4 Brain Hacks that will Help You Read the Whole Bible in 2025

did you know that a vast majority of people who set out to read the Bible in a year quit sometime in February well in this video I'm going to show you what the four reasons are why they quit and the four brain hacks that you can use to overcome each one of these mistakes in case you and I haven't met yet I'm Keith faren your Bible coach my passion and the goal of everything on this channel is to help you move from should to want when it comes to reading studying understanding applying and yes enjoying

God's word so if you could use some help with that you want to click that button down there so you don't miss a video and down below you can go to keith.com simplest way and I would like to give you a free resource that is my simplest way to study any Bible passage now I don't know when you're watching this video but I'm recording it right before the beginning of 2025 so at the beginning of the new year people tell me all the time this is going to be the Year this is going to be

the year that I'm going to read through the whole Bible I have tried reading through the whole Bible and I've never succeeded but this is going to be the year and then a vast majority of people quit before the end of February and it's one of those things that once you understand what your brain is doing what the mistakes are that cause people to quit and the Brain hacks that overcome those mistakes then you can complete a Bible readr and so I want I want 2025 to be the year that you complete one that you

read through the entire Bible and so just as a little bit of background while I'm your Bible coach and I have spent a lot of time I've spent my whole adult life either teaching studying writing books about Bible study my degree is actually not a theology degree it's not I don't have an miv or some fancy Bible degree I have a psychology degree my masters is in counseling I've always been fascinated with how the brain works and what I find is so often we study the Bible in ways that are counter to how God has

wired our brains to work and so I find when we line up how God's wired our brains to work with how we study the Bible and then everything becomes more enjoyable uh easier we understand things better we remember it better all of that so everything all my books and my courses and the Bible Life Community everything takes brain science into that and today let's look at what is happening in our brains when we quit and when we succeed at reading through the whole Bible so the first thing that happens the first mistake is we put

ourselves in a situation where we are bored so most people quit because they are bored I know we're not supposed to say that when we God's word is amazing and beautiful and true and all of that and that's right and yet for so many If we're honest when we're reading it especially early on when we're in icus or numbers and we're just saying this just doesn't apply and and we just get bored well here is one of one of the reasons that that is happening from what's going on in your brain is we're simply not

reading in a way that puts our brain into that storytelling mode where we engage in it so if you've ever read uh a novel if you're somebody who just likes to read you've read a novel my guess is you did not read one page or maybe two pages or possibly three pages at a at a sitting no if you read one page and then you got distracted you went back and started over because your brain was never in that spot what I call the storytelling mode where you see the characters and the scenes and you

smell the smells and hear the sounds and and you picture everything at storytelling mode the the very reason why when you read a novel and then see the movie based on the novel you think that the casting director didn't read the book because you're like that person didn't look like that or sound like that or they were taller or shorter whatever it was and because your brain naturally went into that but what happened is you read more and that's what we need to do when it comes to reading if you want to read through the

whole Bible and actually make it through you need to read more of it in each sitting now I actually am somebody who I've written an entire book about reading through the entire Bible in six months or less rapid Bible read through is all about that and that came out of a challenge because I had kind of forced myself to read through the Bible in a year one time but I didn't enjoy it and didn't remember a lot of it I was bored a good chunk of the time but then I met met a guy named

Ron Frost Who challenged me to read the entire Bible in six months or less because he was we as we were breaking it down and looking at how long it takes to read through the whole Bible in a year that for most both Bible reading plans that cover the whole Bible in a year you're reading for somewhere between 11 and 12 minutes a day so it's it's not a ton of time and from a brain science standpoint they say that it takes about 10 minutes of reading anything a novel The Bible anything it takes about

