Why should we read the Bible? David Mathis answers the question simply and beautifully: to know Christ. If that answer doesn’t jazz you up, consider what Mathis has to say in this short video.
Check it out!
The Obvious Diagnosis (A Parable)
Shanice Garcia (2015), public domain
The light went on for Tyler one day in his mid-twenties. He stepped on the scale and was shocked.
Tyler had always been active, playing sports as a kid and intramurals in college. But now he had a desk job. He tried to run or work out a few times a week, but he often didn’t have the energy.
He never considered himself a glutton, but he ate whatever he wanted in college. He thought nothing of cereal for dinner or a second burger at lunch. Days could pass before he ate a green vegetable.
But the slower pace of life and the gradual accumulation of the years had the effect so many have felt. Tyler was 15 pounds heavier than when he graduated college, and he finally had enough.
Tyler plunged into the world of health and nutrition. He read dozens of books from his library. He investigated the latest fad diets and held them up to the closest scrutiny. Early on, he saw the change he had to make: he needed to eat better.
More vegetables. Fewer sweets. Better choices at the grocery store.
Tyler noticed a difference right away. He slept better. He had tremendous energy. He felt sharper and more focused at work. His weight was down, but that was almost irrelevant—every aspect of his physical and mental well-being was soaring to heights he’d never known.
He soon met others in his city who shared his new passion. As a result of this new friend network, Tyler’s social life exploded. There was the softball team, the weekend triathlon training, and the shared cooking nights. Tyler and one of the women in his group started dating. His calendar was bursting.
Looking back, Tyler would see this social uptick as the turning point.
Eating healthy food takes time. Imperceptibly, Tyler’s food preparation time got squeezed. It started with walking to pick up a sandwich at lunch instead of packing his own. As he stayed out later at night he found less time for breakfast in his apartment, so he’d hit the bagel shop. Pretty soon he was eating carry-out food as often as he was making dinner from scratch.
The transformation continued for several months until Tyler caught a cold. When he couldn’t shake it after two weeks, he went to his doctor.
This doctor had been impressed with Tyler’s health in recent years, so he was surprised to see the vital signs when he walked into the room. Tyler’s weight, pulse rate, and blood pressure were all up, much higher than at his most recent annual physical.
The doctor asked questions about Tyler’s sickness and current lifestyle. He gently probed at Tyler’s exercise and diet, and Tyler confessed to feeling lethargic even before catching this cold.
The doctor finished writing in the chart and leaned back in his chair with a smile. “Tyler, I’ve seen dozens of people with this cold in recent weeks. I’m not worried about it for you. You’ll bounce back within the next two or three days.”
“That’s great,” Tyler said.
“But a healthy young man shouldn’t get knocked so low by a simple cold,” the doctor said. “There’s something else going on.”
Tyler looked worried. “What is it?”
The doctor couldn’t suppress a small laugh. “After the health journey I’ve seen you take over the last several years, I didn’t think I’d say this. But Tyler, you’re not eating well.”
“What?”
“Well, you have healthy friends. You read a lot about nutrition and even hang out in healthy places. Your influences haven’t changed.”
“OK…”
“But you haven’t noticed the slide. You might not talk or think any differently, but your diet right now is miles away from what it was a year ago. In order to be healthy, you actually have to put the healthy food in your body.”
And that’s when the light went on for Tyler a second time.
Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God.
More Reflections on Rapid Bible Reading
Adam Rodriguez undertook my challenge to read the whole Bible quickly at the start of 2017, and he lived to tell about it on his blog. He wasn’t sure about setting aside all the other books he wanted, but found it to be worth the effort. On his blog, he reflects on the experience, with the following reactions:
- I Gained a Deeper Appreciation of the Bible as a Work of Literary Art.
- I See More How Scripture Alludes To Itself.
- I See How the Bible’s Theology Develops Over Time.
- My Love for the Bible was Restored.
