How to catch up on your Bible reading plan without starting over

The short answer

A week behind on a one-year plan of the 66-book Protestant Bible is about 23 chapters, roughly 75 minutes of reading. There are four ways to catch up without starting over: spread the gap over the next month (about 2½ extra minutes a day), skip to today's reading and read the gap later, carry on from where you stopped and finish a week later, or change to a slower pace such as 18 months or two years. The last two keep every chapter without asking more of any day.

In this guide

1. How far behind are you, really?
2. Four ways to catch up on a Bible reading plan
3. Should you catch up or skip ahead?
4. Should you start the plan over?
5. What if you miss a day of reading the Bible?
6. If you follow a daily Bible podcast
7. How to fall behind less next time
8. Questions people ask
9. Sources

A reading plan gives every day a portion, and ordinary life does not always leave room for one. If you are behind on your Bible reading plan, the useful question is not whether you can catch up but which way back asks least of you, and that has an answer in chapters and minutes. The figures below are worked out for a one-year plan of the 66-book Protestant Bible, with the 73-book Catholic Bible alongside, so you can see the size of the gap before deciding what to do about it.

• 3.26chapters a day in a one-year plan
• 23chapters in a week of it
• 75 minto read them, at 3.3 minutes a chapter
• 2½ minextra a day to make up a week over a month

How far behind are you, really?

A day of a one-year plan of the Protestant Bible is 3.26 chapters, about 11 minutes at the 3.3 minutes a chapter we allow for a comfortable pace. So a week behind is about 23 chapters and an hour and a quarter of reading, and a month behind is about 98 chapters, a little over five hours. At the average adult’s silent reading speed of 238 words a minute, the week is closer to an hour.

Reading times are for the Protestant Bible; a Catholic one-year day is 3.65 chapters, so every gap in it is about an eighth larger.

Two things stand out. Up to about two weeks, the gap is smaller than it feels: an evening or two of reading, or a few minutes a day for a month. Past a month, making it up within a month means doubling the daily reading or more, which is a lot to ask of the same days that left the gap. That is where the other ways back start to fit better.

Four ways to catch up on a Bible reading plan

There are four ways back from being behind, and none of them involves starting over: make the gap up gradually, skip to today’s reading, let the finish date move, or change to a slower pace. They differ in what they ask of each day and in what you end with.

1. Catch up a little at a time

Spreading the gap over the days ahead is the gentlest way to keep a plan’s original dates. Over the next 30 days, a week behind is an extra chapter on three days out of four. Spread over the rest of the year, it is much less, and the earlier you notice, the thinner it spreads:

Each cell is what it takes to finish a one-year plan that started on January 1 on its original last day, December 31. The advantage over a weekend of cramming is that the extra stays small enough for the plan to keep fitting the days it has always fitted.

Chapters are not all the same length, either. By our count of the World English Bible, a psalm averages about 275 words, less than half the Bible’s average chapter of 631 and about a quarter of a chapter of 1 Kings. In a cover-to-cover plan, the weeks in the Psalms are the easiest place to take on extra.

2. Skip to today and come back later

Jumping to today’s date puts you back in step with the plan at once and leaves a gap of unread chapters for later. A week skipped is about 2 percent of the Protestant Bible’s 1,189 chapters, and a month about 8 percent. This is the natural choice when you read on the same dates as other people, such as a church or a small group, or when you follow a podcast that reads a portion each day.

If you skip, write the gap down on the plan itself (for example, “Numbers 4 to 26”), so the chapters stay in view. They can be read on days when the plan’s portion is short, on weekends, or after the plan’s last day. In a plan that reads from several parts of the Bible each day, the gap is spread across several books, so note each one.

3. Let the finish date move

Carrying on from the next unread chapter, as if no days were missed, keeps every day the same size and moves the last day back by one for each day not read. A week behind on a plan that started January 1 finishes on January 7 of the next year instead of December 31. Nothing is skipped and nothing is doubled.

A plan printed with dates can still be read this way: go by the day numbers rather than the dates, or cross out the dates and write in your own. A one-year plan that takes thirteen months is still the whole Bible, every chapter, in the plan’s order.

4. Change to a slower pace

If you fell behind because the daily amount was more than your days could hold, a smaller daily amount from here on may suit you better than any way of catching up. Work it out from where you are: divide the chapters you have left by the days you would like to take.

Take a reader a month behind at the end of March, with about 195 chapters read and 994 to go. At the one-year rate of 3.26 a day, those take ten more months. At an 18-month pace (2.2 a day, about 7 minutes) they take about 15 months, and at a two-year pace (1.6 a day, about 5 minutes) about 20.

Our guide to reading the Bible in two years covers the slower paces in detail, and the reading plan calculator turns any finishing date into chapters and minutes a day.

Should you catch up or skip ahead?

It depends mostly on how far behind you are and whether the weeks ahead have spare minutes in them. As a rough guide:

Reading on the same dates as other people tips the choice toward skipping to today. Wanting every chapter in order tips it toward letting the date move. Each of them ends with the whole Bible read.

Should you start the plan over?

Starting again from day one is the only way back that returns the plan to zero. The chapters you read before the gap are still read; going back to the plan’s first reading means reading them again before reaching anything new. That is a fine choice when a reread is what you want, and a costly one when all you wanted was to feel back on track.

If what you want is a fresh start, you can have one without losing ground: begin the plan again from the chapter you reached and call that day one. After a long break, when the thread of the story has gone, rereading the last book you were in can be enough to pick it up. Our guide to starting to read the Bible again after a long break has more on coming back after months away.

What if you miss a day of reading the Bible?

One missed day of a one-year plan is about three chapters, around 11 minutes of reading, and it changes very little. In a study of how habits form, Phillippa Lally and colleagues followed 96 volunteers repeating a daily behavior for 12 weeks, and found that missing one opportunity did not materially affect the process.

