How Should I Read the Bible?

Paul's great claim is that every Scripture is God-breathed. The word he uses points to the divine origin of Scripture. The Bible is not merely a record of wise human thoughts about God. It is breathed out by God Himself.

This means Scripture carries a unique authority. When the Bible speaks, God speaks. When it teaches, corrects or warns, those words carry the weight of the One who inspired them.

This does not mean the human authors were passive dictation machines. God worked through their personalities, experiences and writing styles. But what they wrote was exactly what God intended to be written, and therefore it is fully trustworthy.

Holding to this matters greatly. If the Bible is merely human in origin, we are free to accept the parts we like and dismiss what makes us uncomfortable. But if it is God-breathed, we must receive all of it with reverence and humility.

Paul tells Timothy that the holy Scriptures are able to make him wise for salvation through faith which is in Christ Jesus.

This is the great purpose of the Bible. Not to make us clever, not to settle every curiosity, not even primarily to improve our general character. Scripture is given to show us the way of salvation and to lead us to Christ.

This shapes how we read. Every part of the Bible, read well and read whole, points toward Jesus. The Old Testament prepares for Him and promises Him. The New Testament announces, explains and applies His coming. A Bible read without reference to Christ is a Bible misread.

This means Bible reading should regularly ask: what does this tell me about God, about humanity's need, and about Jesus Christ as the answer to that need? When those questions guide us, the Bible becomes not a confusing library but a unified and life-giving message.

One of the most common ways the Bible is misused is by pulling verses out of their setting and applying them in ways the original writer never intended.

Every passage of Scripture was written in a particular context: a specific time, a specific audience, a specific situation. To understand what a passage means, we need to ask what it meant in that original setting before we ask what it means for us today.

This takes more effort than grabbing a verse at random. But it produces much richer fruit. When we understand why Paul wrote a particular letter, to whom and about what, the individual verses in that letter come alive with much greater clarity.

Helpful questions to ask when reading: Who is writing, and to whom? What is the situation that prompted this? How does this passage connect to what comes before and after? What is the main point? Only then: how does this apply to my life?

Paul lists what Scripture is useful for: teaching, reproof, correction and instruction in righteousness. Notice that three of the four items on that list involve some form of challenge or adjustment.

This means that if we read the Bible only to have our existing opinions confirmed, we are not really submitting to it. The Bible will regularly teach us things we did not know, correct things we have believed wrongly and call us to change patterns in our lives.

Humble reading means going to Scripture expecting to be taught, willing to be corrected and ready to obey. It means holding our own interpretations loosely enough to be shown when we are wrong.

Obedient reading means that the point of reading is not to accumulate a store of knowledge but to live differently. James warns that those who hear the Word without doing it are like people who look at their reflection and immediately forget what they saw. The Bible is not meant to be observed from a safe distance. It is meant to shape a life.

Paul says that Scripture equips the person belonging to God for every good work. Not some good works. Every good work.

This means we should resist the temptation to have favourite parts of the Bible that we return to constantly while neglecting the rest. The parts that seem less immediately relevant or more difficult often contain truth we deeply need.

Reading through whole books of the Bible, rather than hopping between favourite verses, gives us a much richer picture of God's character, purposes and ways. It also protects us from developing a distorted or partial theology.

A steady, patient, whole-Bible diet over a lifetime produces something that selective reading cannot: a deep, broad, balanced knowledge of God's Word that shapes every part of our thinking and living.