I especially appreciated Rodriguez’s third point, which arose from using a historical reading plan—reading the Old Testament books according to the Hebrew order, and the New Testament books in the order they were written. Reading in this way, in a short time, highlight the unfolding revelation of God through human history.
I’m grateful to Adam and the many others who took up the challenge and shared their thoughts on it. May the Lord bless our efforts to better understand him through his word!
Reflections on Rapid Bible Reading
I love challenging people to read the Bible like they’d read any other book. And when folks have been trained their whole Christian lives to read just a few verses at a time, such rapid reading can be thrilling. Here’s what some of you have said about your Bible reading in the last few months:
I was pleasantly surprised to find how much more enjoyable I found reading larger chunks of Scripture as opposed to the choppiness of reading smaller sections. It was also nice not to get bogged down in the typical sections but to sprint through them as part of their larger story.
Though I have been a believer for years, I have never successfully finished a cover to cover reading plan. I learned in this challenge that a short term goal is easier for me to attain. I found that consuming large portions of Scripture increased my understanding and led to wonderful discussions with my husband. This Bible reading challenge was life changing.
Previous to this I struggled with actually wanting to read the Bible, since to me it was kind of boring in places. When I heard about your challenge, I was originally just doing it for the prize. However reading through the Bible in such a short period of time was very enjoyable for me. Never staying in the same book for more than a couple days kept me interested through the whole Bible.
I felt spiritually so much more alive diving into Scripture evert single day for three months, and getting a broad overview of Scripture. I would not trade this time in God’s word, as He really used it to strengthen my faith and give me a fuller picture of who He is.
I have read through the Bible using a one-year plan many times, but reading it in 90 days was life-changing. God knew I needed this challenge, as He has used this concentrated time His Word to humble me and increase my awe of Him. Glory to God!
When you read 16 chapters in a row (many times whole books all at once) you can truly grasp and remember the context of the situation a whole lot more.
After spending weeks in the prophets with their largely unheeded calls to repentance, getting to Matthew was like a breath of fresh air! This helped me appreciate various parts of scripture for explaining different things clearer and more vividly.
I had been very far from God for the past several years and hadn’t read the Bible in a while, and now that I have repented and am following Jesus again, I thought it would be good to read the whole thing through. 30 days wasn’t really that hard for me because I read really fast. What was hard for me was not stopping to analyze everything or ask a million questions. As I read I kept a list of my overall impression of what each book revealed about God’s heart and character. Overall it was an amazing experience and I’m super glad I did it.
It was difficult at times, yet it was such a blessing to develop the discipline of consistently reading long portions of the word. I developed a feel for the flow of the Bible.
I have to say that it was a life changing experience. I never considered such a thing as helpful. I had read the Bible many times in the past, but never in such big portions and never in such a short time. It amazed me the impact and insight this practice had on my life. The discipline was invaluable. This practice of reading through the Bible will be part of my daily life from now on.
I feel more like I have “the whole bible” in my mind now than I ever have before. It was also great to get to see all the interconnections, like for example I read Joel and the first chapters of acts on the same day. It has made me think that I want to get the benefits of breadth even while doing deep study.
Reading the Bible at this pace was so much fun. I hadn’t read the Bible in chunks like this since freshman year in college, when I wasn’t a Christian, but figured I should read the whole Scriptures to get a better idea what it was all about. Returning to this approach after 5 years of following Christ was thus pretty neat. Like the first time, I was struck by the unity of the Scriptures from front to back. Jesus Christ truly is the same yesterday, today and forever.
I’ve always loved reading any book like this, and the Bible is unique in the diversity and unity within it. Getting lost in history, or a running argument between Job and his friends, or multiple Psalms all has value it’s hard to get in the morning bursts of drilling into a particular passage. And meditating on the trajectory of God’s work in history is really cool. This is going to be an annual tradition for sure, external incentives or not.
This has actually inspired me to try to read whole books of the Bible in as close to one sitting as possible.
