Starting to read the Bible

Why read the Bible?

Many new believers open a Bible and find it daunting: a thick book of unfamiliar names and old ways of speaking. It is really a library of many books. The Old Testament was written before Jesus came; the New Testament tells of his life and holds the teaching of his apostles, the witnesses he sent out. ‘Testament’ here means covenant, the promise by which God binds his people to himself.

Churches, the gatherings of people who belong to Jesus, everywhere receive the Bible as God's word. The apostle Paul wrote to Timothy, a young church leader who had known the Scriptures since childhood:

From infancy you have known the Holy Scriptures, which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus. All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful … so that the man of God may be complete, fully equipped for every good work.

2 Timothy 3:15-17

‘God-breathed’ means that God breathed it out: written by people, it comes from him (The inspiration and authority of Scripture, in the doctrine course). It leads us to Christ and salvation, and helps those who believe to grow.

On the day he rose, Jesus walked with two discouraged disciples on the road to Emmaus, and "beginning with Moses and all the Prophets, He explained to them what was written in all the Scriptures about Himself" (Luke 24:27). Moses and the Prophets, those who spoke God's word to his people, stand for the Old Testament. So reading the Bible is above all meeting Jesus: the Old Testament promises him, and the New tells what he came to do.

The Psalms are the prayers and songs of Israel, and one of them sings:

Your word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path.

Psalm 119:105

The first psalm describes the blessed person: "his delight is in the Law of the LORD, and on His law he meditates day and night" (Psalm 1:2). The law here means God's teaching, and to meditate is to turn his words over until they settle in your heart.

What the Reformed confessions teach

The Reformed churches grew from the sixteenth-century Reformation, a movement to renew the church by Scripture, in the line of teachers such as John Calvin. Presbyterians are the best known; the Reformed churches of continental Europe are another branch, and among Baptists the Reformed Baptists confess the same faith. Among their confessions, written statements of what a church believes, the Westminster Confession (1646) says that all things necessary for God's glory, our salvation, faith and life are either set down in Scripture or may be drawn from it ch. 1.6, and the Belgic Confession (1561) that Scripture is sufficient: whatever we ought to believe for salvation ‘is sufficiently taught therein’ art. 7.

Does that mean only scholars can read it? The Westminster Confession grants that not everything in Scripture is equally plain, and goes on:

those things which are necessary to be known, believed, and observed, for salvation, are so clearly propounded and opened … that not only the learned, but the unlearned, in a due use of the ordinary means, may attain unto a sufficient understanding of them.

Westminster Confession, ch. 1.7

‘Propounded and opened’ means set out and explained; the ‘ordinary means’ are the ordinary ways of reading, hearing, asking and learning. The same confession says that our full assurance that Scripture is God's word comes from ‘the inward work of the Holy Spirit, bearing witness by and with the Word in our hearts’ ch. 1.5, and that the ‘inward illumination of the Spirit of God’ is needed to understand it savingly ch. 1.6. Illumination means giving light. As the risen Jesus "opened their minds to understand the Scriptures" (Luke 24:45), so the Holy Spirit, who is God, one with the Father and the Son, opens the minds of readers today. The confession also teaches that ‘the infallible rule of interpretation of Scripture is the Scripture itself’: a hard passage is to be understood by others that speak more clearly ch. 1.9. Interpreting Scripture, in the theology course, takes this further.

The Westminster catechisms, which teach by question and answer, also say how to read. The Larger Catechism asks us to read with reverence, with a desire to know, believe and obey God's will, and with diligence, meditation, application and prayer Larger Catechism, Q. 157. The Shorter Catechism answers that, for the Word to do its saving work,

we must attend thereunto with diligence, preparation, and prayer; receive it with faith and love, lay it up in our hearts, and practice it in our lives.

Westminster Shorter Catechism, Q. 90

Reading leads into living. James says, "Be doers of the word, and not hearers only" (James 1:22).

Every church urges its people to read the Bible. The Catholic Church receives Scripture together with the sacred Tradition handed down from the apostles, and teaches that the church's teaching office, which stands under the word of God, interprets them Catechism of the Catholic Church. The Orthodox churches of the East read Scripture within the Tradition carried on by the early church's teachers, its councils and its worship. The Reformed honour the church's teaching but place it under Scripture; Scripture alone, in the Reformed course, explains why.

How to begin

If you start at Genesis and read straight through, you may lose your way among the laws of sacrifice in Leviticus. Begin instead with one of the four Gospels, the books that tell of Jesus' life, death and rising: Mark, the shortest, or John, which shows most deeply who Jesus is. Then read Acts, the story of the first church, and Genesis, where the whole story begins. Alongside them, read a psalm a day; the Psalms will give you words for prayer.

Choose a set time and place, morning or evening, and read a little every day. Read whole books from beginning to end rather than single verses picked here and there. The Bible's books are stories, letters and songs, and a verse means what it means within its book.

As you read, ask three questions. What does it say? What does it mean? What does it ask of me? Before you read, pray with the psalmist, "Open my eyes that I may see wondrous things from Your law" (Psalm 119:18); afterwards, thank God for what you have seen.

The Bible is not only for reading on your own. When the exiles had come home to Jerusalem, Ezra and the Levites read God's law to the people, "explaining it and giving insight, so that the people could understand" (Nehemiah 8:8). In Berea, those who heard Paul "examined the Scriptures every day" (Acts 17:11). Today the sermon, the Bible explained to the gathered church, and Bible study groups do this work. Where a passage puzzles you, mark it, read on, and ask your pastor or those you read with. On translations, see Which Bible translation should I read?; on reading well, How should we read the Bible?; on trusting it, Can the Bible be trusted?

This week

Read Mark, a chapter a day. Begin with chapter 1, at the same time each day; ask the three questions, and write down one verse that stays with you. If you already read Mark through after the first lesson, read John a chapter a day instead.

Pray before you read. One sentence is enough: Lord, help me to see Jesus in what I read today.

Find someone to read with. Ask whether your church has a Bible study group, and take your questions to the pastor. The next lesson is about learning to pray.

Practice