First and foremost, this is not meant to criticise anyone who has not read the whole bible. It is meant to encourage by breaking some things down into a manageable understanding of this God breathed amazing book. About God’s redemption plan and purpose for all.
I was a construction engineer for many years so understanding things with a numerical value has always made sense to me to see the bigger or smaller picture. So here are some numerical facts:
The whole of the Holy Bible is split into 2 parts , the Old Testament (OT), and the New Testament (NT).
- These are split into Chapters 1,189 no: , 929 no = OT , + 260 no = (NT).
- There are 31 ,101 verses : 23 , 114 :no = (OT), + 7, 957 no: (NT)
- There are 783 ,137 words : 602, 585 : o (OT), + 180 ,552 no: (NT)
Written by 40 different authors over a span of 1,600 years, or 40 generations, in 3 different languages. Hebrew, Greek and Aramaic.
As the Holy Bible being 1 whole one, the Old Testament makes up approximately ¾ and the New Testament makes up the other ¼.
There are many different reading plans available to follow online depending on what it is you are trying to achieve. I thoroughly recommend that all bible believing Christians should have read through it all, if not just once, regularly.
Back to some facts. The numbers above may be intimidating for some. There is no need for that to be so . It takes , on average , around 72 hours of reading to completely read through the entire Holy Bible. This may sound like a lot but it’s not really. I would suggest to aim for approximately 80 hours, which works out at around 170 words per minute. The reason for this slightly more leisurely pace, is to read it at a pace that can be spoken out whilst reading. We can read much faster than we speak so a slower pace, allows that bit of additional time for comprehension.
I have previously read through the Holy Bible in 40 days a couple of times at around 2 hours per day. Which meant reading on average 29 .7 chapters per day. So if you wanted to devise your own reading plan, you would use a basic formula of 15 chapters per hour. So an hour’s reading per day means you would complete reading the entire Holy Bible in 80 day’s.
To aim to read it in 6 months, so potentially twice a year, you would need to read 7 chapter’s per day. Approximately 26 minutes reading per day
To read it over a year would be 3.2 chapters per day, at around 13 minutes per day.
It really narrows it down to make it difficult not to read it, when that is all it takes!
Some people like to read it chronologically, so have a specific bible for that. To read it in the order it happened.
If it is your preference to just read the New Testament completely, this will take a ¼ of the times listed. So approximately 20 hours in total.
Why do it?
The Holy Bible is God’s love story to us. It is an integral part of His creation and purpose. If we are to be in a relationship with Our Lord and Saviour wouldn’t we want to know and read all about it. It is one major way how God communicates with us. God speaks to us through His word. If we want to be effective Christians moving in power, signs and wonders, then we need to be able to decree and declare His word. We can’t give out what we haven’t put in .
All Christians should know the word of God!
We should always pray before we read the word of God and ask the Holy spirit to help us understand and store the word of truth.
Soon, I am reading through the entire bible again and will be sharing this condensed in the daily blog.
May God bless you