Why Read The Bible (I)

Why should Christians read the Bible? That's the question we're going to be looking at over the next couple of days.

I guess before we start, we should talk about bad reasons to read the Bible. There are bad reasons to read the Bible? Sure. Reading the Bible well needs prayer and attention, if we read the Bible for the wrong reason, we're bound to be lacking one of those.

So, we don't read the Bible to do God a favour. Father, Son and Holy Spirit will do just fine forever, if you and i never open the Bible again. He is not sitting on the edge of His seat waiting for us to do Him a favour. A God that needs us, or anything outside of Himself to be satisfied is no sort of God. If we read the Bible to do God a favour, it will probably always be a joyless experience. Our eyes won't be on Christ, they'll be on the clock, we won't see beauty in the narrative, but boredom, they'll be no grace beheld in the law, just the demands of an insecure deity. Don't read the Bible to do God a favour!

And don't read the Bible to earn points. A verse a day keeps the devil away right? No! Bible reading is not a magic spell to keep us close to Jesus, it's not something we do to earn our boy-scout badge. Again, this view of the Bible points to a very low view of God. A God of the notebook, a God who is keeping score. When we read the Bible this way, again, there will be no joy. There will be concern that we haven't read long enough or well enough, guilt when we can't read for some reason. Again, our eyes won't be on Jesus, they will be on us, and when, ten minutes later, we've forgotten what we've just read, we'll feel condemned. Don't read the Bible to earn points, because, however deep down it is, you know you'll never earn enough.

The Bible is not 'basic instructions before leaving earth.' If it is, what sort of instruction is the genealogies, or the temple laws, or the battles? The Bible is not a book about you and me, so don't read it like that. Paul was writing to Rome, not Greenville, Jeremiah prophesied to exiles in Babylon, not the 21st century secular world. You and I are not in the Bible. We're just not there, so stop trying to find yourself. Look at Jesus instead, behold Him in Genesis, bathe in His love in the Song, be convicted by Him in the Gospels and honour Him in all of life in the letters.

Simply, if we read the Bible for any other reason than to make much of God in Christ, we'll miss the point. Open the Bible, and search the city for your beloved...