A Devotional Is Not a Bible Reading

It is 6:40 in the morning. The devotional on your nightstand opens to today's page: one line from a psalm, then a few paragraphs about it. You read it, you mean it, and it takes under two minutes. Then a small question follows you into the kitchen. Did that count as reading the Bible?

It is a fair question, and it deserves a straight answer instead of guilt. So we put a classic devotional next to the chapters it quotes and counted the words. The result was not what most people expect.

Two meanings of "devotional", and the one this post is about

The word does two jobs, and most of the confusion comes from mixing them up.

The first is a manner of reading. To read the Bible devotionally is to read it to meet God, not only to gather facts. Dane Ortlund puts it plainly at Crossway: "Reading the Bible devotionally is just reading the Bible the way it is meant to be read." In that sense, every good Bible reading is a devotional one. Slow, prayerful reading of this kind has an old name, lectio divina, and we walk through it in how to meditate on Scripture.

The second is a kind of book. A devotional is a book, email or app entry that takes a verse and writes about it: a reflection, an application, sometimes a prayer. Kenneth Berding, a New Testament professor at Talbot School of Theology, defines it as a book that helps you grow by explaining and applying what is written in the Bible.

This post is about the second meaning: a book about the Bible next to the Bible itself. It is also not the old "devotional versus study" debate, the heart against the head. Study is its own skill, and how to study the Bible covers it.

What devotionals do well (and who says so)

Start with the fair case, because it is a real one.

A good devotional slows you down on one line. It hands you a thought to carry into the day. It puts you in the company of a wise reader who has lived with the text longer than you have. Berding, writing for Biola's Good Book Blog in May 2022, says he has received "considerable help" from devotional books, names Andrew Murray's Humility and Spurgeon's Morning and Evening, and has written a daily devotional himself. He also grants that devotional books "are often easier to read."

There is some data behind the fair case too. In Lifeway Research's Transformational Discipleship study, Ed Stetzer reported that reading and studying the Bible had the most impact on spiritual growth. But he also listed six actions that went with higher Bible engagement scores, and one of them was reading a book about growing spiritually. That is an association reported in a 2013 column, with no effect sizes given. It does not say good books cause anything. It does say that people who read them tend to read their Bibles more, not less.

So the question is not whether a devotional is allowed. A devotional book is fine and not required, the same thing we say in how to have a quiet time with God. The question is order, and what gets left out.

The same two minutes: a devotional entry beside the chapter it quotes

Here is the part nobody on page one measures. A devotional feels like the quick option. Is it?

We took six entries from C. H. Spurgeon's Morning and Evening, a classic, public-domain devotional that is still widely read, and counted the words on each page at the Christian Classics Ethereal Library. Then we counted the chapter each headline verse comes from.

Every entry runs about 360 to 380 words, or under two minutes. Every one is built on a headline verse of six to thirteen words. The chapters run from 219 to 738 words. Four of the six are longer than the entry about them, and two are shorter. Psalm 62 is shorter than Spurgeon's page on one line of it. The widest gap, Genesis 1, is under two minutes.

Two honest notes. Spurgeon quotes other Scripture inside his reflections, so an entry is not all commentary. And the headline verses are King James wording while the chapters are counted in the BSB, so the verse counts are a guide, not an exact match.

The finding still holds. The devotional is not the shorter option. It is the option where someone else chose the verse. A typical chapter is about two and a half minutes. The mean is 610 words, and how many chapters a day to read the Bible explains why chapters vary so much. Plans that quote fifteen or twenty minutes a day usually fold a devotional in. The reading alone is about nine minutes a day for a year through the Bible.

What a whole chapter gives you that a lifted verse cannot

If the time is about the same, the difference is in which words you read. A chapter gives you four things a single line cannot.

• Context. You know who is speaking, to whom, and why. "Trust in him at all times" means more when you have read the psalm it sits in.
• The story around the verse. Joshua 5:12 is the day the manna stopped. The chapter tells you what came before that day and what came after it.
• The parts nobody would pick. A devotional writer chooses the line that preaches well. A chapter includes the lines that do not. Paul writes that "All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful" (2 Timothy 3:16-17, NIV), and the word that matters there is "All."
• Your own eyes on the text. You meet the words first, before anyone tells you what to feel about them.

