The M'Cheyne Bible reading plan, explained

The short answer

The M'Cheyne Bible reading plan is a one-year calendar that Robert Murray M'Cheyne, minister of St Peter's Church in Dundee, Scotland, drew up for his congregation in December 1842. Each day has four readings, two for the family and two for private reading, beginning on January 1 with Genesis 1, Matthew 1, Ezra 1 and Acts 1. Over the year it reads the Old Testament once and the New Testament and Psalms twice: 1,599 chapters, about 4.4 a day, or 11 to 13 minutes a day.

In this guide

1. What is the M’Cheyne Bible reading plan?
2. How the four readings work: family and secret
3. How long does the M’Cheyne plan take each day?
4. Where to get the M’Cheyne calendar (PDF and printable)
5. Can you do the M’Cheyne plan in two years?
6. What if you fall behind on the M’Cheyne plan?
7. Is the M’Cheyne plan right for you?
8. Questions people ask
9. Sources

The M’Cheyne Bible reading plan is more than 180 years old, and it is easy to sum up as four chapters a day. The calendar itself says more. It comes with a preface explaining why it exists and how it can go wrong, and with directions for using it at home and alone. Here is how its four columns run, how long a day takes by our count, how to spread it over two years, and what M’Cheyne told readers to do when the plan became a burden.

• 4readings a day, two for the family and two in private
• 1,599chapters in the year
• 4.4chapters a day
• 11–13 mina day, at an average or relaxed pace

What is the M’Cheyne Bible reading plan?

The M’Cheyne Bible reading plan is a calendar of daily readings that takes a reader through the whole Bible in a year, with the New Testament and the Psalms read twice. Robert Murray M’Cheyne, the minister of St Peter’s Church in Dundee, Scotland, wrote it for his congregation and called it “Daily Bread, being a calendar for reading through the Word of God in a year.” He signed its preface in December 1842 and dated its directions December 30.

His aim was twofold: that no part of Scripture would be passed over, and that a whole congregation would be reading the same chapters on the same day. In his words, the scheme was meant “so that the whole Bible might be read once by you in the year, and all might be feeding in the same portion of the green pasture at the same time.” The first advantage he lists sums up its shape: “The whole Bible will be read through in an orderly manner in the course of a year,” with “the Old Testament once, the New Testament and Psalms twice.”

Who was Robert Murray M’Cheyne?

M’Cheyne was born in Edinburgh on May 21, 1813, and was ordained to St Peter’s, Dundee, on November 24, 1836. He died of typhus on March 25, 1843, aged 29, less than three months after dating the calendar. The name is also spelled McCheyne, and strictly M‘Cheyne, with a left single quotation mark. D. A. Carson later included the plan, in a slightly modified form, in his book For the Love of God.

How the four readings work: family and secret

Every day in the calendar has four readings, set out in four columns. The first two are headed Family, for reading together at household worship, and the last two Secret, which in 1842 meant private reading, alone. On January 1 the family reads Genesis 1 and Matthew 1 and the private reader Ezra 1 and Acts 1, and from there each column moves on about a chapter a day through its own part of the Bible.

So on most days the four readings are two Old Testament chapters, one from Acts to Revelation, and one from the Gospels or the Psalms. The two passes through each part of the New Testament, and the two through the Psalms, come months apart. The Old Testament runs in two streams at once: Israel’s history from creation to the exile in the family column, and the return from exile, the poetry and the prophets in the secret one, where Isaiah begins in May and the Minor Prophets fill the year’s last nine weeks.

The directions are practical. The head of the household is to read the family chapter beforehand and “mark two or three of the most prominent verses,” ready with a few simple questions, and mealtime conversation is to “frequently turn upon the chapter read.” The secret reading comes first thing: “Let God’s voice be the first we hear in the morning.” M’Cheyne also let the columns trade places, so that a family chapter better read alone could be read in private and the secret chapter used at home instead. He also asked that the metrical Psalms be read or sung through at least once in the year, which three verses at each time of family worship would do.

How long does the M’Cheyne plan take each day?

