How long does it take to read the New Testament?

The short answer

Read silently at the average adult pace of 238 words a minute, the New Testament takes about 12 hours, and about 14½ at a relaxed 200. It is 27 books and 260 chapters, roughly 175,000 words in a modern translation. Spread out, that is 24 to 29 minutes a day for 30 days, 8 to 10 minutes a day for 90 days, or one chapter every weekday for a year. The four Gospels alone take about 5½ hours.

In this guide

1. How long it takes to read the New Testament
2. How many chapters a day to read the New Testament
3. Reading the New Testament in 30 days
4. The New Testament in 90 days
5. Six months, a year, or a chapter a day
6. How long each book of the New Testament takes
7. What order to read the New Testament in
8. Questions people ask
9. Sources

The New Testament is a little under a quarter of the Protestant Bible by words, which makes it a natural part to set out to read against a date: a month, a Lent, a year. How long it takes to read the New Testament matters less than what that asks of a single day, and how uneven its chapters make some days feel. The figures below come from our own word count of two public-domain translations, timed at the average silent reading speed found by research and at a slower, relaxed pace.

• 12 hoursthe New Testament, read silently at an average pace
• 14½ hoursat a relaxed 200 words a minute
• 260chapters in 27 books
• 5½ hoursthe four Gospels alone

How long it takes to read the New Testament

At the average adult silent reading speed of 238 words a minute, the New Testament takes about 12 hours. That speed comes from a 2019 review and meta-analysis of reading-rate research. At a relaxed 200 words a minute, closer to how most people read something they want to take in, it is about 14½ hours.

The translation moves the number a little. By our count the World English Bible, a modern public-domain translation, has 174,823 words in the New Testament, and the King James Version has 180,395. That puts the KJV at about 12½ hours at the average pace and 15 at the relaxed one. An average New Testament chapter is about 670 words, a little under three minutes of silent reading.

The 27 books fall into five parts of very different sizes:

The Gospels and Acts together are 45% of the chapters and nearly 60% of the reading time, because narrative chapters run long. If you want the Old Testament as well, our guide to how long it takes to read the whole Bible does the same count for all 66 books and for the wider canons.

How many chapters a day to read the New Testament

A year asks for fewer than one chapter a day, 90 days for about three, and 30 days for a little under nine. The table divides the 260 chapters by the days, with the minutes each daily reading takes at about 3.3 minutes a chapter, which is close to a relaxed pace for the New Testament’s chapters.

In between: 40 days is 6.5 chapters a day (about 18 minutes at the average pace, 22 at a relaxed one), and four months is a little over two chapters a day, about 6 to 7 minutes. These are averages. How a plan cuts the chapters into days decides whether each day actually feels like the average, and that matters most at the fast end.

Reading the New Testament in 30 days

Thirty days is about 8.7 chapters a day: 24 minutes of silent reading at the average pace, or 29 at a relaxed one. That is a real commitment but a realistic one, about the length of a commute or a lunch break.

The catch is that chapters are not equal. Divide the New Testament into 30 days by chapter count alone and one day runs from Mark 16 to Luke 8, 9,325 words and about 39 minutes, while another covers both letters to the Thessalonians, 2,872 words and about 12 minutes. Gospel chapters are long stories; letter chapters are short. A plan cut by chapters therefore front-loads its hardest days, right when the habit is newest.

So we split the 30 days by length instead. Each day below comes to between 22 and 26 minutes of silent reading (26 to 31 at a relaxed pace), and the cuts fall at the end of a book wherever that keeps the days even.

Minutes are silent reading at 238 words a minute in the World English Bible. Day 25 has sixteen chapters and takes about as long as day 9’s five chapters of Luke, which is the whole point: the second half of the month moves through more books without asking for more time.

The New Testament in 40 days

Forty days is 6.5 chapters a day, about 18 to 22 minutes. One free plan, Felix Just’s “Reading the New Testament in 40 Days”, budgets about 30 minutes daily and mixes the Gospels in with the letters: it opens with Mark 1–4, reads the rest of Mark over the next three days, turns to the Thessalonian letters and Galatians, and ends with Revelation 12–22 on day 40. Its author suggests it suits Lent or the Easter season, and our Lent reading plan covers that season in more detail.

The New Testament in 90 days

Ninety days is about 2.9 chapters a day, 8 minutes at the average pace and 10 at a relaxed one. In whole chapters, that is three chapters on 80 of the days and two on the other ten.

This is a good plan for a first time through the New Testament. The daily reading is short enough for a busy morning, and the whole New Testament is done inside a season. Even cut by chapter count, the days stay manageable: the heaviest (Luke 6–8) takes about 15 minutes and the lightest (1 Thessalonians 1–2) about 3. A long day is a quarter of an hour, so splitting by length matters much less than it does in a month.

Six months, a year, or a chapter a day

Six months is about 1.4 chapters a day, a year 0.7, and a chapter every day finishes in 260 days. Each of these averages under five minutes a day, which makes them the easiest paces to fit around a life.

