Question:
What is a good outline to read and study the Bible for devotions—especially for young Christians?

Answer:
Pray, morning, noon, and night, like Daniel did (Daniel 6:10), then get into the habit of daily reading. “Have thou an outline of sound words which thou hast heard of me [Paul]” (2 Timothy 1:13, J. N. Darby translation). We can never improve on studying the Bible chapter by chapter, verse by verse, and thus we keep in context what God is saying. But we can also use a concordance and do a character study on Abraham, David, etc; or a word study on justification, forgiveness, etc. It is valuable to make an outline ourselves. Start with John’s gospel, and get the Lord’s life before our hearts. Or start with Romans, which has foundation truths of salvation. Get “sound words” (read Paul’s writings.

Use an accurate translation of the Bible. We want to know what God says—not what man says, which is what paraphrases and some translations do. The Lord has used the older King James Version for many years to reveal His truth to souls, and the few mistakes in it from the original manuscripts do not change the basic truths of Scripture. The New King James Version takes out the thee’s and thou’s and other old English words. However, it doesn’t clean up the few mistakes found in the older King James Version, as the J. N. Darby translation and the translation in F. W. Grant’s Numerical Bible do.
Another valuable help in studying the Bible is in the use of the gifts that Christ has given to the church (Ephesians 4:11). He has given to some the gift of the teacher to explain the Word. Some have this gift today, and we still have the gifts of others, who are now with the Lord, through their writings. Men such as J. N. Darby, F. W. Grant, H. A. Ironside, C. H. Mackintosh, and others, even though they are dead, they still speak (Hebrews 11:4). But we must be careful with anything that comes to us from a human instrument, to “prove all things [by the Word], hold fast that which is good” (1 Thessalonians 5:21). We should be like the Bereans who “searched the Scriptures daily” to see if what Paul said to them was true (Acts 17:11).
Make the Word personal, and this requires meditation: “eating” the words (Jeremiah 15:16).