Dial In with Jonny Ardavanis - Bible Reading Plans That Will Transform Your Life in 2026 | Jonny Ardavanis

Episode Date: December 30, 2025

Start 2025 with a life-changing Bible reading plan.In this video, Jonny Ardavanis will break down two proven Bible reading plans that transformed my walk with God—and can help you stay consistent in Scripture.📖 What you’ll learn:• Why daily Bible reading matters• Robert Murray McShane Plan (4 chapters/day, 15–20 min)• Grant Horner Plan (10 chapters/day, 30–35 min)• Best Bible translations (NASB 1995, ESV, LSB)• Practical tips for building a lasting habit⏱ Timestamps:0:00 Why Read the Bible3:03 Benefits of a Reading Plan5:03 McShane Plan7:47 Grant Horner Plan11:29 Best Translations12:20 Final ChallengeWhy use a Bible reading plan?• Builds discipline and consistency• Eliminates decision fatigue• Helps you read all of Scripture• Transforms your life through God’s Word📩 Free Resource: Get the Dial-In devotional delivered 3x/week at DialInMinistries.org☕ Support the ministry: Become a monthly supporter & receive a free Dial-In mug💬 Comment below: Which Bible reading plan are you using in 2025?📖 Psalm 119:105 — “Your word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path.”👍 Like, subscribe, and turn on notifications for more biblical content.

Hey folks, as we embark on a new year, one of the things that I would encourage you to check out are a couple Bible reading plans that I'm going to tell you about in this episode. I think they're really helpful, and I'll get to why in a moment. But first I want to answer the question, why do we read the Bible in the first place? And I know this may be a rather rudimentary question, but I want to just read God's word on why God's word is so important. Psalm 197 says the law of the Lord is perfect, and it says it restores your soul. That's God's promise to you if you commit your life to scripture. It will transform, restore your soul.

The Hebrew word is Meshibat. It'll change you. It says the testimony of the Lord is sure. It'll make wise the simple. If you're lacking wisdom, God's word says it'll make you wise. Maybe you're a young man. Maybe you're a young woman. You're trying to navigate all of the complexities of life.

God's word says it'll make wise the simple. the precepts of the Lord are right, Psalm 198, rejoicing the heart. Maybe you're lacking joy. Maybe you're despairing and despondent, downcast. It says here in Psalm 198 that God's word will rejoice your heart regardless of the circumstances and situations in your life. It says the commandments of the Lord are pure, enlightening the eyes, meaning that God's word will give you the ability to navigate life with your glasses on, so to speak. You'll see the world as God sees it. It says that the fear of the Lord is clean, it endures forever, meaning that God's word endures forever. You live in a fleeting,

fickle, fading world. It's so elusive, it's transient, but the word of God endures forever. And it says the judgments of the Lord are true. They are righteous altogether, meaning that God's word being righteous makes righteous those who read it. Psalm 119, verse 9, you may know it, says, how can a young man keep his way pure? And it says by keeping it according to your word, if you want to live in holiness and purity, you need to commit your life to Scripture. But in addition to all these reasons, and this is obvious, we call it God's word and not man's word because this is God's revelation to us. Francis Schaefer once said that he is there, God that is, and he is not silent.

He speaks. He communicates to us through the scripture. This should be thrilling for you. Sometimes people say, you know, I don't want to get in a Bible reading plan because I don't want to be legalistic. I would say legalistic. You don't want to provide a structure in your line. so that you would commune with god i'm not saying if you don't have a bible reading plan you're sinning i'm saying this is the thrill of a life hebrews says that the word of god is living and active

and it'll penetrate conscience it'll teach us who god is so that's just why uh reading the bible is so helpful it points us to the person of jesus christ this is god's love letter to you it reveals this character now here's why i like a bible reading plan and then i'll detail the two that i recommend I think it's important to have some structure in your life. People have structure when they wake up. They drank their coffee. Hopefully they brush their teeth. They eat lunch.

They go to the gym. They eat dinner. They do this every single day. I think sometimes people just put the Bible reading, their Bible reading plan or their commitment to scripture as something that they might get to if it fits within the day. So I like having a level of structure. And I'm not going to legislate when someone does it either in the morning or in the evening.