Six months, or twice in a year

At 4 to 5 minutes a day, six months in practice means alternating one chapter and two, a little more often one. It is also, near enough, the pace for reading the New Testament twice in one year. Ligonier’s list of reading plans includes the ESV 6-Month New Testament Reading Plan, which reads straight through “by focusing on a short section each day”.

A year: one chapter every weekday

The New Testament has 260 chapters, and a year has 52 weeks of five weekdays: 52 × 5 = 260. One chapter each weekday finishes the New Testament in exactly a year, with every weekend free. Start on Monday, January 4, 2027, and the last chapter falls on Friday, December 31, 2027. A missed weekday has a whole weekend to move into.

The Navigators’ 5x5x5 New Testament plan is built on this arithmetic: “5 minutes a day” and “5 days a week”, one chapter a day through all 260 chapters, starting with Mark 1. Ligonier describes it as “especially beneficial if you’re new to a daily discipline of Bible reading”.

One chapter a day, every day

Read a chapter every day of the week and the New Testament takes 260 days, about eight and a half months. Starting on January 1, 2027, the last chapter falls on September 17, 2027. Each day is about three minutes.

With the Psalms and Proverbs

Adding the Psalms and Proverbs to the New Testament makes a one-year plan of 441 chapters, about 1.2 a day. By our count it comes to under three minutes a day at the average pace, and a little over three at a relaxed one. The Psalms and Proverbs also stand on their own, and our guide to reading the Psalms in a month, with a Proverb a day shows how.

How long each book of the New Testament takes

By words, Luke is the longest book in the New Testament at about an hour and three quarters of silent reading, with Acts and Matthew close behind. The shortest are 2 John and 3 John, about a minute each, and Philemon, about two. Every book, with its chapters, its words in the World English Bible and its silent reading time at 238 words a minute:

The longest single chapter is Matthew 26, the night of the arrest, at 1,573 words, about six and a half minutes. The shortest is Revelation 15 at 228 words, about one minute. Each of Paul’s letters fits in one sitting, Romans the longest at about 40 minutes. The thirteen letters that carry his name, Romans to Philemon, take about three hours together, and our guide to how many books Paul wrote goes through them one by one.

What order to read the New Testament in

Reading straight through, Matthew to Revelation, works well and is the easiest order to keep track of. Three other approaches are worth knowing.

• Start with a Gospel, often Mark. Mark is the shortest Gospel, 16 chapters and about an hour of reading, and both the 5x5x5 plan and Felix Just’s 40-day plan begin there. Our guide to which Gospel to read first compares all four.
• Mix the Gospels with the letters. In Bible order, 117 chapters of Gospels and Acts come before the first letter, and then Paul’s 87 chapters run one after another. Alternating them, as the 40-day plan does, keeps the story and the letters side by side.
• Read in the order the books were written. Arranged roughly by when each book was composed, the New Testament opens with letters, not Gospels. Our guide to the books in the order they were written puts James, Galatians and the letters to the Thessalonians first and Mark after Romans, and since the dates are estimates that scholars disagree on, it gives the traditional and critical dates side by side.

Whichever order you choose, the total is the same twelve hours or so, and three minutes is enough to read the next chapter.

Questions people ask

How many chapters are in the New Testament?

260 chapters in 27 books. The four Gospels have 89 of them, Acts 28, the 21 letters 121 and Revelation 22. Matthew and Acts are the longest books by chapters, with 28 each, though Luke has the most words. Philemon, 2 John, 3 John and Jude have a single chapter each.

How many chapters a day do I need to read the New Testament in a year?

Fewer than one. 260 chapters over 365 days is 0.7 a day, so the simplest way is one chapter on each weekday, which finishes in exactly 52 weeks and leaves weekends free. Reading one every day of the week finishes in 260 days instead.

How long does it take to read the New Testament one chapter a day?

260 days, or about eight and a half months. Starting on January 1, 2027, a chapter a day finishes on September 17, 2027. An average New Testament chapter is about 670 words, which takes about three minutes to read silently.

Can you read the New Testament in one sitting?

Only with a very long day. It is about 12 hours of silent reading at an average pace and nearer 15 at a relaxed one, before any breaks. Across a weekend that is about six hours a day; across a week, about two. A single Gospel is a realistic sitting, though; Mark takes about an hour.

How many chapters a day to read the New Testament in 6 months?

About 1.4 chapters a day, or 4 to 5 minutes. In practice that means alternating one chapter and two, a little more often one. It is also the pace for reading the New Testament twice in a year.

Where should I start reading the New Testament?

A Gospel is the natural place to begin, and Mark is a good first choice, the shortest Gospel at 16 chapters and about an hour of reading. Both the Navigators' 5x5x5 plan and Felix Just's 40-day plan begin with Mark 1. Reading straight through from Matthew works just as well.

Sources

1. 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.
2. World English Bible, verse-per-line edition (public domain), eBible.org
3. King James Version, verse-per-line edition (public domain), eBible.org
4. The Navigators, 5x5x5 New Testament Bible Reading Plan (2005)
5. Felix Just, SJ, Reading the New Testament in 40 Days
6. Ligonier Ministries, Bible reading plans
7. Biblical canon, Wikipedia
8. Orthodox Tewahedo biblical canon, Wikipedia