Today is Day 1 of our Year Through the Bible. (YTTB, for those in the know.)

Today’s readings:

Genesis 1-2
Matthew 1:1-2:12
Psalm 1
Proverbs 1:1-6

At Asbury, we are following the One Year Bible plan. (Get your One Year Bible here.) All you need to know is on the website we created for YTTB:

www.yearthroughthebible.com

I’ll Be Posting Here Each Thursday

For those of you who have followed me for a while, you are used to me posting every weekday when we are working through a reading plan. With the scope of the YTTB plan, however, daily posting is just not realistic. First, I just can’t pull off that kind of output, 365 days in a row. Second, there is too much to cover—each day there is an Old Testament reading, a New Testament reading, a psalm, and a proverb.

So, every Thursday at 3:30 AM central I’ll post here some thoughts on that week’s readings; for those of you who have subscribed to my Bible list, you’ll get that post delivered via email every Thursday at 4:00 AM.

(By the way, I have two email lists for subscribers: a general Andrew Forrest blog list, and the Bible list. I posted something on the general section yesterday entitled NDO 2026, which was about my plans for 2026. You can subscribe to either list here.)

Weekly Podcast Released Every Tuesday

We will be recording a weekly video podcast every week that will hit on some of the questions raised by that week’s readings. The first episode of this new podcast will be released on Tuesday, January 6. I’ll post that first episode here and it will be sent to all subscribers, too.

Submit Your bible questions

At the Year Through the Bible website, there is a place to submit a Bible question. We’ll do our best to answer as many questions as possible, and the plan is to look at the most relevant or interesting or frequently-asked questions each week in the podcast.

How to Get the One Year Bible in An App

Having the One Year Bible in an app on your phone can be a great supplemental tool. Among other things, it is another way to keep track of your progress.

Also, the app comes with audio! So, it’s possible to listen to that day’s reading while on the go.

At Asbury, we are using the Life Bible app for YTTB. To download the app and to see a video that describes how to set it up, go to www.yearthroughthebible.com. (The desktop version of the app is at www.lifebible.com.) Once set up, the app looks like this:

Why We Are Not Recommending the YouVersion Bible App

If you are reading this on January 1, 2026, then by all means feel free to use the YouVersion Bible app. (There is a MAJOR problem with the YouVersion app, however—see more, below.) Search for “One Year Bible” in Plans. It will look like this:

But, at Asbury we are not recommending the YouVersion app for YTTB. This is because there is no way to backdate a yearlong reading plan on the YouVersion app, which means that anyone who wants to join us later in 2026 will have no way to stay current with Asbury’s reading plan if he or she is relying on the app. The Life Bible app, in contrast, allows users at any time to configure the start date to “January 1, 2026” so as to stay current with the rest of the church. If you personally want to start on January 1 with the YouVersion app and include friends who also start with you on that date, that’s great, but after that date the YouVersion app will not be as useful to us at Asbury for our YTTB. Hence: our recommendation of the Life Bible app.

All-church bible Study Schedule

I am teaching three All-Church Bible Studies this spring, each from 6:30-8:00 PM. (All the studies will be live-streamed.)

Wednesday, January 14
Wednesday, March 4
Wednesday, May 6

In addition to these studies, I will of course be preaching weekly through the Bible.

The Way to Understand the Bible Is to Read the bible

The Bible is difficult and there will be many places over the course of the year where we will encounter something confusing or opaque or unsettling. I will do my best to provide guidance so you can get the most out of our YTTB, through:

Weekly sermons;
Tuesday podcasts;
Thursday Bible posts;
Answering the Bible questions folks submit;
Teaching the All-Church Bible studies;
And all the other things we are going to be doing in 2026.

BUT

The best way to understand the Bible is to keep reading the Bible. You just have to keep going. What you will find is that a question you have in January will either be answered in August, or, what may seem vitally important to you in February will end up being replaced by a different burning question in November. That’s just how the Bible works.

So, don’t overthink it. Just read every day, one day at a time.

Let’s GO.

Day 1