Reading the Bible Every Day
The Free Church has a rich history of reading through the Bible in a year. Will 2026 be your year?
A great tradition in the Free Church has been to read through the entire Bible, cover to cover, in one year. Our pietist background has always placed great emphasis on God’s Word. Whether in Swedish, Norwegian or English, daily Bible reading is our heritage. In Congo, where many were illiterate, villagers would come together at 5:30 in the morning before starting their work in the gardens for someone to read the Word to them.
Many churches have used Bible reading programs through the year, sometimes in an adult Sunday school class with lessons each week from the readings or pastors would preach through the year on texts read during the previous week. Some churches would take a pledge at the start of the year, and people would hold each other accountable for their reading. For most, the deep desire to know God and His Word ever more intimately was enough.
Typically, this involves reading three to four chapters per day throughout the year. Many Bible reading plans have been developed and published, including a few chapters in the Old Testament and at least one in the New Testament. The American Bible Society has published plans for many decades, and the Evangelical Beacon used to publish them weekly or monthly to help make them widely available.
Mel Larson, editor of the Beacon, wrote in 1962, “It is still the Bible-reading member, the Bible-studying member, the Bible-loving member and the Bible-memorizing member who in God’s own way of measuring things is the basic pillar in any congregation.”
Catchy phrases were sometimes used to encourage reading—“Read it through in ’62”, “Once more in ‘64”, etc.—and many adults can look back to their adolescence when they got into the habit of reading God’s Word daily.
How many times have you read through the Bible in a year? As we start 2026, with all the uncertainties of our world, we encourage you to develop a habit of daily Bible reading with the goal of reading through the entire Bible this year. Is this the year you will read through the Bible?
Header photo: This open Bible was from an EFCA layman who had read his Bible through over 37 times and filled with the markings of a man who loved God’s Word.
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