How to start reading the Bible, and still be reading it in a month

If you have started the Bible before and stopped, the cause was probably the setup, not you. A hard starting point, a translation that reads like a contract and no fixed ten minutes will end almost any good intention by the second week. Fix those three things and the habit gets easy to keep.

Start with a Gospel, not Genesis

You do not have to begin at page one. The beginner guides we read agree on that. Life.Church points new readers to the Gospels because they tell the story of Jesus, and Bible Study Tools recommends starting with John, then moving to another Gospel, and only later to Paul's letters.

The numbers below come from our own count of the World English Bible text, with reading time worked out at 200 words per minute. That speed is an assumption, so expect your own time to differ a little.

Book	Chapters	Whole book	Why start here
Mark	16	about 70 minutes	The shortest Gospel, fast and plain
John	21	about 90 minutes	An eyewitness account of Jesus's life, and the book Bible Study Tools names first
Psalms	150	read a few at a time	Prayers you can borrow, short enough for a bad day
Proverbs	31	about 70 minutes	One chapter a day for a month

If you want one answer, read Mark first. It is the quickest way to meet Jesus in the text itself, and you will finish it in about a week of ten-minute sittings. We have set that out day by day in the 7-day reading plan.

Choose a translation you will actually read

Bible Study Tools puts it simply: you will not keep reading what you do not understand. Beginner lists usually recommend the NIV or the NLT for clarity. Both are modern, copyrighted translations that you can buy or open in many apps.

There are also free, public-domain options. The World English Bible (WEB) is a modern-English update of the 1901 American Standard Version. The King James Version (KJV) is the classic, with older wording. The same line shows the difference:

Thy word is a lamp unto my feet, and a light unto my path.

Psalm 119:105 (KJV)

Your word is a lamp to my feet, and a light for my path.

Psalm 119:105 (WEB)

If the first reads like poetry to you and the second reads like a friend, you already know which to start with. Our comparison of the free public-domain translations goes through the strengths of each.

Give it ten minutes, at the same time and place

Pick a cue that already happens every day: the first coffee, the bus, the moment before you check your phone. Then give the habit a fixed shape. This split is our suggestion, not a rule from any source:

1. Six minutes reading. One short section, or one chapter if it is a quiet one.
2. Two minutes writing. One sentence about what stood out, or one question.
3. Two minutes praying. A few honest sentences, starting from what you just read.

Bible Study Tools notes that morning is popular but consistency matters more than timing. The Gospels give us a picture of the habit at its source:

Early in the morning, while it was still dark, he rose up and went out, and departed into a deserted place, and prayed there.

Mark 1:35 (WEB)

You do not need to rise before dawn. You do need a fixed hour, and a spot where the phone is out of reach.

Read with three questions

Life.Church suggests reading slowly, paying attention to context and then applying what you read. Boil that down into three questions you can ask of any passage:

• What does it say? Say it back in your own words.
• What does it show me about God? Look for what he does, not only what people do.
• What will I do or pray today? One small thing, specific enough to do by evening.

When you want a structure for your answers, try the SOAP Bible study method, which turns the same three questions into a short notebook habit.

When you miss a day

You will. Do not catch up. Open the Bible at the next section and read as if nothing happened, because nothing important did. Many people quit at exactly this point because the backlog feels like a debt. Reading plans that count days make it worse, so choose a plan with no fixed calendar, or one that expects missed days. Our guide to reading plans shows how many minutes each popular plan asks of you, so you can pick one that fits a real week.

Keep the verse in front of you

What you read at 7 a.m. is gone by 9 unless something brings it back. Copy one line onto a card, set it as a lock-screen widget or say it while the kettle boils. Our lock-screen and widget guide walks through it for iPhone and Android. If you want to carry a verse for good, how to memorize Bible verses takes you through a gentle method.

What to leave for later

Skip long commentaries, three-translation comparisons and the plan that ends in a year. A study Bible with notes is helpful once you have the habit. For now, one book, one translation, ten minutes. If a passage confuses you, mark it, keep reading and ask a pastor or a friend who has read it before.