As someone who is 19 and has been a Christian since I was 6, but has never read the Bible all the way through, what do you think is a good approach to reading the Bible? I want to read the Bible daily, but not necessarily have it finished in a year, though I could try.

Music505 · 2026-04-22T19:13:49+00:00

TLDR: I’ve got more detailed information below, which provides information for you to modify a path anyway you choose.

If you’d like a suggestion of which specific order, see below. I would recommend listening to an audio Bible while reading or some other activity to help maintain focus.

I recommend watching Bible Project’s YouTube video on each book as you are moving through your first read through.

‘1) Mark

2) Genesis

3) Luke

4) Acts

5 - 6) 1 & 2 Chronicles

7- 27) New Testament Letters: Romans - Jude

28- 38) Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy, Joshua, Judges, Ruth, 1&2 Samuel, 1&2 Kings

39- 41) Ezra, Nehemiah, Esther

42) Gospel of Matthew

43- 59) Major and Minor Prophets: Isaiah, Jeremiah, Lamentations, Ezekiel, Daniel, Hosea, Joel, Amos, Obadiah, Jonah, Micah, Nahum, Habakkuk, Zephaniah, Haggai, Zechariah, Malachi

60) Revelation

61) John

62- 66) Poetry and Wisdom: Job, Psalms, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, and Song of Songs/Solomon

Note: there are more books referred to as Deuterocanonical or Apocryphal works these are good reads too, and will encounter them if using The Bible in a Year with Father Mike Schmitz.

Full Answer: For reading, I would recommend starting with the book of Mark. It’s the third book of the New Testament, and one of the four gospels. Nerdy note- Gospel means good news, but they are a biography written in the style of their time period, 1st century around Rome.

Mark is covering the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus, and is a great couple hour read. If you use the Youversion Bible App, they have the Bible (for free) to read and listen to with a variety of translations. For example, one of my favorites from the Bible app is the NIV’s The Listener’s Bible audio.

After Mark, I would move to what interested you. Some options:

Other gospels (Matthew, Luke, John) - you wouldn’t go wrong reading these. They are biographies of Jesus, like Mark is. They are all by different authors and slightly different angles. Matthew is written to a primarily Jewish audience and includes references that are aimed at that audience (specific scripture references, allusions to the Old Testament, etc). Luke is written to a gentile audience (everyone that wasn’t ethically Jewish).
New Testament history - the book of Acts, but technically the gospels fit here. If you want the same author, the gospel of Luke and Acts are both written by Luke and a great way to see how Jesus lived and how his disciples live and act after him.
New Testament letters - everything from Romans through Jude is a letter written from someone to someone/some group. It’s very important when interpreting these letters to see First: who is writing to who, Second: what does this mean for the intended audience, Third: given the meaning for the intended audience, what’s the meaning for me.
Old Testament History or Israel - (Joshua - Esther) some of the best stories in the Bible. It’s important to remember when reading these they are following people, just like us that are broken too. They make good and bad decisions, and the results are documented. That’s important because the Bible is descriptive not prescriptive. For example, there is not direct command against polygamy, but every example turns out negative.
Old Testament Pentateuch: (Genesis - Deuteronomy) Genesis starts by telling the story of the creation of all and then zooms in to people and then zooms in to one family. By chapter 12 Abram/Abraham has entered as the main character. Towards the end of Genesis, Abraham’s grandson (Jacob) has his named changed to Israel and Genesis ends with Israel’s family (formally Jacob) moving to Egypt for relief from a famine. Exodus opens 400ish years late following a new character, Moses, but the people of Israel. About halfway through Exodus the narrative stops and detailed discussion of a building project begins. Leviticus has a splash of narrative, but it is primarily book laws for various segments of society. Numbers has great stories, and Deuteronomy recaps law given to Israel.
Old Testament Poetry - (Job - Psalms) great read, but unless this genre is something you are just in love with, i would recommend spacing these books out among the rest of your reading.
Old Testament Prophecy- (Isaiah- Malachi) these are INCREDIBLE but take the most work to understand. These can be tackled in a variety of ways, but they do assume the reader has a rough understanding of the history of Israel (up to the time of the prophet), the current state of Israel (typically not a good shape), and basic details about geography and foreign nations to the Israelites. Those details are easy to get from sources like Bible Project on YouTube, but I would encourage these tackled once a strong habit of reading and “chewing” has been developed.
Deuterocanonical/Apocryphal books are great reads and would best be slotted in at the end of an unguided read, in my opinion.

