M'Cheyne Bible Readings

Access

About

Printables

Month by Month

Techie

Contact

Ben's Homepage

About the M'Cheyne Bible reading plan

Robert Murray M'Cheyne (also known as McCheyne) was an early 19th century pastor and preacher in Scotland. Amongst his legacy is a well-known scheme for daily Bible reading. In its original formulation it takes the reader through the the Old Testament once and the New Testament and Psalms twice per year. This means reading about four chapters a day, taken from different parts of the Bible.

Don Carson has tidied up the original scheme a little by changing the reading boundaries in five places and published it in two volumes called For the Love of God, along with his excellent daily meditations on the readings. (Available from The Book Depository with free delivery worldwide.) The daily meditations are also available online.

Carson suggests that the reader proceeds at half the rate of the M'Cheyne version: he takes just two of the four M'Cheyne readings each day, which is somewhat more manageable. So it takes the reader through the New Testament and Psalms every year, and the Old Testament every two years. I usually follow this scheme.

There are lots of ways to access the daily readings over the web from this site or in print form. See my Access page for all the info.

External M'Cheyne links:

For reference, here is the complete list of differences between the "Classic" and "Carson" schemes:

DateClassicCarson
28 FebruaryExodus 11:1-12:21Exodus 11:1-12:20
1 MarchExodus 12:22-51Exodus 12:21-51
24 MayPsalms 78:1-37Psalms 78:1-39
25 MayPsalms 78:38-72Psalms 78:40-72
3 JulyJoshua 5:1-6:5Joshua 5
4 JulyJoshua 6:6-27Joshua 6
27 JulyJudges 10:1-11:11Judges 10
28 JulyJudges 11:12-40Judges 11
26 SeptemberPsalms 78:1-37Psalms 78:1-39
27 SeptemberPsalms 78:38-72Psalms 78:40-72
29 October2 Kings 102 Kings 10-11
30 Octobber2 Kings 11-122 Kings 12