Gospel Reading Plan for Sponsored Teens

I have desired (and procrastinated) for years to create and send a bible reading plan to my sponsored teens, to encourage them to spend time with God and grow in His Word.  It felt like a huge undertaking, but also a valuable one.  Then recently, the bible study group I attend started using a chronological guide to the gospels that I’ve been loving.  I decided to start by translating this guide into Spanish for my sponsored teens.  Instead of one big bible study plan, I’m going to send 4 separate plans slowly over time: gospels, Acts & epistles, Revelation, and the Old Testament.  Today we’ll be looking at the first one which I’m sending in my upcoming September folders: the gospels.

For the full printable gospel reading guide in Spanish, click here.  Below is an English translation of just the first intro page, so you can get an understanding of how the plan works:

The Gospels

I want to share with you the reading plan we're using in my bible study group.  Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John are the four books of the bible that tell the story of Jesus' life, death, and resurrection. They are called the gospels. They are written from the perspectives of four different men who personally knew either Jesus or His disciples.  All four versions are true and tell some of the same stories; they simply emphasize different parts that each author considered most important for their specific audience.

This reading plan combines the four books into one story in chronological order as much as possible. As you read, pay attention to these themes:

• Matthew likely wrote his gospel to people of Jewish descent to show them that Jesus is the Savior they were waiting for. For this reason, he makes many references to the Old Testament and prophecies, since those are the scriptures the Jews were familiar with.
• Mark likely wrote his gospel after interviewing the apostle Peter, so he recounts many aspects of Jesus' life in which Peter was involved. It is also possible that Mark wrote to Christians who were suffering persecution for their faith, which could explain the brevity of his words and the omission of extreme details, since it was urgent to spread this message quickly.
• Luke probably wrote his gospel for all humanity, to show that Jesus is available to everyone who comes to Him, even the marginalized. For this reason, Luke's gospel contains many examples of Jesus spending time with people whom others avoided.
• John probably wrote his gospel to people who did not yet know Jesus, to teach them how to know Him and become children of God. For this reason, he emphasized God's love and the most basic doctrines about who Jesus is.

Each section has a box for you to check off after reading it. If you read one section each day, you will finish all the gospel stories in 199 days! But, of course, you can read less or more, whatever helps you learn and understand the stories better.