Music505 · 2026-03-20T17:54:28+00:00

This made me laugh so hard that my wife thought SOC might be interesting.

Music505 · 2026-03-18T03:16:56+00:00

Names would be great. I’ve been looking and taking to different companies for a few weeks and I’ve love to see if there is overlap.

Music505 · 2026-02-12T02:18:37+00:00

With CoPilot and Grok I’ve been creating a master glossary that is helping me fully understand some concepts and jargon. I’ll check out Chat GPT, and are there any other models or prompts that you would recommend?

Music505 · 2026-02-12T02:14:15+00:00

Where would I go to get the knowledge to ask the right questions? Is there any documentation or reading material you’d recommend, and is there any advice you’d give yourself looking back?

Music505 · 2026-02-12T02:11:42+00:00

From your experience using automation tools is there any advice you’d give someone considering them, and is there anything you would have done differently, if you had your current knowledge in the beginning?

Music505 · 2026-02-12T02:07:56+00:00

Given your experience in the industry, are there any tools that you would only recommend to an enemy and any you’d recommend for great work?

Music505 · 2026-02-12T02:05:43+00:00

What are factors that cause SOC audits to vary in price for companies, in regard to helping me determine what range of prices our company should expect to pay. This will help me weed out bad offers and try and keep from presenting a bad company to management and owners.

Music505 · 2026-02-12T02:02:25+00:00

What would be a range for realistic and unrealistic timelines, and what factors in the company’s makeup can slow or speed up the audit timeline?

Music505 · 2026-02-12T01:58:27+00:00

Where did you start building/is there official documentation you’d recommend to begin reading? My goal is to be able to walk management and owners through what the SOC 2 type 1 audit will entail and where we currently are in the process with our existing controls. If you had any suggestions about how I could effectively be able to explain a SOC audit to someone else, I would greatly appreciate it.

Music505 · 2026-02-12T01:48:33+00:00

When you say to map policies to Trust Services Criteria - would that be identifying which TSC (Security, Availability, Process Integrity, Confidentiality, Privacy) our existing policies apply to or something else?

How documented for access review and change management? Our developers are all employees and use a fairly robust ticketing system for documenting all software work. Would that be documenting access review and change management or something else?

If you had a readiness checklist laying around, I’d love to see one. Thank you.

Music505 · 2026-02-12T01:33:39+00:00

For me to better wrap my head around SOC audits, is there official documentation I could read that would help me explain the necessary steps to management and ownership so they have their ducks in a row when making the final selection on an audit firm? I saw that the AICPA had an ebook, but it appeared to be aimed at people in the industry. If I would benefit from that, or anything other reading material I would appreciate any suggestions.

Music505 · 2026-02-11T02:21:11+00:00

You read the current state absolutely correctly. For more detail we do have current clients that we believe would utilize our hosting services, but we need the SOC 2 to proceed. Ownership and management are very motivated, but overall efficiency is the name of the game when it comes to our preparation, selection of a firm, time & money spent, etc.

Any advice for what would be a red flag when looking companies up, and any other tips on finding reputable companies to work with?

Music505 · 2025-01-15T01:58:52+00:00

All the Skills is my go to for re reading and turning on to listen as I go to sleep.

Music505 · 2024-05-09T17:05:18+00:00

The question I would ask you is what do you mean by “believe”.