Now I’ll be the first to admit that reading the whole Bible in exactly 90 days or less is not for everyone:
Reading the NT is not so bad, but reading the OT tends to hit a wall somewhere around Psalms/Proverbs/prophets, where there’s less of a narrative to follow.
I do believe that listening to the Bible on a regular basis will be doable, I just can’t stand sit and read through it quickly.
Honestly, it bothered me to read through/listen to the Bible so quickly. I am the type of person that likes to focus on one book for an extended period, about a month for Ephesians, for example.
I started with Genesis, and thoroughly enjoyed the process. But next I went for Job, and really struggled to not let my mind wander. I thought that listening to Matthew next would be ‘easier’. But I still struggled to pay proper attention. So I decided to stop last week, as there didn’t seem much point doing it just to say that I’ve done it. I was listening while walking, so the distractions should have been limited. But I was doing so at the end of a working day. So perhaps I was too tired.
But despite the fact that not everyone was in a position to complete the reading, I’m encouraged by how many came to see the value of reading larger portions of Scripture. Whether it’s a 90-day full read-through of the Bible, or simply an occasional one-sitting read-through of a single book, may the Lord help us to encourage others to read the Bible like a masterpiece of literature. May the Lord use this process to deepen our understanding of him, as we receive his revelation, in context, with deeper understanding and greater benefit for the world.
ESV 6-Volume Reader’s Bible, Part 2: Last Impressions
In the first review, O God-lover, I have dealt with all that Crossway began to conceive and risk, until the day they presented the world an utterly uncluttered, heretofore unseen, edition of God’s word. They showed us a living and active book, appearing to the populace just like any other book, yet speaking about the kingdom of God. And just as this edition’s first eyewitnesses delivered many opinions to us, it seemed good to me also, having now read every page of the 6-volume set, to write an orderly account for you, most excellent Theophilus, that you may have certainty concerning whether this literary wonder should grace your shelves.
For the facts about the physical books, page layout, and specifications, please see my first review. For reflections on the reading experience itself, read on.
The Bible tells a story
I wouldn’t be surprised if you’ve heard it before: The Bible tells a unified story, beginning to end, of God’s glorious rescue, through Christ, of his fallen creation. But, though you’re familiar with the idea, do you read the Bible like a story? That is, do you read the Bible the way you would read a story? Beginning to end. Pages at a time. Devouring the drama. Anxiously awaiting the next plot twist.
Most people read the Bible like an encyclopedia. Or like a menu. Or like a codebook. And most Bible typesetting encourages us to read the Bible in these ways.
But the clean look of the ESV Reader’s Bible, 6 Volume Set expects you to read the Bible as you’d read any other book. It encourages you to keep reading and reading. There are no big black numbers coercing you to a screeching halt every few verses. There are no verses. You can’t snack on this thing. All you can do is binge.
And if you get into a theological debate with someone, and this edition is all that’s handy, your only recourse to objection is to read (or tell) a story. Sort of like what Jesus did when he faced opposition…
The Poetry drips with glory
I’ve often struggled with the Bible’s poetry. It often just doesn’t connect with me the way I hear it does for other people. But that has always surprised me, because I have no problem enjoying other poetry. I’ve read Shakespeare, Longfellow, and others to great profit. And I’ve grown to love Proverbs and Job, but Psalms and the Prophets are hard, hard going.
And I now wonder how much my struggle has to do with the typesetting more than the content.
In reading the 6-volume set, I could not put the Psalms down. The Prophets were still challenging, but they felt more…personal. It’s amazing what happens when you get the verse numbers, excessive footnotes, and narrow columns out of the way. Volumes 3 (Poetry) and 4 (Prophets) look and feel like other poetry collections. They sit nicely in hand, invite a nightcap, and call for extended reflection. I know I could read the Psalms meditatively in any version of the Bible, but the reader’s set basically begged me to do so.
Reading the Bible is fun again
As a child and pre-teen, I loved to read. And I learned young that, if I wanted to read the Bible, my best option was to take up a story Bible. The Bible itself was for study, preaching, or classes. Lengthier consumption—you know, the kind done after hours under the covers with a flashlight—was reserved for the “interesting,” the “engaging” re-tellings of biblical tales in children’s Bibles or youth story books.