But personally, I always like what Hudson Taylor says when, He said, you don't tune your instruments after a concert. He says you begin your day with God. And I'm not saying if you read it tonight, you're wrong. It just, I like to, you know, try to ground my day in God's word. Secondly, one of the things that Bible reading plan does in providing some structure is it helps me to evaluate whether or not I have priorities in my life that are greater than my walk in relationship with God and my commitment to His Word.

For instance, if I get to the end of a day and I've done, other things, I've gone to the gym, I've watched the show, watched the game, and I haven't read the scripture. It means that just fair enough, those things have taken precedent over my commitment to know God and His Word. And so I just evaluate those things. If I have time for a show, but not time for God's Word, I'm not saying that watching a show is sinful inherently. It just shows me where my priorities are, and I want my priorities to be here. Third, one of the things that's helpful about a Bible reading plan is it prevents against selective reading or decision fatigue, meaning that sometimes people just go back to their familiar passages over and over again.

I don't know what to read today. What should I read today? You don't have to ask that question if you're following a Bible reading plan. You can just wake up and say, here's what I have. I would never read this, you know, volitionally. You don't turn to First Chronicles 12 that often, but it's here in God's word. It's living and active. It's authoritative. It's sufficient for my life. there's something here for me from God. And so it prevents this selective reading and the decision fatigue. And it forms a daily habit, meaning I'm going to ground my day here. So that's why I like them.

Now, two Bible reading plans that I recommend is, one, the Robert Murray-McShane plan. I've used it for a few years. I love that plan. Robert Murray-McShane was a Scottish minister. He died at the age of 29 and 1843. He's known for a number of different quotes, his love for the Lord Jesus Christ, but he said once, it is not great talent that God blesses, but likeness to Jesus, meaning that if you want to be used by God, you don't need to consider your gifting because, you know, all that much.

Obviously, God gives different gifts to everyone, but he says what you need more than anything is just to be conformed into the image of Christ. He also said, a man is what he is on his knees and no more, meaning that you are your prayer life, your communion with God. That's the goal here. We don't read the Bible as an end. We read it as a means to the end, which is knowing Christ. That's why Paul says he presses on towards the prize, the upward call of knowing God.

Now, in the Robert Murray-McShane plan, you read typically four chapters a day, and that takes, you know, an average reader 15 to 20 minutes a day, and you read the entirety of the Old Testament once, at least, and then Psalms and the New Testament twice a year. So with four chapters, 20 minutes a day, you read the New Testament and Psalms twice and the Old Testament once a year. And I like just going through that. It's helpful to know that, yeah, I'm reading the Word of God cover to cover at least once a year, New Testament Psalms twice. Hey, thanks so much for taking time to listen to this resource. I want to make you aware

of a few things before we continue on in this episode. First of all, I want to thank those of you who are monthly supporters that make the production of this content and the ministry that Ieland does possible. If you sign up today for a monthly gift, you'll receive a free dial-in mug on the house. It makes even bad coffee taste good. Secondly, if you haven't already, you can sign up for our thrice weekly devotional, which is a three-to-five-minute devotional read to ground your day in God's word. If you head to our website, dial-in ministries.org, you can just enter your email, and you'll start receiving those on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday morning. Third thing is, I just want to thank those of you who have reached out and offered

encouragement regarding my recent book, Consider the Lily's Finding Perfect Peace in the Character of God. It's been really neat to see both individuals and church small groups walk through this book, which is essentially a book on the character of God and how it functions as the catalyst to peace and trust in a worried and anxious world. And then just last thing, we are always talking through different ideas for content that would be, Lord willing, a benefit to you to encourage you, to potentially challenge you. So if you have any ideas for future episodes or for future series,

you can drop a comment in the section below. Thanks so much. The second plan that I would recommend is the Horner Bible reading plan. Grant Horner, you know, he made this plan, and it is, I would just put it to you this way, you know, outside of being born in my home with a godly father who taught us the word of God,

the Horner Bible reading plan is the most transformative thing in my life. just my commitment, I started at age 18, I did this plan for about 10 years, I might do it again this year, it changed my life because it's 10 chapters a day, so it's a little bit more of a commitment, takes me about a half an hour, it might take you 35 minutes off the top, 10 chapters a day, and I'll just read you what he says, and you put a little sticky notes in your Bible for each of the different sections. That's the big idea. There's different sections of scripture that you're reading all the time. He says every year you'll read through the

Gospels four times, the Pentateuch twice, that's the first five books of the Bible, Paul's letters, you'll read four to five times each, the Old Testament wisdom literature, six times, all of the Psalms at least twice, all of the Proverbs, as well as Acts a dozen times. So every single month you're reading through Acts and Proverbs in totality. And you read through the Old Testament, the rest of the Old Testament and the rest of the prophets in the Old Testament about one and a half times. And the big idea here, and people say, well, what about studying the Bible? about getting stuck?

