Dane Ortlund offers a 2 week reading plan to help grasp the overall message of the Bible:
"If a freshman in college or stay-at-home mom or aspiring deacon or friend from work or anyone else asked me how they might get a rough grasp of the macro-storyline of the Bible in a few weeks, I'd send them not to any secondary resource but to the Bible itself for a reading plan that might look something like this."
Here's the plan