Days without reading are also more common than a plan’s tidy boxes suggest. In a 2025 Lifeway Research survey of 2,130 US Protestant churchgoers, 31 percent said Bible reading was a daily habit for them. For many, what a gap costs is the time itself rather than a place on a schedule: 62 percent said they desperately miss the time with God if they go several days without reading the Bible.

The daily portions in a reading plan were divided up by whoever drew the plan. A missed one changes the schedule, and the next reading can start where you stopped.

Why falling behind can feel worse than it is

A plan with a date on every box turns each missed day into a number that grows. Research on streaks suggests why that number weighs so much. In work published in the Journal of Consumer Research in 2023, Jackie Silverman and Alixandra Barasch found that an intact streak, shown in a record of what people had done, increased how much they kept doing it, compared with a broken one. The effect was stronger when people blamed themselves for the break, and weaker when the streak could be repaired.

So the record of a gap can discourage more than the gap itself. A way of keeping track that counts chapters read, rather than days kept, has no streak to break. Our guide to Bible reading streaks looks at when a count of days helps and when it gets in the way.

If you follow a daily Bible podcast

A podcast that reads through the Bible in a year publishes on its own calendar, so the episode number keeps moving whether you listened or not. The same ways back apply, with one difference: an episode takes as long as it takes, so doubling up means doubling the listening time rather than reading a little faster.

• Rejoin today’s episode and keep the missed ones for lighter days or weekends. This keeps you in step with everyone listening on the same dates.
• Listen to two a day for a while, if the gap is a few episodes and you have the time.
• Keep your own pace from the episode you are on, and finish later than the calendar.

In any of these, keep a record of the chapters each episode covered rather than the episode number. Whatever order the episodes take, a record by chapter is the one that shows how much of the Bible itself you have heard.

How to fall behind less next time

One change has research behind it: building spare days into the plan. In a month-long step-counting challenge with more than 270 students and staff, Marissa Sharif and Suzanne Shu gave one group two emergency skips a week. The day after missing a goal, 55 percent of that group were back on track, against 37 percent of a group asked to reach the goal every day, and the groups with skips reached their goals up to 40 percent more often than the groups without them.

• Read five days a week. A five-day plan reads the Protestant Bible in a year at about 4.6 chapters each weekday and leaves the weekends open, for rest or for catching up.
• Leave a few days free each month. The Discipleship Journal plan from The Navigators gives each month only 25 readings and suggests the free days for catching up. Our guide to the Navigators Bible reading plan sets it out.
• Choose a daily amount for a busy day. A plan sized for your best days falls behind on the ordinary ones. Five minutes a day, about one and a half chapters, still reads the whole Protestant Bible in a little over two years.
• Keep a record of chapters, not dates. A chart with a box for every chapter shows how much of the Bible you have read, and that number stays true after a missed week. A list of dates mostly shows the days that went by.

Wherever the plan’s dates have got to, the next chapter is simply the one after the last one you read.

Questions people ask

Should I catch up or skip ahead on my Bible reading plan?

If you are a week or two behind and have a few spare minutes, catching up keeps every chapter and the plan's dates, and spread over a month it costs 2½ to 5 extra minutes a day. Skipping ahead to today suits readers who follow a group or a podcast on the same dates. If you skip, write down the chapters you passed so you can come back to them.

Is it okay to not read the Bible for one day?

A day without reading changes a schedule, not what you have read. The daily portions in a reading plan were divided up by whoever drew the plan, and one day of a one-year plan is about three chapters. Many readers do not read every day. In a 2025 Lifeway Research survey of US Protestant churchgoers, 31 percent said Bible reading was a daily habit.

Is it cheating to finish a one-year Bible plan in 13 months?

No. A one-year plan divides the Protestant Bible's 1,189 chapters into 365 portions, and reading them over 395 days covers exactly the same chapters. If you carry on from where you stopped, each missed day moves the finish back by one day, so a month behind finishes about a month late, with every chapter read and nothing doubled up.

Should I start my Bible reading plan over from day one?

Only if you want to reread what you have already read. Starting over takes the plan back to its first reading, so every chapter before the gap is read again before anything new. For a fresh start without losing ground, begin again from the chapter you reached and count that as day one. After a long break, rereading the last book you were in can help you pick up the story.

What if I fall behind on a Bible-in-a-year podcast?

The same choices apply. You can rejoin today's episode and keep the missed ones for weekends, listen to two a day until the gap closes, or carry on from the episode you are on and finish later than the calendar. A record of the chapters each episode covered, rather than the episode number, shows how much of the Bible you have actually heard.

Sources

1. Lally, P., van Jaarsveld, C. H. M., Potts, H. W. W. and Wardle, J. (2010). How are habits formed: Modelling habit formation in the real world. European Journal of Social Psychology, 40(6), 998–1009.
2. Silverman, J. and Barasch, A. (2023). On or off track: How (broken) streaks affect consumer decisions. Journal of Consumer Research, 49(6), 1095–1117. Summary on the University of Colorado Boulder Leeds School of Business site.
3. UCLA Anderson Review (2019), on Sharif, M. A. and Shu, S., Nudging persistence after failure through emergency reserves, Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes
4. Lifeway Research (2026). Lifeway Research finds fewer than 1 in 3 churchgoers read the Bible daily.
5. The Navigators, Discipleship Journal Bible Reading Plan
6. Brysbaert, M. (2019). How many words do we read per minute? A review and meta-analysis of reading rate. Journal of Memory and Language, 109, 104047.
7. World English Bible, verse-per-line edition (public domain), eBible.org
8. King James Version, verse-per-line edition (public domain), eBible.org