How should we read the Bible?

What the Bible says

How we read the Bible depends on what we think it is. Paul writes to Timothy:

All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for instruction, for conviction, for correction, and for training in righteousness, so that the man of God may be complete, fully equipped for every good work.

2 Tim 3:16-17

Scripture is human writing breathed out by God, so reading it is more than gathering information. It is listening for God. The purpose is clear too: not just to know more but to be made complete and ready to do good.

What holds the whole library together? The risen Jesus shows two disciples on the road to Emmaus.

And beginning with Moses and all the Prophets, He explained to them what was written in all the Scriptures about Himself.

Luke 24:27

He had said something similar to his critics: "You pore over the Scriptures because you presume that by them you possess eternal life. These are the very words that testify about Me" (John 5:39). The Old Testament is promise; the New is the promise kept. So a good question to bring to any passage is: where does this sit in the whole story, and how does it lead toward Christ? Read this way, scattered verses gather into one narrative.

The Bible is also many kinds of writing: poetry, history, law, proverbs, prophecy, Gospels, letters. A psalm should be read as a psalm and a letter as a letter. It matters who is speaking, to whom, and in what situation, and what the surrounding paragraphs say. A verse lifted out of its setting easily comes to mean something it never meant. A long-standing rule of Christian reading is to let the clear passages shed light on the obscure ones, and so to let Scripture interpret Scripture.

Then there is the manner of reading. Psalm 1 describes the blessed person: "But his delight is in the Law of the LORD, and on His law he meditates day and night" (Psalm 1:2). The Bible is not a book to get through quickly but one to stay with. And meditation is meant to end in obedience.

Be doers of the word, and not hearers only. Otherwise, you are deceiving yourselves.

James 1:22

James compares the one who hears without doing to a man who looks in a mirror and immediately forgets what he looks like (James 1:23-25). The Bible deepens as we obey it.

Finally, Scripture is read with prayer. The psalmist asks, "Open my eyes that I may see wondrous things from Your law" (Psalm 119:18). In Luke, after the resurrection, "He opened their minds to understand the Scriptures" (Luke 24:45). Understanding comes through our effort, and it is also a gift God opens.

The church's witness

The church has read Scripture together, not alone. When Philip found the Ethiopian official reading Isaiah, he asked, "Do you understand what you are reading?" and the man answered, "How can I … unless someone guides me?" (Acts 8:30-31). God gives the word and also sets up people in the church to help explain it. Christians broadly agree on that much. They differ on how Scripture and church tradition relate. Protestants hold that Scripture is the final authority and tradition serves under it. Catholics and the Orthodox hold that Scripture is read and interpreted within the living tradition of the church. Both want Scripture read inside the great lines the creeds confess.

Bede, commenting on Luke 24, asks a sharp question:

how does that man boast that he is a Christian … who neither searches how these Scriptures relate to Christ, nor desires to attain by suffering to that glory which he hopes to have with Christ

Bede

Reading the Bible is a search for him. Gregory urges putting what we read straight into practice: "Whoever then wishes to understand what he has heard, let him hasten to fulfill in work what he can now understand" Gregory.

Matthew Henry says the same on James 1: "It is not talking, but walking, that will bring us to heaven" Matthew Henry. On Psalm 119 he adds that "Those that would see the wondrous things of God's law and gospel, must beg him to give them understanding, by the light of his Spirit" Matthew Henry.

In the original languages

The word Paul uses for "God-breathed" is theopneustos (θεόπνευστος). It literally means "breathed out by God." It does not turn the human authors into mere secretaries: their personalities and styles are really present, and God speaks through them. Theologians explain the manner of inspiration in somewhat different ways.

The word for "meditate" in Psalm 1:2 is hagah (הָגָה), whose basic sense is "to mutter". People in the ancient world read the word aloud and repeated it softly to themselves. Meditation was not only a mental act. It was repeating and chewing over the word with mouth and heart.

The word for "pore over" in John 5:39 is ereunao (ἐρευνάω), to search something out thoroughly. Jesus tells people who studied Scripture diligently that all their searching points to him. Interpreters differ on whether the verb is a statement or a command, but either way the sense is the same: study carefully, and let it lead to the one the Scriptures bear witness to.

Common objections

"People interpret the same Bible in different ways, so how can I trust it?" This is a serious objection. The church is divided into many traditions, and the Bible has been used to defend wars and discrimination. That should be admitted. But disagreement does not prove there is no answer. Many historical documents are read in competing ways, and that does not make every reading equally good. Many harmful uses of Scripture came from ignoring context, pulling out a single verse, or missing the centre, Christ. On the great matters, the Trinity, the deity of Christ, his resurrection, the church has spoken with one voice for centuries. On baptism, predestination and the end times Christians do disagree. That is a reason to read more honestly and to listen to one another, not to stop reading.

"The Bible is too old and hard for ordinary people." Even Peter says of Paul, "Some parts of his letters are hard to understand" (2 Peter 3:16), so there is no need to deny the difficulty. But the Bible was given to ordinary people from the start, and the Bereans were praised because they "examined the Scriptures every day" (Acts 17:11). A first-time reader can begin with a Gospel, Mark or John. In this app, opening a verse shows the Fathers and Matthew Henry, and the Greek and Hebrew words can be looked up. Where something is unclear, mark it and keep reading; the answer often turns up elsewhere.

"Don't Christians pick and choose what to follow?" There is truth here. The Bible contains rules that Christians do not keep literally today, and how to sort them is still discussed among Christians. Some distinguish moral, ceremonial and civil laws; others read the whole law as fulfilled in Christ and applied through the law of love. But the church does not read at random. It asks what kind of writing a passage is and reads poetry as poetry, law as law, and everything within the story fulfilled in Christ, who said that what was written in the Law, the Prophets and the Psalms must be fulfilled in him (Luke 24:44). How a particular passage applies today deserves careful work, and that work is part of reading seriously.

Going further

Reading the Bible is an encounter rather than an exam. On days when you cannot read much, staying with one verse may be better than skimming a chapter. Try choosing a short passage each day, reading it slowly, praying over it, and deciding one thing you can do today.

Ask yourself: what am I looking for in the Bible? Where does the passage I am reading sit in the whole story? What do I already know but have not yet done?

To read further, see Can the Bible be trusted?, How did we get the Bible? and Does the Bible contradict itself?.