But discovering God’s word, as presented in the ESV’s 6 Volume Set, rekindled a joy in reading God’s word like I have never experienced. Perhaps this set might do the same for you.
Conclusion
You can tell this review is not so much about this specific edition of the ESV, as it is more about the philosophy that birthed said edition. This philosophy ought to be shouted from the mountaintops. I hope this experiment of Crossway’s provokes a revolution among Bible publishers. I hope we see a similar reader’s edition for every translation. Since the ESV set, one has been published for the KJV. I’m aware of both single-volume and multi-volume reader’s Bibles coming this spring for the NIV. Perhaps more are on the way.
I doubt we’ll ever lose our unreasonably cluttered editions of the Bible altogether. They are useful, after all, for study, preaching, and classes. But I hope new generations of Christians can be brought up learning to simply read the Bible. It is, after all, a book. Or 6.
ESV Reader’s Bible, Six-Volume Set. Get it at Amazon or Westminster.
Disclaimer: Amazon and Westminster links are affiliate links. If you click them and buy stuff, we’ll get a small commission, thus enabling our ongoing Bible reading binge.
Last Chance to Win an ESV Reader’s Bible, 6-Volume Set
If you’ve been working on reading the whole Bible since January 1, you have only two days remaining to finish and email me to enter the drawing. Reminder: We’ve got two copies of the ESV Reader’s Bible, 6-Volume Set to give away. I will select and email the two winners this weekend. So far, I’ve received 21 entries. Though only two can win, I believe those are better odds than most online giveaways!
Please see the official contest rules for how to enter. I have responded directly to everyone who has entered so far. So if you tried to contact me and didn’t hear back, please try again.
Lessons From This Year’s Speed-Read
On March 9, I completed my 7th annual speed-read of the Bible. If you’d like to know why I do an annual speed read, see my Bible reading plan for readers. This year, I used the ESV Reader’s Bible, 6 Volume Set. I chose not to supplement with an audio Bible, so I could get my eyes on every page of the new 6-volume set. Next week I’ll offer my final impressions of the 6-volume set and its presentation, but this week I’ll share my biggest takeaways from the stupendous subject matter.
In canonical order, here’s how the Lord impressed me through his word over the last 10 weeks:
- Partly under the influence of having just read Hays’s delightful The Temple and the Tabernacle, I was better able to see the differences between Kings’ and Chronicles’ treatment of Solomon building the temple. The narrative of Kings clearly has a hint of something sinister, particularly in contrast to Moses’ erection of the tabernacle. Solomon receives no direct mandate from the Lord. He does not build things according to a heavenly pattern. There is no repetition of instructions and construction (as in Exodus 25-31 and Exodus 35-40). In the narrative of Kings, Solomon’s construction of the temple has more than a hint of the beginning of Solomon’s fall. However, the narrative of Chronicles clearly portrays the temple construction under direct and explicit divine blessing. In the flow of that story, Solomon’s building of the temple is the beginning of Israel’s greatness, which the exiles attempt to recover. These different perspectives on the same event are very interesting indeed.
- I have never been a big fan of the Psalms. I prefer narrative and wisdom literature. But each year, my love for the Psalms deepens. The 6-Volume Set encouraged me to read Psalms in 5 sittings, as 5 “books.” Each book held together really well, beginning and ending on a similar note, and grouping psalms in some intuitive ways. As I get more familiar with the book, I’m enjoying it much more.
- When reading Isaiah and Jeremiah, I usually feel like I’m swimming in molasses. It’s slow going, I’m easily stuck, and whatever I try to grab slips through my fingers. Part of the problem is that I’ve never had opportunity to study these books at length. This year, I began to see glimmers of structure in these books, and that gave me just the footholds I needed to feel a sense of progress and development throughout.