10 minutes of reading before your brain goes into into that storytelling mode if you read for 3 minutes four minutes 5 minutes and then you quit you've never kicked into that and so every day you're starting from a place where you haven't built up that memory from the previous day but if you read for more than 10 minutes then you actually remember more and you enjoy it more and you kick in more well what we are so often doing when we're reading through the Bible in a year and we're quitting right at that moment within

a minute or two of when our brain would start to understand and enjoy and remember what it is that we're reading then uh uh we we we're training our brains not not to not believe the Bible not to not trust the Bible not to recognize that it's not to say that it's not amazing in God's word or anything but from a enjoyment standpoint from a not being bored we're training our brains to sounds terrible to say we're training our brains not to enjoy God's word which is tragic and so when we just shift our mindset

to say you know what I'm going to read for an amount of time instead of I'm going to read this little reading plan I'm just going to only read this one little bit if you just say I'm going to read for 25 minutes or I'm going to read for 30 minutes and whenever I get whenever my timer goes off I'm going to stick a bookmark in it and and then I'm just going to start there uh the next day maybe finish the chapter or something like that then uh then you will actually find that you

have you have understood the story more because you've read more of it you've seen the thread and just like when you read a novel and you get interrupted halfway through the first chapter you start over because it doesn't make sense to just start after two pages so try that read more of it set a timer if you want to read the Bible in six months did you realize that you only need to set a timer for like 25 30 minutes so what I encourage you to do is look at the if you want to read

through the whole Bible here is how you can apply this hack the the best is look at the page count of your Bible so literally the pages not just dividing up chapters but literally the pages look at the pages and and then divide that by the number of days that you want to read so if you're reading for six months it's going to be right around 183 days or something like that if you want to do that and look at how many days how mean how many pages you need to read over the course of

a day on average to uh to read through it in the time frame that you're looking for then for the next two days just read that number of pages and see about how long it takes you to read it and just read it and if it takes takes you 25 minutes great if it takes you 30 minutes okay that's fine so just figure out about how long it takes you to read that uh that section and then here is this is like a bonus hack that goes along with this reading more piece and that is

read for an extra three to five minutes than it's going to require because what will happen is and if you can do five or 10 if it's going to take you 25 minutes and you can read for 30 to 40 minutes you will always be a head and then when you get to the place where you have uh you you've gotten sick or one of your kids has gotten sick or work got really busy or you had an early flight for a for you know like I frequently do at five o'clock in the morning you

don't have you you end up missing a day or two instead of playing ketchup you will have already built a buffer and so reading more when it comes to being bored all all of these different ones that that I'm we're going to look at these next three are all they they all benefit from the reading more Philosophy from the reading for 15 20 30 minutes or or more but when you just read 11 minutes it's really really hard to just gut it out because your brain never clicks into that place where you move from boredom

to enjoyment okay if number one is that you're bored number two reason that people quit is that they are confused the the story line just doesn't make sense they just sit down at Genesis and they just read and the way that you can overcome that the hack that you can do is to read chronologically to read the Bible chronologically and there are different ways that you can do that when you're reading a the Bible and you're reading the stories in the order that they happen you're reading about the events and the people and everything in

the order that everything happened then or you're even reading about some of the Poetry like the Psalms or you're reading about some of the prophets right like Isaiah and Jeremiah and you're reading their prophecies at the point in the storyline where those prophecies were being made where those people lived then everything gets built on each other I tell people the Bible in general Genesis to Revelation yes it's generally in chronological order but there are many books especially books like 1 and 2 Samuel 1 and 2 Kings 1 and 2 Chronicles that cover huge timelines and

then there are people who lived in the midst of those timelines like David or like Isaiah or Jeremiah or Jonah or whomever that wrote individual books um or Psalms like David wrote a lot of Psalms or Solomon wrote a lot of the Proverbs and to be able to to see where in that storyline that you then read and kind of an in-depth look the analogy I frequently use is if you and I went to high school together and I wrote a book about our four-year High School experience but you wrote a book about our sophomore

