The Navigators (Discipleship Journal) Bible reading plan, explained

The short answer

The Navigators Bible Reading Plan, adapted from the Discipleship Journal plan, reads the Protestant Bible (66 books) once in a year from four places each day: the Gospels, Acts to Revelation, Psalms with the other wisdom books, and the rest of the Old Testament. Each month has only 25 readings, which leaves three to six free days to rest or catch up. A reading day averages about four chapters and 2,500 words, 10 to 13 minutes of reading.

In this guide

1. What is the Navigators Bible reading plan?
2. The four daily readings
3. Why the plan has only 25 readings a month
4. How long does a Navigators reading day take?
5. Where to get the plan, and keeping track
6. Reading it over two years
7. The other Navigators plans: Book-at-a-Time and 5x5x5
8. The Navigators plan vs M’Cheyne
9. Questions people ask
10. Sources

The Navigators Bible reading plan goes by two names, and it is built differently from most one-year schedules: four short readings a day from four parts of the Bible, and fewer reading days than the calendar has. Both choices change what a day takes and what happens when a week goes badly. We went through all 300 of its days, counted the words in each and checked which verses it covers, so the figures here are the plan’s own rather than an estimate.

• 4readings a day, from four parts of the Bible
• 25readings a month, the other days left free
• 300reading days for all 1,189 chapters
• 10½ minan average reading day, read silently

What is the Navigators Bible reading plan?

The Navigators Bible Reading Plan is a one-year plan published by The Navigators that reads the whole Protestant Bible (66 books, 1,189 chapters) once, from four places at a time. It is the plan many people know as the Discipleship Journal Bible reading plan: the Navigators’ page gives both names, and the 2005 edition’s footer reads “Adapted from The Discipleship Journal Bible Reading Plan.”

Its months are numbered rather than named, Month 1 to Month 12, each with 25 numbered days, so it can start on any date. We checked all 300 days against the text of the World English Bible: every verse of the 66 books comes up exactly once, and nothing is repeated.

The four daily readings

Each day has one reading from each of four parts of the Bible, and each part runs straight through its books from Month 1, Day 1 to Month 12, Day 25. The plan’s own reason is that four places a day help a reader grasp the unity of Scripture and see four different viewpoints side by side.

Words are counted in the World English Bible. The four readings move at very different speeds. The Gospel reading has 89 chapters to spread over 300 days, so it is often a single paragraph: Matthew runs through Months 1 to 3, Mark through Months 4 and 5, Luke through 6 to 9 and John through the last three.

The Old Testament reading carries two thirds of the plan’s words, with the Law in Months 1 to 3, the history books from Joshua to Esther in Months 4 to 8, and the Prophets from Isaiah to Malachi in the last four. Psalms alone fills the third reading for seven months, and Job closes it.

Why the plan has only 25 readings a month

Each month has 25 readings so that a missed day has somewhere to go. The plan says so plainly: “To prevent the frustration of falling behind, which most of us tend to do when following a Bible reading plan, each month of this plan gives you only twenty-five readings.”

That leaves three free days in February (four in a leap year) and five or six in other months, 65 in a 365-day year such as 2027 and 66 in a leap year. The plan suggests keeping Sundays either as a day off or as a day to catch up on the week, and, if a month’s readings are done by the 25th, spending the rest of it on the passages that “challenged or intrigued you.”

The free days have a price, and it is small. Fitting 1,189 chapters into 300 days instead of 365 makes each reading day about a fifth longer than in a plan with a reading for every date: about 2,500 words against 2,055, or roughly two minutes more. If a week goes badly even so, reading double is not the only way back; our guide to catching up on a reading plan sets out the others.

How long does a Navigators reading day take?

An average day of the Navigators plan is about four chapters, roughly 2,500 words, which takes about 10½ minutes at the average adult’s silent reading speed of 238 words a minute and 12½ minutes at a relaxed 200. Most days are close to that: eight in ten fall between about 7 and 14 minutes at the faster pace, or 8 and 17 at the slower one.

Most of the spread comes from the Old Testament reading, which ranges from one chapter to five. The longest day is Month 3, Day 21, when Deuteronomy 22 to 26 meets Psalm 68, Romans 13 and Matthew 27:27–44: about 4,700 words, or 20 minutes. The shortest, Month 8, Day 16, is about 1,200 words and five minutes.

Where to get the plan, and keeping track

The Navigators Bible Reading Plan is free on the Navigators’ own page: the PDF comes after a short form that asks for a name, an email address and a zip code. A plain-text screen-reader version and translations into Arabic, Dutch, German, Brazilian Portuguese, Spanish and Swedish are direct links, and Korean editions are listed too. A printed 25-pack is sold through NavPress. The Navigators allow unlimited reprints for non-commercial use as long as the copyright notice stays on.