The M’Cheyne plan takes about 11 minutes a day at an average silent reading pace, or 13 at a relaxed one. Its 1,599 chapters over 365 days come to about 4.4 a day, and by our count of the World English Bible, a modern public-domain translation, those chapters hold about 966,000 words: some 2,650 a day.

That is roughly 30 percent more reading than a plan that goes through the Bible once, as in our guide to reading the Bible in a year, and all of the extra is New Testament and Psalms. The 238 words a minute is the average adult’s silent reading speed for non-fiction found by a 2019 review of reading-rate studies; 200 is a gentler pace for something you want to take in.

Days are not all the same length. Counted day by day, four in five fall between about 2,000 and 3,300 words, or 8 to 14 minutes at an average pace. The shortest day is about 1,560 words, under seven minutes. The longest, in late July when Judges 9 and Acts 13 fall on the same day, is about 4,340 words: 18 minutes, or 22 at a relaxed pace.

Not every reading is a whole chapter, either. Psalm 119, the longest chapter in the Bible, is spread over seven days, and ten other chapters are split over two, among them Exodus 12, Psalm 78, Luke 1 and Deuteronomy 28. Short chapters are paired instead, most often psalms, so on a little over a third of days the list has five to seven chapters or part-chapters rather than four.

Where to get the M’Cheyne calendar (PDF and printable)

The M’Cheyne calendar is free to print in several editions, including a transcription of the 1842 original, which is long out of copyright.

• The 1842 calendar, with its preface and directions, is free as a PDF transcription at mcheyne.info, dated 2000, with a page for each month. In the copy we checked, the secret reading for March 6 is printed as 2 Corinthians 1, where the sequence calls for 2 Corinthians 5.
• Truth for Life’s edition is a free PDF, also sold in paperback, with four passages a day split into personal and family portions.
• Crossway’s version is on Bible.com as the M’Cheyne One Year Reading Plan, 365 days long, if you would rather follow it on a screen.
• STEP Bible’s chart is an adaptation in three columns rather than four, laid out to be read over one, two or three years.

If you would like a record of the chapters themselves rather than of dates, our printable Bible reading tracker has a box for every chapter of the Bible.

Can you do the M’Cheyne plan in two years?

Yes. Ligonier Ministries lists the M’Cheyne plan as taking one or two years, and the calendar splits cleanly in half: read the two family columns for a year, then the two secret columns the year after.

Over the two years the result is the same as the one-year plan, the Old Testament once and the New Testament and Psalms twice, at half the daily load. Each year still has some of everything: the Old Testament’s history in the first and its poetry and prophets in the second, each beside the New Testament and the Psalms, which a split by testament would not give you.

Slower still, one column a year makes a four-year plan of a little over a chapter a day. STEP Bible’s three-column version is arranged for one, two or three years. Our guide to reading the Bible in two years has the figures for other two-year plans.

What if you fall behind on the M’Cheyne plan?

If you fall behind, you can pick up at today’s date or carry on from where you stopped, and M’Cheyne himself expected a fixed plan to weigh on some readers. Beside the advantages, his preface sets out four dangers of a fixed scheme of reading: formality, self-righteousness, careless reading, and a fourth he called a yoke too heavy to bear.

Some may engage in reading with alacrity for a time, and afterwards feel it a burden, grievous to be borne. They may find conscience dragging them through the appointed task without any relish of the heavenly food. If this be the case with any, throw aside the fetter, and feed at liberty in the sweet garden of God. My desire is not to cast a snare upon you, but to be a helper of your joy.

Robert Murray M’Cheyne, preface to the calendar, December 1842

He was as plain about the first danger, formality: “Let the calendar perish rather than this rust eat up your souls.” The calendar was there to serve the reading. For a reader who has slipped behind, that leaves several reasonable ways back.

• Pick up at today’s date. The calendar is dated so that everyone reads the same chapters on the same day, and rejoining there keeps you alongside anyone else following it. What you missed comes around again in the same column a year later.
• Drop to two columns for a while. The family or secret readings alone take about six minutes a day, and the other two can return when there is time for them.
• Read on from where you stopped and let the dates go. Each column is a complete circuit, so any 365 days of readings cover the whole calendar. You simply finish later.