What if I don't understand everything I'm reading? Grant Horner would just say in this Bible reading plan that this is the proof of scripture interpreting scripture, meaning that the more you read the Bible, the more you understand it. And the more you read other passages of scripture in collaboration with other passages in the New Testament and the Old Testament,

the more you grasp what God is saying as a whole. Sometimes even, this is unrelated, but related, and sometimes people ask it, maybe I'll do an episode on this in the future, how I prepare my sermons, and I have a process for sermon prep, but I would say when I'm preaching and when I'm preparing my sermon, the greatest gift that God has ever put in my life is just reading the Bible. When I'm preaching, passages come to my mind, not necessarily because I've memorized them, but just because I've read through the scripture by God's grace and this plan so many

times throughout the last 10, 15 years. You take one Bible, a literal physical Bible. I think that's key because even as I'm flipping through my Bible while I'm preaching, I know exactly where I'm going, which is really helpful. Horner says, this is gross anatomy, meaning you're looking at the body as a whole. You're not closely studying different organs. You might do that at another time. You might do an in-depth study of Isaiah. He says, this is not microbiology. It's gross anatomy. But he says this. But microbiology in the study of organs makes more sense when you know that the whole structure the human body is like, when you know what it's like, and how all of the parts large and small relate in perfect interdependence, meaning that

the more you study the grand theme of scripture and know what God is saying comprehensively, the more you're able to comprehend what he's saying in a specific passage. This has been transformative for my life. Ten chapters a day, half an hour, maybe you can split it up, five chapters in the morning, five chapters in the evening. But this is really, really key. other things that he says just from like a tip perspective. He says there are different kinds of reading, super quick skimming, careful, moderated pace, studying the text, deep meditation. He says you should be somewhere in the middle of that when you do the Horner plan. And you don't need to get stuck and look up everything as you're reading. He says over time, and I would agree,

and I'm the beneficiary of this, you just understand the context of what scripture is saying when you're just constantly saying, well, it can't mean this in this passage. If it says this in this passage because one of the first rules of interpreting the Bible is that scripture never contradicts scripture. So I know it can't be saying this if it's saying this here. So that's really, those are the two plans I recommend. The Robert Murray-McShane plan, four chapters a day. It allows for a little additional study on the side if you wanted to go through a book or the Horner plan. I think it's great to try out for at least a year. Changed my life, for sure. Okay. And then the last thing, people sometimes ask me what translation of the Bible I use.

I use the NASB-1995 translation. I use the King James and only king, no, I'm just joking, but yeah, NASB-1995, this is the Bible that my dad got me for my 18th birthday. I've had a rebound since then, but I love the translation, and I've stuck with the translation for a couple of reasons. It's close to the original language, but it provides readability. There's a good flow to it. It resists cultural drift or changes for changes' sake.

I actually like some of the way that it's structured because it forces the NASB-95 does, forces a level of attentiveness. It's not trying to overly employ modern vernacular. This is God's word, not my word. So I like this translation, the NASB-1995. I also think the ESV is really good. It's a respected translation. Probably easier to memorize in the ESV.

But these are the translations that I would recommend, the NASB-1995. the ESV is a really good translation. I like reading the LSB for the Psalms because they use the word, the name Yahweh throughout it. But the NASB-1995 is what I do both personally in my personal study and also what I preach from.

But with that being said, you can use this plan or that plan or have no plan. One of the things that I would challenge you to do is to commit your life to scripture. Peter says, like newborn babies, crave the pure spiritual milk of the word

so that by it you may grow in respect to salvation. So it doesn't matter necessarily what plan you're using or what translation you're using, as long as it's biblical, as long as you are committed to this book knowing that the Spirit of God takes the Word of God to transform us into the image of the Son of God

who is Jesus Christ, our Savior, who we want to know personally and truly.