Should I Read The Bible?

Your words were found, and I ate them, and your words became to me a joy and the delight of my heart, for I am called by your name, O Lord, God of hosts. - Jeremiah 15:16

What if I told you there was a cure for some of the most common issues you are facing today? Depression? Anxiety? Anger? Most of us wouldn’t believe in such a wonder-working drug and indeed, no such drug exists. But, there is something that does exist that has been proven to help with those issues and many more, it’s called reading your Bible.

Now, I know that’s not as marketable as most drugs are, but it also doesn’t come with that long list of “side effects” mentioned at the end of every drug commercial. Bible reading is is one of the most neglected spiritual practices in Christianity and yet it is one of the most impactful for those that do it.

In fact, a report from The Center of Bible Engagement revealed that reading the Scriptures just four days a week found that:

1. Feeling lonely drops 30%
2. Anger issues drop 32%
3. Bitterness in relationships drops 40%
4. Alcoholism drops 57%
5. Sex outside of marriage drops 68%
6. Feeling spiritually stagnant drops 60%
7. Viewing pornography drops 61%
8. Sharing your faith jumps 200%
9. Discipling others jumps 230%

Here’s a link to the study, if you’d like to see more: Click Here

What is it about reading the Scriptures that help us so much? I think it has to do with who God is and how he has chosen to reveal himself to us. The Apostle John chooses to describe God in a very interesting way in his gospel. He describes Jesus as the Word of God. He obviously could have described him as the Tree of Life or the bright Morning Star, both of which would have been true, but he chose to describe him as the Word.

I think John did this to show us one of the primary attributes of God. We serve a God who speaks. It’s a part of his identity. This one fact sets him apart from idols who can neither speak nor hear. Our God does both! As Christians, we believe that God has spoken to us through his written word and when we read it, we are feasting on God himself. In other words, because God is called the Word and we are reading His words, through the empowerment of the Holy Spirit, Scripture reading helps us become more like Him.

If we are honest though, if you’ve never read through the Bible, it can be very intimidating, so I wanted to offer you some practical suggestions. Many people will push you to read through the Bible in a year. I think those are great programs, but what I have found is that many people stop about a month or two in once they hit Leviticus.

My suggestion is to start in the New Testament. Read it through from beginning to end. It’s an easier read and not nearly as intimidating as trying to read through Leviticus a month into your journey. Now, I want to be clear, Leviticus and Numbers and the entire Torah is great to read and certainly God’s word, so I’m not saying neglect it forever, but to get you started, it may be helpful to come back to that as you have matured in your faith.

Another helpful suggestion made to me year’s ago was to just simply skip over the parts that are hard to understand and come back to them later. Sometimes it’s easy to get bogged down in parts that are highly symbolic or just plain hard to read and skipping that section for a time so as not to slow down your progress. If you are a completionist like me, that’s a hard pill to swallow, I want to finish the whole thing, but as I tried to read through the Scriptures the first few times I realized that there are many parts that were hard to understand and not easy to read. I skipped those and came back to them once I had a better understanding of the Bible as a whole. My encouragement to you is to do the same.

For those that are seasoned Christians, perhaps it’s time to shake up your Bible reading plan? There are multiple different plans out there. Look around and see what might interest you. In the Bible College, we are on a four year plan. We read through the entire New Testament and a quarter of the Old Testament every year. This “slowed down” version helps encourage the student to spend time ingesting what he is reading and applying it to his or her personal life.

Another great way to read through the bible is the chronological method. This method puts the narratives of Scripture in chronological order and that can be a new and refreshing way of reading the Scriptures if you have never tried it before. Here’s an example of that style of plan: Click Here

Which version of the Bible is the best one to buy? Whichever one you will read! Seriously though, most modern translations are great. My recommendations are ESV or NIV. I like the ESV for the more literal word-for-word translation model and I like the NIV for readability. If you are looking to study it, the ESV is the better choice, but if you are looking for the easiest to read, it's definitely the NIV.

I know there are many distractions that can stop you from reading, but taking the time to read your Bible, to get to know the Word of God is truly life changing and I don’t think you will regret it. Many people have gotten saved just by reading the Scriptures. God’s word is alive! There have been times in my own life where my daily bible reading was exactly what I needed for that day. So my encouragement (to take a line from Nike) to start the year is to “just do it!”