We always encourage people to read the Bible but how often do people get bogged down in some of the chapters that appear to have nothing to do with real life?
Because the point of the special revelation of the Bible is to illuminate God’s plan for redemption of the world and to glorify Christ, this means there are ways we ought NOT to read the Bible. Here are a few bad ways of reading the Scriptures:
- Treating its stories as morality tales, where we rush to apply the stories of God’s people to ourselves as if WE were the heroes in God’s story of redemption, not Jesus.
- Taking parts of the Bible out of their narrative contexts.
- Reducing the epic story of the gospel of Jesus Christ to a disjointed list of statements, propositions, principles or practical tips.
- Treating the Bible like it is Bartlett’s Familiar Quotations, or worse, a bag of fortune cookies.
Also, because the point of the Bible is to glorify Jesus and to capture our hearts in worship of Him, we need to be careful we don’t worship the Bible itself. We are to honor God’s Word, trust God’s Word, treasure God’s Word, and believe God’s Word, but we are called to worship God. This means the only Word we ought to worship is Jesus the Word.
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