What Keeps People From Reading the Bible?

He leads me …

In a previous blog we looked at why we nod off when we read the Bible, but there are other issues to consider as well.

Jen Wilkin is a Bible teacher and the author of several books. Her passion is to see Christians have a clear understanding of what they believe in the Bible, so that they can be clear communicators about what it says, while also being committed followers of Christ.

On a Stetzer ChurchLeaders podcast Jen had some interesting points to make. Let us look at some key quotes from Jen’s podcast –

“I think the biggest challenge that we’re facing right now, which is just sort of a product of being in an instant gratification culture, is that people think that learning the Bible should be easy.”

“What we have a lot of times in Christian subculture is the mind-set of, ‘If I start my day with my time in the Word, then my day will go well, and if I don’t do that, then my day will go poorly.’”

“This [reading the Bible], like any other spiritual discipline, is something that we labour for. It’s something that requires effort on our part.”

“Our M.O. (Modus Operandi - refers to people’s usual patterns of behaviours or habits) has been to lower the bar at every turn with what we’re asking of young people instead of raising the bar and requiring more of them. People run toward things that cost them something.”

“We have a surface level understanding of what God’s commands are really saying, and we’re looking for a bare minimum way of reading them instead of an expansive way of reading them.”

“I would say that over the last 30 or 40 years in the church, we have seen develop an expert/amateur divide. The expert stands on a platform and communicates the specialized information to the amateurs who sit in the pews. And not only have we seen this, but we have seen both the expert and the amateur embrace those roles fully. The people who are sitting in the pews think that it is the job of the person on a platform to do the work for them.”

“We have a category in the church, a very well developed category of what it means to be a qualified man in leadership. And I would love for us to have a similar category for women who are standing up to teach.”

“I don’t want people to hear me finish a teaching and think, ‘Wow that was amazing. How did she do that?’ I want people to think, ‘I see what she did there. I could do that.’ And so I think that’s the key shift that we need to make.”

“With preaching, there’s only so much you can do to make Sunday morning a more active learning environment. But a big thing you can do is publish the passage you’re going to be in the week before so that people can spend the week reading it repetitively.”

“People are abandoning a faith that they haven’t ever really even known…that’s a legitimate reason that people are re-evaluating things, and I don’t think it’s their fault. I think that we have not compelled them to something that is more beautiful and deep.”

“We know that people in the Scriptures are given a gift of teaching, and so we’re not diminishing that at all. But we also know that the Great Commission is charging all of us to teach people to obey all that He has commanded. So there is some teaching function just to being a disciple.”

“You want a curriculum that raises dissonance (difference of opinion), not one that relieves it.”

“We don’t learn the Bible for the sake of learning the Bible. We learn the Bible for the sake of learning the character of God and being in relationship with Him.”[1]

Suggested tips to develop a habit of reading the Bible daily.

All Christians should be regularly reading their Bible. To begin with, reading a devotional written by a Christian author helps someone young in their faith to see how Bible verses relate to us today. Christian bookstores and quite a few churches have copies available for both children and adults. The best way is to have a look at what is available and determine which type of devotional is right for personal or family use.

While devotionals have their place, a Christian should not become dependent on them.  If devotionals continue to be used, the Christian is relying on someone else’s point of view with minimal input from themselves.

The best thing we can do is to read our Bible and allow God to make specific verses stand out to highlight something important for us at that time. Even if nothing jumps out at us, we are becoming familiar with what the Bible says, and what does and does not work in people’s lives. This is how our relationship with God grows, and like any relationship, the more effort we make, the deeper our relationship gets.

It is important to set aside a specific time to read the Bible and pray. Then it becomes a routine. Being too busy is not an excuse. We can always get up earlier in the morning or turn off the television or computer a bit earlier in the evening to make time. The Lord should be our main priority.

To help concentrate on what we are reading and to be open to any prompts from the Holy Spirit we should find a quiet area where there are hopefully no distractions. It also pays to silence our phone/tablet during the prayer time so that incoming calls, texts, and other notifications will not be an interruption. If using our electronic devise to read the Bible becomes a problem, we could try using a printed Bible instead so that we can focus our whole attention on God’s Word.

It is important to include the Lord when we read our Bible. If something we read does not make sense, then we can ask the Lord to show us what it means, Even if we do understand what we are reading, it is always good to talk to the Lord about it. He likes to know what we are thinking, as this helps Him to see how our Christian walk is developing and whether He needs to introduce something into our life to help us.[2]

If reading the Bible on our own proves to be really hard to do, what might help is to join a group of Christians one day a week, either at lunch time or in the evening to discuss a mutually acceptable Bible study guide. Each member of the group does their own reading which may include a small amount of extra study, and then on the agreed day, the group comes together and has an open discussion about what each person discovered in their own study time during the previous week. It is important to not only share what has been learnt, but also we should share how we see how to apply what we have learnt to our daily lives. 

Knowing that we will be meeting with someone who is reading the same notes as we are will help us to stay honest about developing our daily habit of Bible reading.

Dear Reader – If you have found some value in this blog, please feel free to send a copy on to your family and friends. Kind regards, John

[1] Jen Wilkin on the Biggest Obstacle Keeping People From Reading the Bible, Jessica Lea, ChurchLeaders.com;

https://churchleaders.com/podcast/434923-jen-wilkin-biggest-obstacle-reading-bible.html

[2] 7 Tips to Build up a Habit of Reading the Bible Daily, Bibles for America;

https://blog.biblesforamerica.org/7-ways-to-build-up-a-daily-bible-reading-habit/