I grew up hearing preachers talk all the time about studying your Bible. It seemed that so many emphasized that you should not simply read the Bible like you would any other book.
I felt guilty if I didn’t read my Bible. Then I would also feel guilty when I read it thinking that I wasn’t reading it slowly enough. Or, that I wasn’t doing Greek and Hebrew word studies as I read. All this talk about having to study the Bible (and not just read it) got me paranoid to think that whatever I did it would not be good enough.
Are you paralyzed with your Bible reading? Allow me to tell you that it is OK for you to read your Bible. If you want to take 3 months and study one word in the Bible, you are welcome to do that. If you want to read the entire Bible in a week, then that is fine too.
I think we have been told for far too long that reading your Bible like you would read any other book means that you are not spending time with God’s Word and you can’t really understand what it is saying. My question to those people is whether or not they can understand any other book they read. If they can, then they can probably understand the Bible just as well. And aren’t they going to read the Bible many times throughout their life? There are things they will see and learn the next time through.
Certainly there are times when extensive study is necessary and appropriate. But there are also times when getting a picture of what the whole Bible says at once will help you understand God’s Word more clearly. If you take 3 years to read through the Bible at one time, then you aren’t going to see the neat connection that the book of Hebrews has with the book of Leviticus. You can’t even remember where Leviticus was by the time you get to Hebrews.
Enjoy God’s Word at whatever pace you need to so that you can be brought into better fellowship with Him.
Wow…this is such a blessing to me! I was feeling the same way and just felt like my reading was not good enough that I had to study not as a fellowship but as a required task…thank you so much for sharing this! Thank you Jesus for leading me here.
I am glad it was a blessing to you.
As a practical example, I study my wife’s likes and dislikes. But I do it because I want to know her better and to be a good husband. I don’t study her because I am required to do so. However, there are also times when spending time with her (with no real goal to learn anything new), I end up learning more than if I had purposefully set out to discover something new.
Our relationship with the Bible should be a natural relationship. Sometimes that means deep study will help us advance and sometimes it means consistent reading is the best way to build a love for God’s Word.
Thank Mr Peach for this topic I agree with you about reading our Bible at our on pace. I have began reading my Bible by starting at the very beginning several times and never getting past the first five books. Now that I am in Psalms, I realized what I have been missing. The Bible connects one book with another. For some reason, I thought that the Bible was in “some” chronological order and once I left, for example 1 and 2 Kings, that I would not see much similarity of information in 1 and 2 Chronicles. Seeing the connection was enlightening. I cannot wait to move along in my reading but Psalms is pretty intense. I must continue some kind of momentum though in order not to lose my desire for the study of the most sacred book, the Bible.
Carmen, you would probably enjoy a chronological reading plan for the Bible. Last year I read my Bible with a chronological plan and it was helpful to see the connections that each book had.
This was such insightful reading. Sometimes I feel like I’m not getting what God is saying. I will read it over again until I grasp what it is. I LOVE reading the bible. I have learned so much more as an adult than I ever did growing up. It was routine to go to church & therefore I kinda blocked all the preaching & teaching out. It wasn’t until a couple years ago that I reconnected with God & OH MY, what an amazing blessing. What he shows me is astounding, truly astounding!!! Thank you for your words, it is so very true as to how we read. May The Lord continue to Bless you & your family. Have you written any books?
Sincerely & Respectfully,
Belinda