Do We Have to Read the Bible?

This week’s scripture is from 2 Timothy 3:16-17 which says:

All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, so that the servant of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work.

To the degree that we seek to move in the direction of becoming a true disciple of Christ, we need to understand the foundational principles involved and one of those is regular Bible reading (or at least it would be hard to argue otherwise).  However, the statistics are not consistent with that belief.  In a recent study by the American Bible Society and the Barna group, only around one-third of Americans profess to read the Bible more frequently than monthly.

So, that leads to two questions: 1) is it important to read the Bible? and 2) if it is indeed important, why is Bible readership so low?

In today’s scripture, Timothy explains why reading the Bible is important……….so that we can serve God and be thoroughly equipped for every good work.  Those are very good reasons and very hard to argue against so let’s start with the assumption that reading the Bible really is important.

The real question then becomes why Bible readership is low.  For any particular individual, there may be many reasons but at least three of those reasons probably apply to most of us – 1) a world filled with distractions, 2) the “nobody’s looking” effect, and 3) reading the Bible is intimidating.

Compared to previous generations, we live very busy lives.  We go from thing to thing and even when we’re between things we’re checking things on our phone.  And, of course, there’s a new episode of Game of Thrones and Justified that we have to watch!

The “nobody’s looking” effect is exactly what it sounds like – nobody’s looking so we’re not going to get any credit for it so why do it?  The flip side of that is that nobody’s looking so we’re not going to be penalized for not doing it.

Additionally, the Bible can be very intimidating.  Where do you start?  Are you supposed to read straight through?  And what’s up with those names – Mahershalalhashbaz?  Bashanhavothjair?

As usual, there is no intent to elicit feelings of guilt but simply to explore one of the central themes of a true Christian walk which is reading the Bible.  Here are some questions to consider:

• How much time should we dedicate to reading the Bible?
• How would you explain to a friend or neighbor why reading the Bible is important?
• If you are not reading the Bible “enough”, what is keeping you from doing so?
• What strategies can we employ to become more consistent Bible readers?