This is the sixth and final installment in a series.
- Part 1 can be found here.
- Part 2 can be found here.
- Part 3 can be found here.
- Part 4 can be found here.
- Part 5 can be found here.
I want to close this series on reading through the Bible by discussing our motivation for reading the Bible. As I reflect on my motives for reading God’s word, I know that many times in my life I had improper or inadequate or just unclear motives. I want to discuss some of those in this post as well as present what I think may be the best motivation.
- We should not read the Bible to get God’s favor on our lives. Sometimes Christians look at Bible reading like a good luck charm, but that is an improper, even unspiritual motive for reading the Bible. I used to think of spiritual disciplines (such as Bible reading and prayer) as ways to ensure God’s good favor in my life. When I played soccer in high school, I remember once seeing a teammate score a goal by making a really great kick that the goalie could not reach. Another teammate (this was a Christian school) yelled out, “He had his devotions this morning!” He was kidding; unfortunately, a lot of Christians (including me, at one time) look at spiritual disciplines just that way. We see doing good works as ways to improve our standing with God and ensure his blessings on us. If you think that way–that is, if you believe that reading through the Bible will improve your standing with God–you have an improper motivation. In fact, your motivation is inherently unChristian. The New Testament teaches clearly that any standing we have with God is based on what God through Christ did for us, not what we did or do for him. It is what the Bible calls grace, and our relationship with him is completely dependent on it. The growth we make in Christ, including our appetite for God’s word and our obedience to it, are likewise based on God’s grace, not on unaided human effort. If you think that reading through the Bible this year is something you can do to make God love you more, that is a wrong reason to read through the Bible.
- We should not read through the Bible looking for spiritual stimulation. As you read through the Bible next year, there will be passages that convict you of sin in your life. There will be passages that correct unbiblical thinking in your mind. There will be passages that challenge you to do something you may have left undone in your life. If you are an attentive, receptive reader, you cannot be exposed to God’s word on a daily basis without it changing your life. However, many Christians, myself included at times, look to daily Bible reading for a spiritual jolt. This is reflected in the typical statement, “I read the Bible today, but I didn’t get something out of it..” It is good to want to understand and apply the Bible to your life, but too often we read the Bible looking for some earth-shattering insight or some dramatically life-altering experience. This leads to lots of interpretive abuses such as spiritualizing the text of Scripture. This is not how spiritual growth occurs. Spiritual growth is a struggle that occurs over time through repeated exposure to many of what theologians call the means of grace: preaching, fellowship with other believers, and Bible reading/study just to name a few. Just as you don’t feed a baby one good meal and watch him or her grow a foot instantly before your eyes, so also as Christians we do not grow dramatically and instantly every time we read God’s word. As we nourish ourselves with God’s word, God changes us over time.
Related to this is the desire to feel more spiritual just after reading the Bible. The Bible is not like caffeine. It does not give us a quick boost in our spiritual energy. If you read through the Bible this year and have times where you don’t feel any different, do not be alarmed or discouraged. God is still working, even though it may be imperceptible to you.
- We should not read the Bible primarily to understand the Bible: Obviously, as you read through the Bible, you will come to understand it better. You will see some verses in context that you may have heard quoted out of context. The context will help you understand them better. You will also begin to grasp the big picture of God’s working in the world. But there will be lots of passages that you read that you simply don’t understand. If you are reading the Bible with the primary motivation of understanding the Bible, one of two things will happen. Either you will get stopped by the passages you don’t understand (slowing or arresting completely your progress in reading through the Bible) or you will keep reading but feel frustrated. If your goal is to read through the whole Bible next year, you cannot stop to study every passage you don’t understand. Despite the help we get from good translations, many Bible passages cannot be understood only by reading them. The historical context, the theological complexity, the cultural distance, and other factors require a person in our age to study many passages before they can be understood. So, while you will understand the Bible better at this time next year because you have taken time to read it through, understanding the Bible probably is not the best goal to have by itself for reading through the Bible.
Having discussed all the improper motivations for studying the Bible, let me propose a motivation that I think will help you and me to get through the whole thing next year and be better off for doing so. Here it is:
- We should read through the Bible next year to stimulate our interest in God. If you read through the Bible this year, do it attentively with a goal of raising questions. Let the word of God provoke your curiosity about what God is like and what he is up to in our world. This motivation will do a couple of things to help you grow spiritually. First, it will deepen your relationship with God. Some of the questions raised by reading through the Bible will be answered immediately or later by the Bible itself. This will cause you to love God more deeply and follow him more closely. Some of those questions will be answered later in messages (sermons and Bible lessons) you will hear this year in your church and elsewhere. In other words, reading God’s word will raise your spiritual antennae. You will profit more from preaching and Bible teaching because you will be more attentive, having lots of unanswered questions in the back of your mind that your mind will seek the answers to. In short, it will make you a better hearer of God’s word. Do you see now how spiritual disciplines work together with the other means of grace to stimulate Christlikeness in your life? A final result of this motivation is that it will improve your relationship to your pastor. When you have unanswered questions about God’s word, you will inevitably go to a source you trust for answers to the most burning ones. Let your pastor or one of the other elders of your church be the person you ask. There may be some men in church leadership who are bothered by questions. That is unfortunate. I believe that giving answers and wisdom from God’s word is a big part of the shepherding that God wants elders to be doing. God gave you these men to lead you toward Christlikeness. Personally, I love it when people in my church say, “Can I ask you a question…” about something I said in a message or something they read in God’s word. That person is spiritually engaged. Getting people to become spiritually engaged is the hardest, most needed work that elders are to do in churches. It is easier and more fun to work through the discipleship process with someone who is engaged already in the spiritual growth process. It is far more enjoyable and profitable to work with someone like that than to confront a fellow believer who is engaged in sin or to counsel someone through the fallout of his or her own disobedience. Reading God’s word with a desire to stimulate your spiritual interest will help to engage you fully in everything God offers to you through the church. This is the highest and best motivation you can have for reading the whole Bible next year.
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