Salvation history · a daily reading
The Bible is not one book but a library of seventy-three, written over more than a thousand years, and most of it is not narrative at all. Read cover to cover, the story keeps disappearing into law codes, poetry and correspondence. This plan follows the fourteen books that carry the story forward, in order, so the shape of it stays visible.
Fourteen books, 364 chapters, arranged in the twelve periods of the Great Adventure Bible Timeline. Three chapters a day gets you there in four months; four a day, in three. Each day gives you the text itself and the history happening around it.
These are the books that move the plot. Genesis opens the world and Acts leaves the story still spreading outward; between them come the exodus, the conquest, the monarchy, the split, the exile, the return, a revolt, and one life in Galilee. Read in order they make a single continuous account, which is not how most people ever encounter them.
Everything else was written into the margins of this story, and most of it only makes sense against this timeline. The prophets are preaching during the events of Kings. The psalms come out of the court in Jerusalem. Paul's letters are mail sent along the journeys in Acts, often to churches founded a few chapters earlier. Get the spine first and the rest has somewhere to attach.
What you are setting aside is not less important, only differently shaped: law, poetry, wisdom, prophecy and letters. Each period below lists the books that belong to it, so you can see what was being written while the story was happening — and the whole Bible is here under The Bible tab whenever you want to read outside the plan.
The twelve periods and this set of fourteen books come from The Bible Timeline Learning System by Ascension, and the colours here follow theirs. Their one-page Story of Salvation chart (PDF) shows the whole arc at a glance, with a short summary of each period — a good thing to keep beside you while you read.
Named and coloured after The Bible Timeline · see the chart