year and a third friend of ours wrote a book about the the soccer season that won the championship spring of our sophomore year well in the course of my book when I got to the place where I was given the overview of the sophomore year they would probably want to read your book and when you got to the place where you're talking uh throughout your sophomore year about soccer season then you'd probably want to read that other book that went into indepth about how the soccer team won won the state championship something like that and

so there are a couple different ways that you can read chronologically one is to just take the Bible that you have and use a chronological reading plan I want if you if you go to keith.com chronological you can get this printable plan that is it's not a dayby day this is exactly what you should read it just simply takes the books the events of the Bible and puts them in chronological order so you can just read through and because so if you're reading 20 minutes you're reading 40 minutes you're reading an hour then you can

just mark off the the sections that you read and then you but but it's going to have something like okay at one point you're reading the book of Job well that's 42 chapters it's going to take you a few days to read it but but it's only one bullet point on here because it's just it's again it's not just based on a specific time it's based on the events in order there are also in most translations so whether you read the BSB or the csb or the NIV or the ESV you can go to Amazon

and search on NIV Chronological Bible or csb this is my favorite I'll put a link to this one below if you want to read in the csb sometimes even doing a a read through whether you're doing a rapid Bible read through in six months or less or you're doing a nine month thing or something like that sometimes reading in a translation that is different from what you normally read can also engage different kind of parts of our brain this is my favorite the day-by-day Chronological Bible from um that's in the Christian Standard Bible the C

SB which is one of my favorite translations and uh and that takes all takes every word in scripture and puts them in puts everything in chronological order so that you don't need to follow something that has has taken those events and put it in but reading chronologically will help that uh diffuse the confusion and and help you understand the Bible and the big narrative Arc which is really the purpose of a of a of a rapid Bible read read through or just even just a read through in general is to get that big overarching God

story so read chronologically and you will avoid the confusion now third reason that so many people quit their Bible reading plan in the year is simply that they're busy they take on more than they can chew in what they're trying to do they sit down and it's January and so they're making big goals and they've they've made new exercise goals and so they've just added that time in they've made new work goals they've added that in and they've made new Bible reading goals and so all of a sudden this 30 minutes or 45 minutes or

an hour that you weren't normally spending is is is now something where you're trying to add in 30 minutes of exercise and 40 minutes of Bible reading and an extra hour of work whatever it is and to meet those goals and we end up with just too crowded of a of a schedule and the the hack that you can do I don't think this is great every single time but I do think that because the goal of reading the whole Bible isn't the same as studying the Bible there's Bible study and Bible reading do a

different video on the difference between those and why they are both really really important but for most the idea of Bible uh of of reading through the whole Bible is in that mindset of Bible reading getting that big God story and so one thing you can do when you are busy is to listen to it I know some people feel like if I listen to the Bible somehow I'm cheating well I do think that there is value immense value in reading the words written on the page to see it to there there's a different kind

of focus and even a a memory from a memory hack that's another video but uh when we see see it and we hear it which is one of the reasons why even when I'm reading the Bible I read out loud to enhance my understanding my concentration helps with mind wandering all of that but when it comes to reading through big chunks I know that sometimes I get out of Bible like the one I showed you the csb Chronological Bible and I will have a year where I read for typically I do like four to six

months the first four to six months of the year I read through the whole Bible some years I'm reading a physical Bible other years I take my dog walking time and anytime I'm walking my dog I'm listening to the Bible instead of listening to music or listening to sports radio uh and and For That season I take that time because man if you go for you know if you walk your dog take two 15 minute walks a day with your dog you are going to read you're going to walk through the entire Bible in under

six months just simply by listening to it and maybe it's your commute maybe you've got a 30 minute commute to work or a 40-minute commute to work and One Direction you listen to the Bible and on the way back you listen to music or you just keep it silent or you listen to sports radio or whatever you like to listen or podcast um and so uh but listening to the Bible is a great way to walk through big chunks and when you hear somebody reading the Bible you the the the emphasis that they put on

