A few weeks ago, I read this article on reading the Bible fast and slow. If you are like me, perhaps you have tried, and maybe succeeded, at reading through the Bible in a year. There is a satisfaction in reading through all of Scripture in one year. However, one thing that irked me was that while I did get a big picture idea of Scripture and how it all hangs together, I would miss many of the details. I would skim so fast that I wouldn’t think about applications, and I wouldn’t go deep.
Tired of skimming the surface of the Bible, I would then decide to focus on one book of the Bible, like the Psalms or Proverbs or Romans, or Genesis, during a year. That was great because I would go deeper, but then I missed that bigger scope.
This article piqued my interest because the author suggested that rather than choose one of these approaches, you can do both at the same time. Each type of reading complements the other.
So, I planned my Scripture reading for 2019, using this idea. I chose to read through the New Testament over the year, using a plan by the Navigators. I’m also reading along with She Reads Truth, an online Bible reading group that covers several books of the Bible over the course of a year. Then I am slowly reading through the Psalms. I read only one Psalm or a portion of one each day plus I will study a Psalm in depth every week.
By the end of the 2019, I hope to have read several large chunks of the Bible and to have delved into 50 Psalms. I’m going to read fast and slow. What are your plans for reading God’s Word this year?
Myriads of Thoughts 
I love in-depth Bible study so I used to look down on people who read the Bible through in a year. But my husband has read the Bible that way for many years; he is so “saturated” in God’s word that he knows it much better than I do. About once every 5 years I read the One Year Chronological Bible and enjoy the “big picture.” By the end of that year, however, I’m anxious to get back to a slower pace.
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Yes, that’s exactly how I felt, too, which is why I decided to take this two-pronged approach. So far, I am loving it. I am reading large portions of Scripture every day, but I’m dwelling in certain Psalms and meditating on what they say long enough to see the applications in my own life as well as larger applications for others.
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