IBRA Today

What is IBRA?

The International Bible Reading Association (IBRA) has been in existence for over 140 years and is part of Christian Education. It serves the church in five continents and aims to help Christians around the world to read the Bible daily and with understanding.

What does IBRA do?

Produces daily Bible reading notes

Each year, we produce a scheme of daily Bible readings which forms the basis for all our publications. It includes readings from the Gospel for the year from the Revised Common Lectionary, continuous readings from several books of the Bible, plus Old and New Testament readings on a variety of topical themes.

For many years, IBRA published Light for our Path and Words for Today, which provided a whole year of daily Bible readings with comments, reflections and prayers and were read by thousands of Christians around the world.

IBRA launched a brand new annual series of Bible reading notes in 2014, entitled Fresh From the Word: the Bible for a Change. The new series aims to offer an overview of the Bible for new Christians and the opportunity for more mature Christians to refresh their engagement with the Bible. Editor Nathan Eddy, United Reformed Church minister now studying the Old Testament, has brought together contributions from writers from around the world, to offer notes on 365 daily readings, together with prayers and suggestions for action.

With over 50 international writers Fresh From the Word gives readers global perspectives on the Bible’s passages, meeting people where they are in their lives through the transformational power of God. It carries on the 130-year old IBRA tradition of touching millions of people’s lives around the world.

Click here to find out more about our rich history.

Supports Bible reading internationally in developing countries through our International Fund.

Working through international church organisations, denominations and ecumenical groups, IBRA works in co-operation with its partners to develop an international pool of writers for its annual Bible reading notes, of which over 100,000 copies are sold worldwide. Some English language material is exported in printed form, some sent in a form ready for local printing and some for translation into other languages. IBRA has an International Fund which is able to give appropriate assistance to this work.

Notes are distributed across the globe by:

  • The Fellowship of Professional Workers and the All India Sunday School Association in India
  • The Methodist Bookstore in Fiji - 25,000 copies
  • Baptist Community of the Congo River in the Democratic Republic of the Congo - 78,000 copies
  • The Redemptive Baptist Church in Limbe, Cameroon
  • IBRA in South Africa
  • Asempa Publishers in Ghana - in Ewe, Fanti, Ga, and Twi languages 
  • Congregational Christian Church in American Samoa

All of these organisations are supported by IBRA’s International Fund, and most copies are distributed free of charge.
Read about our International partners.