Reading the Bible As A Spiritual Discipline
And practical tips for Bible Study
“You don’t read the Bible to get through it. You read it to get through you.”
-Dallas Willard
“The goal is not just to know the Bible, but to know the God of the Bible and live in His reality.”
-Dallas Willard
Photo by Priscilla Du Preez 🇨🇦 on Unsplash
In last week’s newsletter, I wrote about reading as a spiritual discipline. I made the case for reading books by mentors about the Christian life and walking with God. I discussed the fact that reading those kinds of books can help us along our journey in our walk with God. This week I want to focus on making a case for reading the Bible as a spiritual discipline.
The Bible is the foundational text when it comes to the Christian faith and is essential reading for every Christian regardless of denomination or faith practice. Charles Spurgeon’s sage advice for his followers was, “visit many good books, but live in the Bible.” Walk into almost any Christian church and among the first advice given is to spend time reading the Bible. As if just reading the words on the page will somehow teach us to be more like Jesus. The problem with this advice, is that the Bible is not an easy book to read or understand. Often, we are not given instruction and discipleship on how it is to be read or we read it with our modern eyes.
The spiritual life is a life of discipleship to Jesus. We are to become more and more like Jesus. His life and teachings should invade our hearts and through the work of His Spirit, they should change us from the inside out. As we approach the Bible, it can be helpful to keep this question in mind, “who is God revealing himself to be in each story.”
Too often we read the Bible with our modern eyes and ears. Modernity is a very individualistic society in which we place ourselves at the center of every story. This is not historically been the way to read the Bible. Often, we approach the Bible as a devotional and a way to read and make us feel good about ourselves. We interpret the words and teachings through whatever “truth” or personal biases we have applied to our lives. Also, many Christians (myself included) are taught to pick and choose those passages that have meaning to us and ignore some of the harder truths or passages.
Thomas Jefferson famously studied the New Testament but he literally took scissors and cut out the passages that spoke to his moral philosophy and worldview and omitted others. After years of study and copy and pasting, he came up with a book call The Life and Morals of Jesus of Nazareth. I believe everyone should read the Bible regardless of whether they are a Christian or not because of it’s historical and literary impact but no great work should be cut and pasted together to change the message.
“We come to the scriptures to be changed, not to amass information.” Richard Foster
The Bible is not a book of principles or set of rules to be memorized or put into practice. The Bible forces us to reckon with who God is and to look inward at our own beliefs and life. As we read, we look inward and compare our own desires, motives, and way of seeing the world to the Kingdom of God. We see if our inner world compares to the examples in the Bible.
It is also helpful to think about the larger story that is being told. We live in a culture that teaches us and celebrates the idea that we are the hero of our story. That we have to make life work on our own. The Bible teaches us that we are just a small part of a much larger story that was here before we existed and will continue on long after we are gone. The Bible tells us about God’s story and starts from the beginning and goes unto eternity with God being the ultimate victor.
I have been reading the Lord of The Rings series over the past few months and I can’t help but compare this epic tale to many of the stories in the Bible. The greatest stories, the ones that most resonate with us, borrow their power from the Story. There is a reason they speak to us. They are telling us about deeper truths. As Aslan would say in Narnia, a deeper magic.
If you have read The Simarillion by J.R.R. Tolkien, you understand that the Lord of the Rings is but a small story that is a part of a much bigger tale and world of Middle Earth. The Simarillion reads like the Bible. It tells us about how Middle Earth was created, how evil entered, and the story of good vs evil that has been waged since the beginning. The tales from the Lord of The Rings trilogy are but a small, but important part of the entire history. This is what the Bible does for us. It teaches that we are small, mostly insignificant creatures, who have an epic role to play in the story that God is orchestrating. After having read The Similarillion, I have noticed new epic tales and stories of old as I have read through the trilogy. I have context for what has happened and what is happening because I know the larger story.
The Bible gives us a context in which to view the world and events happening all around us. We have to put off our modern ideals and go back to the basics. The Bible gives us this context about who is the author of the story and why we can trust His heart for us. It provides us with orientation when we are going throughout the fog of life as a lighthouse does to a ship at sea in the midst of a storm.
The Bible is also written over a period of hundreds of years, by many different authors, across a variety of genres. There is poetry, narrative, letters written to churches, apocalyptic and prophetic books. John Mark Comer says the Bible is a library more than a book and should be read as a collection of stories. It also requires the reader to slow and shift gears according to the story or literary device being told. It is also written across history and in many different historical contexts that require us to delve into the intended audience for each book.
Practical tips for reading the Bible:
1. Set aside a specific time that is distraction free. Keep your phone in a different room or put on airplane mode. It is best to have a specific space assigned for study and deep reading, if possible. This signals to your brain that it is time for study.
2. Read slowly. Stop on passages that need to be meditated on.
3. Read prayerfully. Pray before deep study and reading to align your heart with God’s heart.
4. Find a translation that you like.
5. It can be helpful to have a guide. There are tons of resources available to assist with guidance with scripture study. I find it helpful to avoid looking up guides on my phone until after study time to avoid distraction.
6. Understand the larger story and think about what you are reading in context of the entire Bible. Just like any major work of literature, you have to understand the full story before passing judgement or diving deeper.
7. Look for examples in your every day life about the things you are reading. This is the way that God teaches us. He uses our diligence in study to send us real life examples.
8. Remember, the Bible is meant to be studied across a lifetime.
What are your best tips for reading the Bible?
I’ve took up the challenge of reading the Bible this past January. I gave myself two years to complete the task. My discipline is reading a minimum of two chapters each morning before I can read anything else. Rarely do I read more than three chapters. After 3 1/2 months I’ve gotten to 1 KINGS.
It’s not what I expected. I found NUMBERS to be mostly about …numbers. I found RUTH, so far the shortest book, to be the most pleasant.
Your article is most helpful. Thanks.
I like the idea that the Bible is a library. It’s an ancient Sears catalog of wisdom, ethics, morals, a guide on how to conduct a life of goodness. Sadly many religions have their own Sears catalog and have tried to make you buy from it, with dire consequences if you shop elsewhere. I think organized “religion” has also been the cause of so much bloodshed over history, instead of each person just being kind and tolerant to others of different faiths. It’s a tough dichotomy to follow. I’m RC catholic and not always proud of its history. I just try to take bits and pieces of advice on how to be fair, honest and kind to others when possible. Life is complicated. (I did not know Tolkien wrote a prequel other than the Hobbit). Thank you for that nugget.