Click the image above to download a printable image or see below for a pdf version for easy download and printing.
If you are feeling adventurous like I am and want to do the 30 day reading plan using the King James version of the Bible, here are some thoughts and motivations to get you started…
The 30-day King James Version Reading Challenge
Advent is almost here and you have all kinds of reading plans to choose from. Let me propose a 30-day challenge… Read from the King James version of the Bible for 30 days. I know that many of you have not read from the King James version. You grew up with the modern translations. You like your NIV, ESV or New King James versions. I personally read the ESV and the RSV daily. You may have your own preferable translation, but what about the King James?
The 30-Day reading plan has just two chapters a day. So, you’re not reading through the entire Bible. You’re not even reading the entire New Testament. What you could do is read through some of the most important chapters in the protestant canon of scriptures in the King James version.
Let’s go ahead and throw ourselves into the King James version just for fun. Here are six reasons why you should try to read the King James version, especially if you’ve never done so before.
Slow Down your Reading
First of all, reading the King James version is going to slow you down. And you need that when you’re reading the Bible because a lot of times, especially those of us who do these reading plans, we try to just rush through it. On a yearly cover to cover plan we get up in the morning, think to yourself “I got to do four chapters of this”. And we’re just hustling through it. And sometimes your brain goes on autopilot and you read two pages before you realize that you haven’t comprehended any of it.
Reading the King James version is it’s going to slow you down because it’s going to sound different. It’s going to have a very beautiful literary cadence to it, and that’s going to cause you to slow down and linger over what the Bible actually says. And anytime you can slow down your reading patterns, that’s actually going to be a good thing because slowing down your reading is going to increase your comprehension.
Sometimes the problem is our own familiarity with the Bible that does us a disservice because the more we think we know a passage, the more we just glide over some of its intricacies. Slowing down and reading from a new translation is going to help to increase your comprehension rather than to harm it.
Experience Devotional Piety
Second, there is no translation that is more pious and devotional, in my opinion, than the King James version, especially when you get into the Psalms. Try this, open up your King James Bible to Psalms 90-99 and read a couple of chapters. You’re going to realize that this has an incredible spiritual depth to it.
I’m not saying that the NIV, the ESV, or the New King James aren’t spiritual and inspired by God. Of course, they are inspired by God. I trust in God’s inspiration, the infallibility, the authority of God’s word in any good translation. But, if you’ve never done this before, just sample a little bit of the Psalms in the ’90s from the King James version. You’re going to find that there’s incredible beauty and spiritual depth to what you’re reading.
Historical Connection
Third, is the historical connection. Many of our favorite authors, Charles Spurgeon, Jonathan Edwards or John Calvin, they were using the King James version as their main text. I’m reading The Pilgrims Progress right now. Amazing book. Of course John Bunyan is quoting from the King James version. And I love the fact that when you’re reading from the King James, there’s this historical continuity to it and you begin to learn the language of these older theologians which were so great and so deep and so powerful and spiritually impacting. You’re going to connect with them and you’re going to understand them on a different level. It’s going to help you when you read Charles Spurgeon – Morning and Evening, for example, or whoever else you’re reading in your devotions because you’re going to be reading from the same translation that they were.
Expanding Vocabulary
Reading from the King James version is definitely going to increase your vocabulary. There are many interesting things that the King James says. Sometimes it’s the way it phrases a line that you think you knew very well using different words and you’ve got to pause and you got to look up a word. I remember the first time I was reading from the King James in the book of Acts and the word peradventure came up. What is peradventure? It means “maybe” or “perhaps”. It’s an old-fashioned word and there many words like it in the King James. If you have to pause and look up an old word, so what? Now your vocabulary is two or four or six words greater than it was before you started your particular reading that day. Besides, reading the King James will slow down your reading and help you strive towards comprehension when you’re reading the scriptures.
[See below for resources to help with King James word usage]
Personal Renewal
Your devotional life can get into a trench. You can get into a gutter where you’re doing the same thing over and over again and you’re reaping less benefits from it. So, if you have the same Bible and you have the same devotional hour of the day and you spend the same 15 minutes in the same Bible every single day, that’s a wonderful thing. In fact, consistency is one of the main things you want to strive for. But sometimes you’ve got to vary things up. Sometimes you have to shake things up. Sometimes you have to use a different mechanism of prayer. or a new way to study the scriptures. Maybe you have to change it up and do scripture memory rather than just reading straight through. Maybe you’ve got to read the Bible chronologically rather than just reading it from Genesis to Revelation. Maybe you need to vary up something and changing a translation is a good way to just shake it up a little bit so that you have a little bit of personal renewal in your life. Varying your approach is going to refresh you and give you a new aspect, a new perspective. And I think you will find that if you read the King James, if you’ve never read it before.
Worship and Liturgy
Next, worship and liturgy. You probably know already, my evangelical friend. You probably already know the King James version better than you think you do. And the reason why you do is because you have some kind of liturgy in your church. At least I hope. You probably already know the King James version of the Ten Commandments or the King James version of the 23rd Psalm or the King James version of the Lord’s Prayer or the King James version of the biatitudes. Many of these famous passages of scripture are just going to sound so natural and be beautiful and fresh to you that it’s going to be a wonderful thing for your devotional life. I really feel.
Reading Plan and Conclusion
We’ve got 30 days, just two chapters per day. That’s it. We would read through the most important, famous, wonderful, consequential, beautiful, divine passages of holy scripture. Just two chapters a day for 30 days.
Print out the plan, put in the back of your Bible and check off boxes as you go through it day by day. You will have yourself a little bit of spiritual renewal.
Downloadable and Online Resources to assist with King James Reading
Oxford English Dictionary – The de-facto G.O.A.T. of English Dictionaries
Trinitarian Bible Society Bible Word List – Words that have changed meanings since the 17th Century
(PDF version – direct download from my website)
Excel spreadsheet of the TBS Word List, organized by chapter and verse
(PDF version – direct download from my website)
Cambridge Bible Dictionary – Included in the back of many Cambridge KJV Bibles
(PDF version – direct download from my website)
Cambridge Dictionary Online – From the oldest Bible publisher in the world
