How We’ve Done Bible Study Wrong
November 8, 2021
I have a few questions for you that I’m sure you’ll know the answer to, but let’s just try them out...
What is the best-selling book of all time?
What is the book that has been translated to the most languages?
What is the book that we have the most original manuscripts for?
What does almost every American household have, and possibly up to 3 of, that usually gathers dust and never gets picked up?
Well the correct answer is “The Bible.” Take it from me, I walk in a lot of houses as a Reator, and I can guarantee you that I see a Bible somewhere in the house everytime. How is it that so many of us have this life-altering, living, breathing book in our homes, and yet so many are still unchanged by it or barely know what it actually says? After working in ministry, talking to friends, and even my own time in the Word, I believe that many of us let it gather dust or pick it up only when something difficult is going on. This could be because we don’t see it’s relevance, we don’t understand it, or know even know where to begin when studying it.
“Even among Protestant churchgoers, only 32% say they read the Bible every day and more than half of Protestant churchgoers at 57% say they find it challenging to make sense of the Bible when they read it on their own.” According to LifeWay Research.
So first of all, you are not alone. And second of all, I want to help you in this journey of understanding Scripture better. Over the next month, I am going to help you unpack some of the ways we study and read Scripture that are not helpful and then teach you ways that I truly believe will help make your time in God’s Word fruitful.
We live at a time where the Bible is easily accessible to all of us, but we are becoming more and more illiterate in Scripture. Why is that? Well, first you might be thinking, I’m not illiterate, because I can read. And yes, you probably can read. But being able to “read” is not the same thing as actually being literate. Take it from a former 3rd grade teacher. I had students that could read the words on a page, but if you began asking them any kind of questions about the text, they couldn’t answer them. It’s two different things. Bible literacy occurs when we read Scripture for comprehension in order to to rightly understand the message God is conveying.
Most of us in America have the skill of being able to read the words on that crispy, thin page in our Bible, but many of us walk away more confused than when we began, especially when we just throw open our Bible and read wherever it lands. Anyone ever opened their Bible and you come across a talking donkey or God telling people to cover their feces or a page long list of genealogies? And you close it back, check your Bible reading off for the day and then wonder what in the world that has to do with the big picture of Scripture, or even your own life? Don’t leave me hanging here. I know you have opened to Leviticus at some point and then shut the book back right away and said, “Nope, not going there today.”
When we start to do that too much, or find ourselves just checking our daily Bible readings off for the day and not really digging in, we are going to start becoming illiterate. We flip around from passage to passage, getting pieces of a story, but never understanding it in its context or its place in the metanarrative of Scripture. Think about it. We don’t read anything else like that. I read other books from cover to cover, or recipes from beginning to end, or directions, etc. Because if I didn’t, it would not make sense. So why do we read Scripture piece meal? This is not a scolding or a reprimand to read your Bible everyday like a checklist and go through it in a year every year. That’s not what it’s about. I want you to go deeper in the time you do spend. I would rather you read 3 times a week and have a deeper study time, than 5 minutes of superficial reading everyday. So if your desire is to go deeper and understand Scripture more, then first things first, we have to look at the ways we have done it poorly in the past or have gotten it backwards at times.
Let’s look at how we have done it backwards…
First of all, in her book, Women of the Word, Jen Wilkin talks about how most Christians think it should come easily. I mean we have the Holy Spirit right? Isn’t He supposed to enlighten us with wisdom, knowledge, and understanding? Yes, He does. But did I need to actually put forth effort back when I was in school, or did I just depend on Him to relay all answers to me even though I forgot to study for a test? No, you studied. You knew how to be a student back then and put forth the effort.
“Did you know the word disciple means ‘learner?’ As a disciple of Christ, you and I are called to learn, and learning requires effort. It also requires good study methods.” Says Wilkin.
When we are in school, we have to put effort in when learning a subject. Scripture is the exact same way! So this is going to take work and effort on our part.
Secondly, we read the Bible asking the wrong questions. We usually read it asking: What does this mean for my life? Who am I? What should I do about this? Those aren’t bad questions. It’s just not the right time to ask them when we first start reading a passage. The Bible is not a book about us. It’s about God. Each story is always revealing to us who God is.
Wilkin says, “We must read and study the Bible with our ears trained on hearing God’s declaration of himself. The Bible does tell us who we are and what we should do, but it does so through the lens of who God is. The knowledge of God and the knowledge of self go hand in hand...Any study of the Bible that seeks to establish our identity without first proclaiming God’s identity will render partial and limited help. We must first ask: ‘What does this passage teach me about God?’ before we ask it to teach us anything about ourselves.”
Thirdly, we have poor reading habits. Wilkin lists ways we have approached Scripture poorly such as, using it like a Magic 8 ball and hoping it’ll answer that one dying question we have about life, or flipping it open and putting your finger down and reading only that passage, or using it as a happy pill and only opening it up when you are sad or discouraged to hopefully get a boost of endorphins. Or maybe you skip certain books or passages, because they aren’t relevant or just too difficult to read. Scripture says itself in 2 Timothy 3:16-17 that “All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work.”
Friend, every piece of Scripture is God breathed and inspired. I don’t want to miss one thing He has to say, but we have to learn how to read it all to gain a better and growing understanding of it. I would rather read less and have a more confident understanding of it, than have it all read and not understand a thing. I know this post may have messed up your Bible reading plan for the year, eek! But if you’ll join me on this journey, I promise to help give you some tips and tools to help you become more literate in Scripture so that you can know God more, enjoy His Word, and live the abundant life He has for you. So check back next week for our 1st study tool to help your study time!