- When I read the New Testament, I usually follow my favorite four-track reading plan, with each track beginning with a gospel and ending with the related epistles. This year, I went straight through canonically, except that I flipped Luke and John in order to read Luke-Acts together. What impressed me was, after reading all 4 gospels in a row, the book of Acts felt glorious. Seeing the apostles perform the works of Jesus, and do even greater things (taking the gospel out to all nations) thrilled me like never before.
- After reading all of Paul’s epistles in a row, Hebrews shone afresh. This “word of exhortation” (Heb 13:22) is likely a transcribed sermon, and as I read, I could almost hear an apostle preaching it. Reading Hebrews in one sitting is something that must be done if we are to get the big idea. And imagine what might happen in our churches if this inspired sample sermon shaped our preaching today.
If you joined this year’s reading challenge—and even if you haven’t completed the Bible—I’d love to hear what struck you as you read.
Disclaimer: The Amazon link above is an affiliate link. If you click it and buy stuff, we’ll get a small commission at no extra cost to you. Thanks for your support!
Addressing Our Bible Boredom
In his article entitled “Why Are So Many Christians Bored With the Bible?”, Marshall Segal tackles the problem head-on:
Unfortunately, many Christians love the idea of the Bible, but not really the Bible itself. We love having a Bible close by, even within reach, but don’t make time to open it on an average day. We talk about Bible reading like we talk about cutting calories or cleaning our house. We’re grateful for the results, but we don’t wake up dying to do it again. It sounds like a fine thing to do, until we have to choose what we won’t do in order to make time for it.
He paints a picture of what could be. Imagine being able to pray this biblical prayer (paraphrased from Psalm 119:14-20:
I enjoy reading the Bible more than the wealthy enjoy all their houses, cars, technology, and vacations. God, your word will be my first priority and focus each day. I will read and read the Bible, until I cannot forget it. Give me more grace, O God, and enable me to obey what I’ve read. Help me see more today than I’ve already seen before, even in these same pages. I only wish I had more time to read more of my Bible.
And he identifies the source of our boredom: We treat the Bible as an old book, and not as the words of a living, knowable person.
Do you want a better relationship with your Creator and Redeemer? It is right there for the taking. And Segal has some great ideas to help you move in the right direction.
You Can Still Win a 6-Volume ESV Reader’s Bible
There is still plenty of time to enter the drawing for one of two sets of the ESV Reader’s Bible, 6-Volume Set. So far, three people have completed the reading to enter the drawing. There is more time remaining than has yet gone by, so it’s not too late to begin reading the whole Bible! Reminder: You have until March 31 to read the whole Bible. Then email me to let me know how it went for you. You can email peter.krol@knowableword.com or use the contact form on the website. Click to see the official contest rules.
I will return the emails of everyone who enters the drawing. So if you’ve emailed me and haven’t gotten a reply, please try again with the contact form.
And to inspire you, here are some insightful reflections from a guy who read the whole Bible in one week.
5 Ways Daily Bible Reading Will Change Your Life
Keely Needham writes about “5 Ways Daily Bible Reading Impacts Your Life.” Sometimes we struggle to feel excited about daily Bible reading, and that’s normal. We shouldn’t expect a mountaintop experience every time. The daily discipline will, sometime imperceptibly, change our lives.
Why should we read the Bible every day? Does it make a difference? Is it just something good Christians do? Or is it a legalistic habit that’s unnecessary to a healthy walk with God? If we don’t understand why it matters, we likely won’t make it a priority. Here are five analogies to bring to life the purposes of a consistent, daily study of God’s Word.
Her 5 metaphors for how daily Bible reading affects us:
- A House: Getting to know God
- An Anchor: Renewing your mind
- Glasses: Giving clarity
- Chemo: Killing sin
- Vocab: Fuel for a living relationship
So as you keep plugging away, you are getting to know this true God, and you’re learning how to view yourself and live in God’s world. There’s often not much razzle-dazzle, but the transformation is still supernatural and glorious.
See the full article for more explanation. Check it out!