different words or phrases it'll just make different things stand out so I actually find that listening to the Bible while the way that I put it is is listening to the Bible is a fantastic supplement to Bible reading it is not necessarily a good replacement for Bible reading obviously if you got Vision issues or headache issues with reading then audio Bibles can be fantastic uh but as as an addition to take a season of time where you're just listening to the Bible can really be helpful both in your understanding enjoyment of it and what you

notice but also uh when you are specifically during those Seasons when you're busy we all have these little Windows when we're getting ready when we're you know for for for work or you know we're just in the bathroom getting ready we often times have 10 minutes where we're there again walking dog doing dishes doing housework mowing the lawn there's so many windows in our day when we have 10 to 15 20 minutes where we could be listening instead of listening to to something else now this last hack and reason that most people don't finish their

Bible reading I can tell you in 30 years of talking about this and teaching this and watching people struggle with this I can tell you that this is one that I have talked about forever and is the one that most people ignore it's the one that just feels like I don't need it it feels like that's for somebody else but I can tell you this one hack will change everything and that is the reason that most people don't complete their Bible reading is that they are alone they are Reading Alone they don't have anybody to

talk about it with they don't have anybody to process it with they don't have anybody to hear from what they're seeing and this isn't necessarily this is a kind of brain life hack if you will and that is to get a buddy or some buddies or three other couples or whatever it is I will frequently just get to invite some guys from my church and just say I'm going to be at this Starbucks from 6:00 to 7 am on Tuesday Mornings for the first four to six months of the year show up just read and

show up and obviously if you're doing a read through especially if you're doing a rapid Bible read through you're probably reading through somewhere between 40 and 80 chapters a week well you can't talk about every little tiny thing but hearing what other people noticed hearing what they saw what questions they have processing that seeing where what's helped them lead to consistency and what they've struggled with man all of that together uh anything that we talk about we get more interested in and anything we are more interested in we will be more consistent at and so

when it comes to reading through the whole Bible so many people a vast majority of people tackle that goal on their own I'm just going to build that into my morning routine and so I read the Bible and I read the Bible and there's no accountability there's no and it's not even just the accountability of not wanting to show up with nothing to say but there but it's also just the enjoyment I mean you think of anything that you like to do I mean I love to I love Sports I not only love playing sports

but I love watching sports with well if my only experience with watching sports is watching it alone and I can never talk about it with anybody I can't talk the next day about why I would have been a better Coach than the person who's been paying being paid $1 million do to coach that team whatever it is uh that it's it's one of those things that that if my only experience was watching football alone and I could never watch it with friends and I could could never talk about it with anybody and I could never

read what other people are saying about that game or whatever that man it it wouldn't be long before I wasn't watching it because it would just get dull and I don't mind watching it alone sometimes and just like I don't I like reading the Bible alone man having somebody to talk about it with to ask questions to process it with that hack alone even if you're doing a full year even if you're not doing the other one of reading more and you're not listening to it and you're not doing a chronological if you just do

this one hack if you just get three friends to meet at a Starbucks once a week and talk about it however much you're reading whether it takes you six months or 16 months that you will your your chance of finishing just skyrockets if you've got friends to do it with so there you have it if you want to not be bored read more if you want to not be confused read chronologically if you want if you will find yourself busy then maybe this is a time when you need to listen to it but whichever one

you choose please don't tackle it alone get a buddy or even better yet a handful of buddies and do it together don't forget to go down below and grab your free chronologic iCal reading plan if you decide you want to do a rapid Bible read through then you can go ahead go to Amazon or go to my website keen.com grabb a copy of Rapid Bible read through but whatever you do leave a comment down here letting me know which one of these brain hacks you're going to put into practice and and then come back and

comment let me know how it went so this was helpful for you then like this video subscribe to this channel share this video with a friend leave me a comment or a question and as always I will see you in the next video