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30 Day Bible Shred 2025

The Bible Shred 2025 is coming up! Each year this is a personal challenge that many understake to read through the whole Bible (yes, the entire Bible) in 30 days.

The goal is to:

  • To overview the whole Bible.

  • Try and get as much of the Scripture into your brain at the start of the year.

But the Bible is a very big body of text, and 30 days is not a lot of time. Here are some of my favourite tips and suggestions that I’ve found have really helped me over the years that I’ve been doing this.

1) Find a format that is appropriate for your season of life

The three primary formats for the Bible is a physical paper Bible, a digital Bible read through apps or ereaders, or audio Bibles. They all have their benefits and limitations, so its best to find an option that works for you that will help you accomplish your goal.

  • Physical bibles often let you notice a lot more, but take dedicated time and space to read. If you have young kids or travel frequently, then this may not be the best option.

  • Digital bibles are a bit harder to notice details in the scripture, but have are a lot more flexible and subtle than a paper Bible.

  • Audio bibles are often the easiest way to get through the shred, but are a lot harder to pick up on details as very often you’ll be passively listening rather than completely engaged with the text. But this may be a more possible option for you than not doing the shred at all!

Here’s an article on why I think the paper Bible is the most ideal for personal Bible study - Analogue Reading - 8 Reasons Why Using A Paper Bible Is Way Better Than Digital Bibles

2) Intentionally time block in advance

If you read at an average speed like myself, it’ll likely take you 2-3 hours of reading a day to complete the allocated books and chapters.

I’ve found it’s best to aim for a total of 2 hours of reading day. This doesn’t mean I sit down for 2 consecutive hours, but this is accumulated throughout the day (30 minutes in the morning, 30 minutes at lunch, 10 minute snippets throughout the day, 30 minutes at the end of the day).

Throughout 2024 I’ve tried time blocking to accomplish various reading goals. By using a digital calendar I plan out in 30 or 60 minute increments what I’d like to accomplish. Even if I don’t achieve it, the act of planning it out in advance has helped me a lot.

Here is an article that explains the importance of allocating time to this - https://www.bibleroadmaps.com/blog/we-all-have-time-to-meditate

3) Watch BibleProject summary vieos

The BibleProject is a fantastic free resource designed to help you read the Bible. They have made summary videos of every book of the Bible.

Spend a few minutes before you start a new book watching the video explaining the outline to make the literary context a bit easier:

https://bibleproject.com/explore/book-overviews/

Having just a basic understanding of the book you’re about to read will make getting through it a lot easier.

4) Aim for Psalms

Normally by end of the 1st week it feels tricky - you’ve hit the less exciting books of Leviticus and Numbers and it becomes more of a chore. Then you may skip some days, get behind a few books, become overwhelmed, so just give up.

I aim to get to Psalms. They’re close to the halfway point and they’re good fun to read.

If you can get there, you would’ve built up enough mental momentum to keep going and get through the rest of the Bible.

5) Find a translation that is easier to process

Translations such as NIV, NLT and ESV are often a bit easier to read as they lean towards translating ideas and themes rather than exact wording.

Whereas NASB and NKJV focus more on literal word for word translations requiring a bit more mental effort to process.

6) Take voice notes

I think one of the most underutilised features of my iPhone is voice notes. Its a quick an easy way to capture a though with minimal friction.

With the latest iOS 18 update, voice notes can now get transcribed into text which makes things a lot easier to reference later!

View a Voice Memos transcription on iPhone - https://support.apple.com/en-au/guide/iphone/iph00953a982/ios

7) Look for themes throughout the Bible

Repeating motifs and themes are a lot more obvious when you’re reading all the Biblical stories back to back. Treat this as a bit of a treasure hunt to try and find them. Highlight anything that you think may be a repeating theme and investigate later!

Here are some more noticable themes:

  • Mountains - people often encounter God on a mountain throughout the Bible, try and notice when they occur.

  • Dwelling - when does God say He will dwell with His people? Very often this comes with the phrase “I am with you…”.

8) Don’t inspect the leaves

Don’t stop at every point of interest, question or concern. As you’re reading, its really helpful to highlight as you go along.

I take 3 types of highlights:

  • Observations (green highlight) - what is a point of interest or observation about this section you’re reading.

  • Questions (red highlight) - what is confusing or something to study and explore later.

  • Links (blue highlight) - what is another part of Bible that you think may be connected to what you’re reading; either thematically, verbally or textually.

At the end of this project, you should have a good amount of highlights that you can use to create study plans and see what you’ve learnt.

What is also interesting is comparing highlights and notes from previous years to this if it is a reading plan you’ve completed before.

This can be done digitally in most reading apps.

Here’s an article on what I call RGB Notes - https://www.bibleroadmaps.com/blog/RGB-notes

What next?

Hopefully you feel a bit more prepared and ready to go!

There are a couple of places to access the 30 Day Bible Shred reading plan:

Jump on and have a look over to get an idea of what each day will look like!

The next step is to plan out how this will work for you:

  • What format will you use (paper, digital, audio)?

  • Which translation will you use?

  • Can you try time blocking to make time for this?

  • Do you have somewhere/someway to capture highlights and notes?

God bless!

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