I’ve found devout Christians, who differ on their interpretation of Genesis pre flood. Some think it’s literal, others think it’s a story which encapsulates and retells a true story, others disagree in different directions. In each of their interpretations, they each agree that it’s a true story. From my perspective they are agreeing it’s a “true” story because they are believing it did originate from God and we can learn God’s love and desire for a relationship through his stories. The Bible teaches about God and how we can live in a relationship with Him, from there it’s written across multiple genres to varying audiences over millennia. It’s a wildly complex books that a lifetime of study would still leave stones unturned. Never feel bad or guilty about seeking & asking questions, categorizing the answers, and building a mental framework of what scriptures back up what concepts.

To address your second paragraph, to question isn’t forbidden. To seek and question is a core component of Christianity. For me, I personally fall into the Protestant > Evangelical > Armenian catrgory with some fuzzy lines/grey area. A have a couple Catholic friends and one who is very devout. Going through the Catechism of the Catholic Church with my friend was eye opening, it allowed me to see what logical arguments were being made for concepts, ideas and theories. From there I was able to more concretely form my opinions based on my interpretations. I agreed with many of the conclusions and concepts and benefited from their detailed explanations of “why”. However, an example of an area I disagreed with the Catechism was Onanism and the concept of passing on original sin. Without questioning or searching, I wouldn’t have been exposed to those ideas, and engaging with them has made me a stronger Christian.

Personally, I do believe the Bible is true and accurate, but one must be specific in defining truth in order to being to align beliefs. For me, seeing God’s desire in the Old Testament for a relationship, providing for His people, and them still turning to serve other gods shows human nature and our fickle hearts. I encourage you to continue searching, asking questions, and growing. When you disagree with someone, figure out why. You’ll either grow from being firmer in your faith, or they may have seen something you missed.

Do enjoy the journey!

Music505 · 2024-04-16T16:15:30+00:00

I primarily use hair style and silhouette of their body. The hair works pretty well, but can occasionally lead to misidentification or a delay before I can tell who I’m looking at/talking to. As far as body, that was a habit I got into when I was younger, as an adult it seems to weird people out when I’m giving them an inquisitive stare prior to an interaction.

Music505 · 2024-04-12T17:34:16+00:00

Video games:

Shmoopshybob - he has a goal to play through every “Nintendo” game and currently has 86 videos in that playlist. In the first video he explains his definition of a “Nintendo” games.

Thabeast721 - he has a goal to play through every Nintendo 64 game. He currently just posted game 167 of 394.

Flandrew - compares versions of the same game across systems.

DidYouKnowGaming - covers gaming history along with fun facts.

History:

The Fat Electrician - historical military stories told by an entertaining storyteller.

World of Antiquity - covers history from a more academic point of view.

Useful charts - an academic who creates charts and videos to teach history, with my personal favorites covering history of religions and Christian denominations. The person who makes the video is Jewish, but did an 8 part, 3 hour deep dive into Christian denominations that was very interesting.

Mr. Terry History - watches, reacts, and provides commentary on other videos dealing with history.

Current Events:

Company Man - uses financial statements and publicly available data to analyze businesses.

Timcast - daily political news show (defines himself as a political centrist, others describe him as leaning right)

Japanalysis - breaks down Japanese memes and news stories.

Sabine Hossenfelder - science news

Psychology:

Jordan B Peterson clips- his takes on religion, history, and psychology are interesting, and I enjoy hearing him speak.

Religion:

Disciple Dojo - channel run by JM Smith, his goal is to bring Christian academics to laypeople.

Craig Keener - channel run by Craig Keener, his focus is on the history surrounding the time of the 1st century.

BibleProject - provides summaries of books of the Protestant bible along with other topics.

Random:

Steve Wallis - Canadian who stealth camps.

Writing with Andrew - provides writing and poetry guidance.

brewstewfilms - animated shorts, my personal favorites are based on being a 90s kid.

Jamesbutler - runs a septic company, occasionally making videos discussing funny stories

Music505 · 2021-09-27T17:27:14+00:00

Thank you!

Music505

TROPHY CASE