A Better Way to Read the Bible
You’ve probably heard the Bible used to tell people what to think, how to live, or who’s right. I think it was meant for something deeper than that. When I read the Bible, I want to understand what it’s saying, not just finish a section or check it off a list. Around here, we slow down. We ask honest questions. We look at the story through ancient eyes and try to discover what it’s really saying and why it still matters today. Because I believe the Bible and the story it tells were never meant to control people, but to lead us toward wholeness with God, with others, and with ourselves.
Early in my faith, my approach to the Bible looked a lot like this. I’d be facing something stressful, maybe a challenge at work or a season where I felt distant from God, and I’d pray, “God, show me what you want to say.” Then I’d flip open my Bible at random and start reading wherever I landed. Sometimes that was Proverbs or Psalms. Sometimes I found something meaningful. Sometimes I didn’t. For a long time, that was how I read. I treated the Bible like a spiritual vending machine, pulling out a verse that might help me for the day. And while God can absolutely speak through any passage at any time, I began to realize something. That kind of reading doesn’t always help you understand what the Bible is actually saying. It can pull a verse out of its context and twist its meaning without realizing it. The Bible wasn’t written to be read like a string of inspirational quotes. It’s a collection of writings that tell a single, unfolding story about God and humanity. The more we treat it that way, the more it begins to open up.
When people ask where to start, I usually tell them to begin with the Gospel of Mark. It’s short, direct, and focused on the essentials of Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection. It moves quickly and it’s not weighed down by a lot of cultural references that can make other books harder to follow at first. Mark gives you an overview of who Jesus is and what he came to do. Once you’ve spent time there, the rest of Scripture starts to make a lot more sense.
Most of us read the Bible to accomplish something. We want to get through a chapter or finish a reading plan. But a better way to read it is to read to understand it. That means slowing down, taking one verse or a small section at a time, and asking questions as you go. What does this word mean? Who’s speaking? Why is this happening? What’s going on around it? Reading slow gives space for curiosity to grow. It lets you notice things you might otherwise rush past.
Take the opening of Mark for example. “The beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God. As it is written in Isaiah the prophet: ‘Look, I am sending my messenger ahead of you, who will prepare your way.’” If you stop there and look at the footnotes, you’ll see something interesting. Mark says he’s quoting Isaiah, but he’s also drawing from Malachi. He’s merging two passages to show how Jesus fulfills both. That discovery alone changes how you read the rest of the story. But you wouldn’t see it if you were racing to finish a chapter. Reading slow gives the text time to breathe. It allows questions to form, and those questions often lead you deeper into understanding.
Every verse belongs to a paragraph, every paragraph to a section, and every section to a larger story. When something stands out, don’t stop there. Read what comes before and after. Ask how this moment fits into the bigger picture. A study Bible can help you here. It doesn’t replace your own reading, but it gives background, notes, and connections that help you see how the story threads together. Over time, you’ll start noticing patterns, the same ideas, words, or symbols showing up again and again. That’s not random. It’s how the Bible tells its story, weaving many voices into one conversation.
And there’s no race to finish. There’s no spiritual prize for reading the Bible in a year. What matters is letting the story sink in. If it takes you twenty years to read it because you’re pausing to ask questions, think deeply, and wrestle with what you’re learning, that’s a good thing. The goal isn’t speed, it’s transformation.
So read slowly. Ask questions. Follow the footnotes. Talk about what you find with others. Let the story challenge your assumptions and deepen your faith. Because the point of reading the Bible isn’t to get through it. It’s to let it get through to you.