Reading two days at a time to catch up is possible too, at about 22 to 26 minutes a day, but it is the option most likely to become the burden M’Cheyne described. Our guide to catching up on a reading plan goes through each option in more detail.

Is the M’Cheyne plan right for you?

The M’Cheyne plan suits readers who like variety within a day and want to be in the New Testament and the Psalms often. It asks a little more than most one-year plans: four bookmarks, four places in the Bible, and roughly 30 percent more reading than going through once.

• It works well for households, since two of the four readings were meant for reading together at home, and for anyone who would rather not decide each morning what to read. “Time will not be wasted in choosing what portions to read,” as M’Cheyne put it.
• It eases the hard stretches. A week in Leviticus or Chronicles always comes with a Gospel, a letter or a psalm beside it.
• It is a lot for a first read-through. Starting with the two family readings, about two chapters a day, keeps the shape of the plan at half the size.
• It follows the 66-book Protestant Bible. Readers with a Catholic or Orthodox Bible would add the books their Bible holds beyond the 66, which Catholics call deuterocanonical and Protestants usually call the Apocrypha; our Catholic Bible reading plan covers all 73 books.

A few habits make four readings easier to keep: a ribbon or bookmark in each of the four places, the secret readings first thing in the morning, as M’Cheyne advised, and his suggestion to mark two or three verses in each reading. To see M’Cheyne beside the other classic plans, read which Bible reading plan is best.

He wrote the calendar to be a helper rather than a snare, and it is still most useful kept that way: four readings on the days they fit, fewer on the days they don’t.

Questions people ask

Does the M'Cheyne plan cover the whole Bible?

Yes, all 66 books of the Protestant Bible. Every Old Testament chapter is read once in the year, and every New Testament chapter and every psalm twice. The calendar has no readings from Tobit, Judith, the Maccabees or the other deuterocanonical books, so a reader with a Catholic or Orthodox Bible would add those separately.

Is the M'Cheyne plan good for beginners?

It can be, though it asks more than most one-year plans, with four readings in four places each day and about 4.4 chapters in all. A gentler start is the two family readings on their own, about two chapters and six minutes a day, with the two secret readings added later or taken up the following year.

Can I start the M'Cheyne plan in the middle of the year?

Yes. Begin with the readings for today's date and carry on. Each of the four columns is a complete circuit of its part of the Bible, so a full year from any starting day covers every reading in the calendar, with some books begun partway through and finished the following year. The calendar has no February 29, so in a leap year that day has no reading of its own.

Is there a free M'Cheyne Bible reading plan PDF?

Yes. The 1842 calendar is long out of copyright, and a transcription with M'Cheyne's preface and directions is free to download from mcheyne.info. Truth for Life offers its edition of the calendar as a free PDF, and Crossway's 365-day version can be followed on Bible.com. STEP Bible publishes a three-column adaptation laid out for one, two or three years.

Which translation works with the M'Cheyne plan?

Any translation with the 66 books of the Protestant Bible. The calendar lists only books and chapters, with a verse range where a long chapter is split across two or more days, so it works the same in a paper Bible, a reading app or an audio Bible, and in a modern translation or an older one.

Sources

1. Robert Murray M'Cheyne (1842). Daily Bread: a calendar for reading through the Word of God in a year, with preface and directions, mcheyne.info
2. Robert Murray M'Cheyne, Wikipedia
3. Ligonier Ministries (2025). Bible Reading Plans for 2026.
4. Truth for Life: Robert Murray M'Cheyne's Bible Reading Calendar
5. Bible.com: M'Cheyne One Year Reading Plan (provided by Crossway)
6. STEP Bible: M'Cheyne's readings, for one, two or three years
7. 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.
8. World English Bible, verse-per-line edition (public domain), eBible.org
9. King James Version, verse-per-line edition (public domain), eBible.org