One Verse Can Carry You All Week

How much Bible should you read a day? Scripture sets no quota, but it does set a focus

"How much Bible should I read a day?" It's a question a lot of people type into a search bar, and I think there are two main reasons behind it.

The first is the wish to tick a box. You want to reach a point where you can close your Bible and say, "Okay, I've done my bit for today." That comes from a religious place. Christianity isn't a religion in itself, though we do have practices we repeat. The trouble starts when the practice becomes the goal and the box becomes more important than the God we're meeting.

The second reason is a sincere desire to grow. You want to know how much of God's Word you need to take in each day to live the full life Christ has called you into. That's a good question, and Scripture answers it, just not with a number.

Day and night

Let's start with Joshua 1:8.

"This book of the law shall not depart out of thy mouth; but thou shalt meditate therein day and night, that thou mayest observe to do according to all that is written therein: for then thou shalt make thy way prosperous, and then thou shalt have good success."

When God says "day and night," He has already covered the full 24 hours. Within every day, the Word should be on your lips. You should be interacting with it.

For Joshua, "the book of the law" meant the laws of Moses and the precepts God gave Israel. That was only part of what we hold in our hands today. Our Bible also has the history books, the poetic books, the prophets, the Gospels of our Lord Jesus Christ and the epistles. The principle that applied to their book of the law applies to the whole of ours.

Now look closely at what the verse emphasises. It doesn't say "read a set amount day and night." It says "meditate therein day and night." The focus is on meditation, not on reading.

David says the same thing again and again in the Psalms. "O how love I thy law! it is my meditation all the day" (Psalm 119:97). His emphasis was never a page count. It was a mind that kept returning to what God had said.

Reading the Word is talking with God

In the New Testament, Paul gives us a short instruction: "Pray without ceasing" (1 Thessalonians 5:17).

Prayer isn't only the moments when we bring petitions and ask God for things. Prayer is communicating with God. When you open His Word and interact with it, you're interacting with Him. That is prayer too.

So reading your Bible is a form of fellowship with God, and Paul says that fellowship should be continuous. It isn't something you finish at 6 a.m. and put away for the day. It carries on through the day.

Transformation is a process of taking the Word in

Romans 12:2 says, "And be not conformed to this world: but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind."

Renewing is a process. Across all of these verses the focus isn't the act of reading. It's taking the Word in: internalising it, turning it over, absorbing what's in it until it changes how you think.

That opens up some freedom. You could take one verse on Monday and think it through all week. You might not read another verse that week. Or you might read other passages while you keep drawing new things out of that one verse. Both are taking in the Word.

On another day you might read a chapter. On another you might read a whole book in one sitting. There is no law in Scripture for how much you must read per day or per week.

What there must be is a daily conversation: fellowship between you and the Word of God, with you meditating on what it says.

Let the Spirit lead the portion

If there's no fixed amount, how do you decide? You follow the Holy Spirit.

"This I say then, Walk in the Spirit, and ye shall not fulfil the lust of the flesh" (Galatians 5:16).

God has given us His Spirit, and the Spirit leads us. When we walk in the Spirit, He leads us to the Word, and He leads us to the right portion of it for that day.

Reading plans still have their place. If you want to read the whole Bible in a year, you'll need a set number of chapters a day, and that's healthy discipline. Some people read through Proverbs every month. It has 31 chapters, so they read one a day, on top of whatever else they're reading. They do it because Proverbs is the book of wisdom and they want good counsel for daily living. That's a wonderful habit.

You could choose that. You could choose one verse a day. But at the very least, spend time with God in His Word every day. There is a spiritual order to days. God recognises night and day. He "daily loadeth us with benefits" (Psalm 68:19). Jesus taught us to pray, "Give us this day our daily bread" (Matthew 6:11). There's a daily refreshing, and the Word is part of it.

Maintenance and concentrate

Here's an illustration from nutrition that I find helpful.

Every healthy person eats on a daily basis, whether once, twice or three times. That regular diet keeps you alive and well enough to do what you need to do. Think of it as a maintenance ration. A balanced diet includes the main classes of food (carbohydrates, proteins, vitamins and the rest) in some ordinary proportion.

But suppose you go for a check-up and the nutritionist tells you that you're lacking one of them. You don't stop eating everything else, but you increase the one you're short of. What used to be a small share of your plate becomes a large share for a season, until the deficiency is corrected. That's a concentrated ration.

The Word of God works the same way. There are seasons in your life when you need a bigger portion of one part of it.

If you're believing God for healing, you won't take the Word casually. Daily fellowship is good, but in that season you'll go after what God has said about your body. What did Christ provide for you in the atonement? What is God's plan for your body? You'll take in those scriptures, meditate on them, and speak and confess them, because you need a concentration of that Word to see the result in your life.

Someone else may be believing to break free financially and walk in the abundance Christ has provided. In that season they'll search out what God has done for us and provided through Christ Jesus, and they'll feast on it. They'll meditate on it until it produces in them what it talks about.

The Word produces the result

This is important. We are not the ones who produce results. Our part is to take in the Word. The Word produces in us what it talks about.

"Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen" (Hebrews 11:1).

When you receive God's Word about a particular thing, it produces faith in you. You keep taking it in until that faith shows itself, until the substance is seen. You've taken in so much of the Word in that area that it begins to show in your life.

That's how maintenance and concentrate work together. Every day, keep your fellowship with God in His Word. In seasons of need, take a bigger portion of what He has said about that need.

So how much should you read?

Not a quota. Read enough to meditate on. Let the Spirit lead the amount, keep a daily time with God in His Word, and when life calls for it, increase the portion until the Word produces its result.

What does your daily time in the Word look like? I'd love to hear from you in the responses.

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God bless you,
Michael Adegoke