Jesus taught this way. On the road to Emmaus, "beginning with Moses and all the Prophets, he explained to them what was said in all the Scriptures concerning himself" (Luke 24:27, NIV). He worked from the whole sweep, not one line.

It helps to be honest about what Scripture does not say. Jonathan Gibson of Westminster Theological Seminary notes at The Gospel Coalition that there is "no explicit command" to have a daily time of worship, though the habit is "assumed or implied." He also argues that Jesus could only have known the Scriptures so well by reading them "regularly and sequentially." That is Gibson's inference, not a Gospel statement, but it points the same way: in order, and whole.

Berding's practical advice is the same. "Work your way through an entire book of the Bible before you move on to another."

What churchgoers actually reach for

When churchgoers spend time alone with God, reading is only one part of it. In a Lifeway Research survey of 1,002 U.S. Protestant and non-denominational churchgoers who attend at least monthly (September 2022, margin of error plus or minus 3.3%), fewer than 2 in 5 (39%) said they read from the Bible or a devotional in their time alone with God.

The more useful question was about format. If they were to read something in that time, here is what they said they would pick. More than one answer was allowed, so the shares add up past 100%, and they describe a preference, not what people actually read.

• A physical Bible: 63%
• A devotional book that prints some Scripture: 32%
• A Bible with added commentary or devotional thoughts: 25%
• Scripture from an app: 20%
• A devotional book that does not print Scripture: 8%
• A devotional from an app: 7%

Adults 18 to 34 were the most likely to read Scripture from an app (40%) and the least likely to pick a devotional book that prints Scripture (21%). The pattern is clear: the Bible comes first for most people, and the devotional rides alongside it.

Chapter first, devotional second: using both well

You do not have to give anything up. You only have to put the two in order.

1. Read the chapter first. Read it in order, as part of a plan that covers the whole Bible. If you are not sure where to begin, where to start reading the Bible walks through the choices.
2. Then read the devotional, with the chapter still open. The Bereans "examined the Scriptures every day to see if what Paul said was true" (Acts 17:11, NIV). Read a devotional the same way: as a teacher you can check.
3. Keep an eye on the balance. Berding's test is simple. If you spend more time reading words other than the Bible's, it is a sign to recommit to the Bible itself.
4. Let commentary sit beside the text, not in place of it. That is how our own app handles it: each of BlessUp's 372 study lessons puts a short commentary from the reader's own tradition next to the full passage. We explain why there are four versions in one passage, four traditions.

Which devotionals suit you, and how your tradition pairs Scripture with commentary, are good questions for your pastor. If you are between churches, our church finder lists churches by city. And if a morning slips, nothing is lost. The next chapter is still there, waiting for the kind of reader Psalm 1 describes, one who "meditates on his law day and night" (Psalm 1:2, NIV).

Frequently asked questions

What is the difference between a devotional and reading the Bible?

Reading the Bible means reading the text itself, ideally whole chapters in order. A devotional is a book, email or app entry that quotes a verse and then reflects on it. In the six classic entries we counted, the quoted verse was 6 to 13 words of a page of about 360 to 380.

Is reading a devotional the same as reading the Bible?

No. A devotional is someone else's words about a line of Scripture, and it can be a real help. But it is not the chapter. Reading the Bible devotionally, slowly and to meet God, is a different thing, and that is good Bible reading.

Is it wrong to read a devotional instead of the Bible?

It is not wrong to read a devotional, and many wise teachers have been helped by them. The concern is replacement. Deuteronomy 6:6 asks for God's commandments themselves to be on our hearts, so read the Bible itself first and let the devotional follow. Your pastor can help you choose good ones.

Should I read my devotional before or after my Bible reading?

After. Read the chapter first so you meet the text on its own terms, then read the devotional with the chapter still open. That way the devotional serves the reading instead of standing in for it.

How long does it take to read a chapter of the Bible compared with a devotional?

About the same. By our count, a classic Spurgeon entry runs 358 to 380 words, under two minutes at 220 words a minute. The median Bible chapter is 581 words in the Berean Standard Bible, about 2.6 minutes.