New Testament Reading Guide

Greetings long-suffering readers. With this post, I have successfully bookended 2023 with single postings. No need to thank me.

It is not as though 2023 has been eventless, much has occurred that I fully intend to share in a later post. However, as the title of this post suggest, I have something to share. Now that I have completed my Master of Divinity (see the other 2023 bookend post) and am coming up on my 6th year as a “senior” pastor, it felt fitting that I should attempt to write something. That’s what we post graduate pastors are supposed to do, yes? Preach, write, teach, disciple, ad infinitum. So, that’s what I’m here to share with you on this dreary December afternoon. I have spent the second half of this year picking at this project, refining it, and putting it together. That said, it is still not complete. Here I offer you the first edition of my New Testament Reading Guide for your use and comments.

While some of these details are contained within the guide itself, let me give you a little background on why I chose to put this together. The condensed version is this: I have not found a New Testament reading plan similar to this one and I was exhausted in the search. My wife and I read through the Bible together on an annual basis. But this year (2023) we chose to slow down and simply focus our efforts on the New Testament. In my frustrating search throughout December of last year led to us using what I would consider a “sub-par” plan. Sub-par NOT because it offered us a schedule, but sub-par in its organization. It was scattered and made no sense. Only recently did I come to realize that the organizers of our plan may have been going for a chronological ordering of the plan. Which is all well and good, but even that was poorly executed (for example, we’re close to finishing Revelation, but church history, tradition, and testimony suggests that John wrote Revelation well before he wrote his letters and his Gospel. So our current plan failed on multiple levels).

My primary frustration came from the disunity of the plan with the human authors of the New Testament. Why did we not read Luke and Acts together? Why did we read 1 & 2 Peter so far apart from one another? For someone who hyper focuses on these things, it was infuriating. So, I set out to put my own plan together and viola! You have my attached New Testament Reading Guide. I’ll let you discover it, my layout, my direction, etc for yourself. But I would ask this one question: IF you decide to use my guide, please let me know. As mentioned above, this is a First edition. I want to know how it worked for you. I want to know your thoughts. I want to know what you liked and disliked. I just want to know. That doesn’t mean I’ll make any changes based upon your suggestions, but I am first and foremost, a pastor – meaning that my heart is geared towards wanting to see believers grow in the grace and knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ. So, I want to hear what works for you, and what doesn’t. I want to know if you felt that the plan was beneficial to you or not. I want to know if you were frustrated with the plan.

But unlike the current, frustrating plan that my bride and I are currently concluding, I wanted you to know my intentions up front and why I organized my guide the way I did. My goal is to edit and update it as I use it myself over the next few years. Hopefully and prayerfully, you’ll find some benefit in it.

Grace and Peace to you in Jesus name,

Nick