Whatever you track it with, it helps to decide what counts as done. The plan is laid out in days, but its two New Testament readings are often parts of a chapter, so a record of chapters is the steadier measure: mark a chapter on the day you finish it, and the record shows how much of the Bible you have read whether or not the days lined up.

Reading it over two years

The plan offers its own two-year version: “you could read the gospels and the wisdom books this year, and the other two categories next year.” It works, though the two years are very different in size: the first holds 332 chapters, about 2 to 3 minutes a reading day, and the second holds the other 857, about 8 to 10 minutes. For the same load every day across both years, a plain two-year plan works out at about 1.6 chapters a day.

The other Navigators plans: Book-at-a-Time and 5x5x5

The same Navigators page offers two more plans, built on the same idea of reading days with room around them.

Book-at-a-Time reads one whole book at a time in its first reading, alternating between the testaments (Genesis, then Mark, then Exodus, then Acts), and gives the second reading to a chapter of Psalms, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, Song of Songs or Isaiah. It suits a reader who finds four places a day too many to hold in mind. Its two-year option is the first reading one year and the second the next.

5x5x5 takes the New Testament’s 260 chapters at one a day, five days a week, for 52 weeks, starting with Mark and spreading the other Gospels through the year. An average New Testament chapter is under three minutes of silent reading, which leaves room in the plan’s five minutes for one of the ways of digging deeper it suggests, such as putting a passage into your own words. Our guide to how long the New Testament takes has the figures book by book.

The Navigators plan vs M’Cheyne

Both plans give four readings a day; the difference is in what they repeat and whether every date has a reading. Robert Murray M’Cheyne’s calendar of 1842 sets readings for every day of the year and covers, in his words, “The Old Testament once, the New Testament and Psalms twice.” The Navigators plan reads everything once and leaves the free days.

By our count a reading day is about the same length in either plan, so the choice is about the shape of the year. M’Cheyne returns to the Psalms and the New Testament and has no gaps in the calendar, though he told readers who found it a burden to “throw aside the fetter, and feed at liberty in the sweet garden of God.” The Navigators plan gives up the repetition for slack. Our comparison of the classic plans sets these beside the others, and the M’Cheyne guide covers his calendar in full.

Whichever date you start on, Month 12, Day 25 ends the same way: the last verses of John 21, Revelation 22, Job 42 and the four chapters of Malachi.

Questions people ask

Is the Navigators Bible reading plan the same as the Discipleship Journal plan?

Yes. The Navigators' own page calls it the Navigators Bible Reading Plan, "also known as the Discipleship Journal Bible Reading Plan", and the 2005 edition says it is adapted from the Discipleship Journal plan. Both names refer to the same structure, four daily readings from the Gospels, Acts to Revelation, the wisdom books and the rest of the Old Testament, with 25 readings a month.

Can I start the Navigators plan in the middle of the year?

Yes. Its months are numbered from Month 1 to Month 12 rather than named, so Month 1, Day 1 can fall on any date, and the plan itself says you can begin at any point of the year. Starting in June means finishing the following May, with three to six free days in every month along the way.

Does the Navigators plan include the deuterocanonical books?

No. It covers the 66 books of the Protestant Bible, 1,189 chapters. The seven books Catholic Bibles also include, Tobit, Judith, Wisdom, Sirach, Baruch and 1 and 2 Maccabees, are not in it, and nor are the longer Greek forms of Esther and Daniel. A Catholic reader can add those books to the Old Testament reading or use a plan built for all 73 books.

What if I fall behind on the Navigators plan?

The free days are there for exactly that. Each month has 25 readings, so a calendar month leaves three to six days spare, and the plan suggests using Sundays to rest or catch up. If a month runs over anyway, carrying on from the reading you reached costs nothing but a later finish.

How many chapters a day is the Navigators plan?

About four chapters a reading day on average, 3.96 to be exact, since it reads all 1,189 chapters of the Protestant Bible in 300 reading days. The Old Testament reading is usually two or three chapters, while the two New Testament readings are often only part of a chapter, such as Matthew 1:1–17 on the first day.

Sources

1. The Navigators: Bible Reading Plans & Studies for 2026
2. The Navigators Bible Reading Plan, screen reader version (©2005 The Navigators, adapted from The Discipleship Journal Bible Reading Plan)
3. The Navigators Book-at-a-Time Bible Reading Plan, screen reader version
4. The Navigators 5x5x5 New Testament Bible Reading Plan, screen reader version
5. Robert Murray M'Cheyne, Daily Bread: a calendar for reading through the Word of God in a year (1842)
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