter from the OT. On Sundays, it will just be a psalm. If you follow along this track, you will not finish the entire OT in a year. However, you will have covered the major storyline of the OT.
#2. New Testament (NT) Track: Each weekday, you will read a chapter from the NT. On Saturdays, you will read a chapter from the Old Testament’s Wisdom literature. On Sundays, it will just be a psalm. If you follow along this track, you will finish the entire NT in a year.
#3. Both OT and NT Tracks: Read all the assigned readings. You will cover two chapters a day – except on Sunday (which is just a psalm). You will cover the major OT storyline and the entire NT in a year. Bible-reading is not a sprint – it’s a marathon. Thus the old African proverb has a lot of relevance here: “If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together.”
I encourage you not to dive into this Bible-reading plan on your own. Find a community (e.g. cell group) to read the Bible with daily. My prayer is that as we read the Bible daily, we would encounter our Saviour day by day, and He would challenge and sharpen us – until we truly become that “catalyst in the city for the gospel”. One final encouragement: Don’t make your Bible-reading about “finishing the plan”. Make it about encountering Jesus.
Don’t miss the daily opportunities to draw near to God, just because you want to tick off your chapter(s) for the day! Remember Jesus’ words from John 5:39 – “You search the Scriptures because you think that in them you have eternal life; and it is they that bear witness about me”. Let’s encounter Jesus together through His word this new year.
Pastor Johanan
On behalf of the Elders
Click Here For Agape’s Bible Reading Plan 2025
Additional resources
- Ligonier Scripture Index (with resources for specific chapters): Click here
- Joel Beeke’s Family Guide (need to purchase): Click here
- Bible book overviews from ‘A Chapter A Day’ (below)
Old Testament
New Testament
FAQs
Frequently Asked Questions
- Gospel-centred
- Chapter by chapter (not 1-2 verses per devotional)
- Goes through the Bible (not cherry-picking certain parts thematically)
Also the PDF version is free for everyone!
Carson’s thoughts are generally rich enough for meditation even on 2nd or 3rd readings, and we can still benefit greatly from them
Reading the Bible in community encourages us as a body, it acts as a common point of reference for sharing parts of our walk with the Lord in cell meetings, ministry or church gatherings.
Also, not everyone would have the initiative or drive to source out and commit to a reading plan, or might currently still need help to understand the daily passage with the help of a devotional.
Hence, having this general direction pastorally and encouraging us to go on the journey together will help us as a body.
Here are some ways that you can engage with Agapians in community!
- Share thoughts with your cell in WhatsApp chat groups
- Meet on a regular basis with your cell members to share and pray together about how the Lord is teaching and challenging you
- When you get the chance to share at a ministry gathering, share from the text that you have been reading and meditating on
- Talk to a friend about what you have learnt when you get a chance, and aim to encourage them with the Word of God
If you can read one chapter a day, that’s actually a really great outcome! It’s understandable that 4 chapters a day is quite a stretch, so start with wherever you currently are, but wherever your starting point prayerfully aim to grow in consistency of Bible reading this year.
If you’d like to stick with 1 chapter a day, perhaps you can consider the following approaches:
- Start with any 1 out of the 4 starting points of the plan
- E.g. Pick either Gen 1, Matt 1, Ezra 1, Acts 1 and continue through to the end of the year from that starting point
- Pick the chapter for that day based on which chapter the devotional refers to
E.g. If the devotional is based on 1 Corinthains 3, then read 1 Corinthians 3 for that day
