Old Testament Reading Plan

[SaintCody777]

I already have a reading plan for the NT, starting at Mark. So far, I'm at Mark 6. However, I plan for the OT to start from Genesis to Exodus. But after that is where I get confused where to go on, because there are so many prophets, like Jeremiah and Isaiah, describing different times. After Exodus, in what order should I read the OT?

 

[Citizen of the Kingdom]

Bible gateway has an thematic study to read the bible in a year in topical form

The goal is to make as many associations as possible between the different parts of Scripture while still reading individual books of the Bible from start to finish.
Plan Length: 365 days

https://www.biblestudytools.com/bible-reading-plan/thematic.html

 

[TuxAme]

Reading the books in the order they appear is what I did. I think I tried to read ten chapters a day back then.

There's a number of methods you can use- but "don't waste your time in the Old Testament" (an instruction I've heard here too often) isn't one of them.

 

[dqhall]

I already have a reading plan for the NT, starting at Mark. So far, I'm at Mark 6. However, I plan for the OT to start from Genesis to Exodus. But after that is where I get confused where to go on, because there are so many prophets, like Jeremiah and Isaiah, describing different times. After Exodus, in what order should I read the OT?

Some of the Messianic prophesies are in Isaiah. Some people think Isaiah was written by two different people and the later chapters 44-55 are called Deutero-Isaiah. I liked those later chapters better, but read the whole book more than once. Jeremiah was somewhat non-violent preaching surrender rather than certain death in resisting the Babylonian army. I found a few interesting proverbs and psalms. I read mainly the Gospels, Acts and Epistles. One time I used to read the Gospel of Mark over and over again as it is only 16 chapters. I read half of John today. The minor prophets are worth a read. Hosea 6:6 "I desired mercy and not sacrifice." The visions in Ezekiel were difficult to make use of and I did not spend much time there. I recall there is a useful passage about resurrection in that book (Ezekiel 37). There is also an interesting passage about a shepherd and the sheep (Ezekiel 34).

I read the whole Bible more than once. I remember when I was trying to learn how to repent, passages against sexual immorality in Deuteronomy helped me. The call to arms and militancy of numerous parts of the Old Testament made it hard to part with anger issues.

 

[redleghunter]

I already have a reading plan for the NT, starting at Mark. So far, I'm at Mark 6. However, I plan for the OT to start from Genesis to Exodus. But after that is where I get confused where to go on, because there are so many prophets, like Jeremiah and Isaiah, describing different times. After Exodus, in what order should I read the OT?

I found the M’Cheyne yearly plan to work best for me. If you follow it you will read all of the OT once and NT and Psalms twice in one year.

It is available also with the Youversion Bible App. Great way to keep track on the App too and you can select your own translation too.

So I recommend the YouVersion Bible app if you don’t have it already.

Advice:

You keep to the yearly Bible plan which is fast paced. Then simultaneously conduct a slower study of a topic or book of the Bible. Then join a church Bible study. You will be fully immersed in the Word of God.

If you don’t use the Bible app below is a way to start the Mcheyne plan.
https://bibleplan.org/plans/mcheyne/

 

[Greg J.]

From our viewpoint, the OT is a revelation of God through the lives of Jewish people. It is the foundation upon which the NT is written and helps us to understand the NT and know God.

I suggest you first study what the timeline of major OT events are (which are all about the Jews and God). It helps organize the OT into something that is comprehensible. It took me a long time to get an overall picture in my mind, because similar things happened to the Jews more than once. Was the coming of the Babylonians separate from the coming of the Assyrians? They rebuilt the temple in two time periods—what happened to it in between? How many times was Jerusalem destroyed?

Then you could read the books roughly in chronological order of their content, but if you keep referring to the timeline, any order can be fine. It helps enormously to know the world situation when each book was written (which is mostly the state of the Jews' relationship with God and why it was that way).