Want to read the Bible as a beginner but have NO IDEA where to start!? Let me help you!
Do you want to read the Bible and actually be able to follow along and understand what is happening? I may have a solution for you, but keep in mind, I am also a beginner! The best part about this blog is that I am sharing as I am learning to be a Christian. I am new to this whole thing too, I have very little experience with reading the Bible, and I want to share what I have learned along the way.
Where to start as a beginner wanting to read the bible:
I started to research on google "where to start reading in the Bible for a beginner" or "how to read the bible as a new Christian" and what I found at first, honestly, was not very helpful. Until I started googling "what books of the bible go together and how should I read them", This is when things started to click for me, because what I thought I wanted was a list of books in the bible and exactly how to read them and what I should be getting out of each one. I wanted it to be set up sort of like a college course for the Bible.... but I found out, that's not exactly how it works. The Bible is not a book that you read one chapter on and then your quizzed like in school. Yes, there are bible studies like this, and those are excellent if you have an understanding of the whole bible and what is in it, but this doesn't necessarily help a complete beginner like you an I.
Why is that, you may ask? Well, I watched a YouTube video on this and the Bible was described in a way that completely made sense to me after this, and I hope this helps you too. If I were to write a book on my entire college experience of 4 years (I mean I was in college for 6, but most are in for 4 haha!) and then my best friend wrote another book on our experience in sophomore year track season, you would want to read that book in tandem with my sophomore year experience in my book. Does this make sense? So the entire Bible spans across hundreds and thousands of years, but each book in the bible can cover, in more detail, that specific year or what was happening in the culture at that specific time. This is important to know because if you were to just read the Bible as a beginner from cover to cover, you may get confused or lost in some parts. This is why reading it in chronological order, makes the most sense as a beginner with little to no experience in the Bible. This will give you background in what was happening at the time during each book and go into further detail into each book of the Bible.
I recommend The Blue Letter Bible Chronological reading plan and this is what I will be following for my reading plan. This is also a great way to keep you on track and not "fall of the wagon" when it comes to figuring out what to read next and getting confused with what is happening within the Bible.
I am currently working on an interactive Bible study that you can access on Google or for your iPad (which is what I am using it for) This will be a way for you to have all Bible studies in one place, and have questions that you can answer for each book. I will be offering this for free for the first couple of months of its release. So stay tuned for that! I should be completing it by the end of July! 🙂
Until then though, I will be reading my Bible in this chronological order until I finish the whole thing and I will be posting once every few weeks what I am learning as a new Christian reading the Bible for the first time!
Happy Reading and I hope this helps you!