Saturday, April 9, 2011

Preparing for the New Testament Read-a-long

I hope you'll join me next week as I plan to read the New Testament! I've already shared one plan I found on how to read the New Testament in a week, but you might want to consider creating your own personal plan. According to this page, there are 260 chapters in the New Testament. So if you were going to be perfectly even in your reading, that would be about 38 chapters a day--to cover the whole New Testament. (But the number of chapters can be misleading, since some chapters are longer than others. And since some are easier to read than others. Luke is longer than Matthew, for example!) I am going to try my best not to break up books, if possible, I'm not sure how practical that will be. (I may change my mind after the first day or two!)

NT Narratives

40. Matthew (28 chapters)
41. Mark (16 chapters)
42. Luke (24 chapters)
43. John (21 chapters)
44. Acts (28 chapters)

Epistles by Paul

45. Romans (16 chapters)
46. 1 Corinthians (16 chapters)
47. 2 Corinthians (13 chapters)
48. Galatians (6 chapters)
49. Ephesians (6 chapters)
50. Philippians (4 chapters)
51. Colossians  (4 chapters)
52. 1 Thessalonians (5 chapters)
53. 2 Thessalonians (3 chapters)
54. 1 Timothy (6 chapters)
55. 2 Timothy (4 chapters)
56. Titus (3 chapters)
57. Philemon (1 chapter)

General Epistles

58. Hebrews (13 chapters)
59. James (5 chapters)
60. 1 Peter (5 chapters)
61. 2 Peter (3 chapters)
62. 1 John (5 chapters)
63. 2 John (1 chapter)
64. 3 John (1 chapter)
65. Jude (1 chapter)

Apocalyptic Epistle by John

66. Revelation (22 chapters)

I was curious to see the chronological order of New Testament books as they were written. So I looked through the book introductions of the ESV Seek and Find Bible and came up with this order. Other study bibles might attribute other dates to books. But I decided to only look at one or two sources--if there was a question mark.

James AD. 44-49 (MacArthur Study Bible)
Galatians AD 48-51
1 Thessalonians AD 49-51
2 Thessalonians AD 49-51
Mark AD 53-55
1 Corinthians AD 53-55
2 Corinthians AD 55-56
Matthew AD 55-65
Romans AD 57
Luke AD 60-62
Acts AD 60-62
Ephesians AD 62
Philippians AD 62
Colossians AD 62
Philemon AD 62
1 Timothy AD 62-64
2 Timothy AD 62-64
Titus AD 62-64
1 Peter AD 62-63
2 Peter AD 64-67
Jude AD mid-60s
Hebrews AD 67-69 (MacArthur Study Bible)
John AD 75-85
1 John AD 75-85
2 John AD 75-85
3 John AD 75-85
Revelation AD 95-96


© Becky Laney of Operation Actually Read Bible

3 comments:

Cynthea said...

Hi Becky! What a great idea this is to encourage everyone to join and read the NT this week. I am currently on a reading through the Bible in a Year plan. Along with that, the week leading up to Easter I have (for the past 3 years) spent that week day by day reading what Jesus did each day leading up to His death and then resurrection in the Gospels. I use the "Harmony of the Gospels" as a schedule. (Kind of like your Chronological, but just His last week. BTW, I love reading through the Bible chronologically. I have grown alot in my understanding of the Bible with that layout :)) So though I may not be with you in reading the whole NT, I am with you in thought :) Have a blessed time with it!

Cynthea said...

When I talk about Chronological reading, I don't mean when the books were written but chronologically as events were happening. I hope this makes sense :)

Becky said...

Cynthea. Thanks for visiting and leaving a comment! I have once or twice read the Bible (and the life of Christ) chronologically. I used the Narrated Bible. And it was wonderful in helping me see the big picture! I would definitely recommend to others doing it at least once--no matter which bible or translation you use :)

I've never read the New Testament in the order (or supposed order) of how they were written so I might give that a try this time.