That’s a really great question.
If I handed you a picture book, you’d open the book to the first page and start reading. As you followed the characters and plot with every rise and fall, depending on the quality of the story, you'd be enthralled through it all. When the storybook was over, you’d know its basic features: where it took place, when it took place, who was in it, and what happened.
Have you ever picked up the Bible, opened it up to the first page and gotten lost?
Sometimes it’s easy to follow for the first few chapters, or even the first book. Yet somewhere around Leviticus or Numbers it becomes hard to follow, and the lists of names start to hurt your brain.
Perhaps you start your devotional time by letting your Bible fall open wherever the wind blows. You jump in and read where the pages land. Sometimes you happen upon enriching passages and sometimes you feel like you’ve wasted 20 minutes of your life.
Follow these patterns long enough and you may start to think there’s a problem. Why can’t we understand the Bible? Our pastors keep telling us that it’s life-giving and the most valuable thing we can do with our time. Why don’t we experience that?
Why is the Bible so hard to read?
To get to the bottom of this question we first need to understand what we’re working with.
What is the Bible?
The Bible is 66 different books written by about 40 different people, all inspired by God. Inspired by God means that God told each of those people what to write.
That seems like a wild concept until you start to see the through-lines that happen over thousands of years with entirely different people that come from different backgrounds and experiences that all happen to tell a cohesive story.
Chris Harrison has an incredible graphic you can find here that shows every cross-reference and link between passages of the Bible.
Those 66 books are not the same, however. Among those 66 books are 5 different types of literature. These literatures are grouped into two distinct segments: The Old and New Testament. Let’s walk through them together.
The Old Testament begins with history. The first 17 books of the Bible are:
Genesis | Exodus | Leviticus | Numbers | Deuteronomy | Joshua | Judges | Ruth | 1 Samuel | 2 Samuel | 1 Kings | 2 Kings | 1 Chronicles | 2 Chronicles | Ezra | Nehemiah | Esther
These books are Law/History books. They give historical accounts of the creation of the world, the calling of a people group as God’s chosen people, the history of those Israelites, and the laws and practices set down for them by God. These books tell of the successes and the failures of the Jewish people, their times in captivity, their times in triumphant service to the Lord, and everything in between.
One of my favorite things about these History books is that God did not exclude the failures and hard learned lessons from the history of his people. Yet, through it all, they were still His chosen people and He laid the groundwork for the coming salvation through Jesus.
Next, we have the books of Poetry:
Job | Psalms | Proverbs | Ecclesiastes | Song of Solomon
These books are poems, songs, and compilations that tell of God’s faithfulness. They speak to the emotional journeys of impactful people like King David, King Solomon, and Job as well as the daily faiths of unnamed authors.
The next section of the Bible is full of 17 books of Prophesy. They are often separated into “Major Prophets” and “Minor Prophets,” however, they are all the same type of literature.
Isaiah | Jeremiah | Lamentations | Ezekiel | Daniel | Hosea | Joel | Amos | Obadiah | Jonah | Micah | Nahum | Habakkuk | Zephaniah | Haggai | Zechariah | Malachi
Within the pages of the books of prophesy are most of the 300 prophesies that Jesus later fulfilled as well as plenty of other truly fascinating prophesies that have been fulfilled throughout history.
The end of these 17 prophesy books marks the end of the Old Testament. A crisp white page divides the two testaments and signifies a long breadth of time and history for the Israelites called either the “Inter-testamental Period” or "The Silent Years" because in those 500 years, God was still moving, but He was silent.
The New Testament begins with the introduction of a new brand of literature: the four Gospels.
Matthew | Mark | Luke | John
These are accounts of the life and ministry of Jesus. When I give my students their own Bibles for the first time, this is where I point them to begin their reading. These gospel accounts really do change everything for us.
The four gospels are followed by another History book:
Acts
The book of Acts gives an historical account of the last days of Jesus’ live on earth, the beginning of the Christian church, and it’s spread throughout the world. This history gives an important background to what you will read next.
After Acts, there are 21 letters or ‘Epistles’ from the apostles to their companions and churches throughout the world.
Romans | 1 Corinthians | 2 Corinthians | Galatians | Ephesians | Philippians | Colossians | 1 Thessalonians | 2 Thessalonians | 1 Timothy | 2 Timothy | Titus | Philemon | Hebrews | James | 1 Peter | 2 Peter | 1 John | 2 John | 3 John | Jude
The first 13 are often called the “Pauline Epistles,” as they were all written by the apostle Paul. The last 8 were written by other apostles.
The Bible ends with one final book of Prophesy:
Revelation
While the Old Testament books of Prophesy speak of things that have happened historically, the book of Revelation tells of what will come in the end times and beyond.
So how do we read it?
If I handed you a history book, your reading time would look different than if I were to hand you a poem. Even more so if I handed you a personal letter!
When we open our Bibles, it’s important to pay attention to what we are reading and read it accordingly.
How do you read a history book?
Pay attention to important names, to themes, to patterns. Take note of significant dates and times and figure out what makes them significant. Learn from the mistakes of those in the past and endeavor not to repeat them.
How do you read a poem?
Soak it in. Sit with it. Read it again and again. Set it to music. Come back to it when your heart needs encouragement. Recognize that someone else has felt the feelings you’re feeling and made it through.
When we adjust our expectations and our strategies, suddenly consuming Scripture becomes more manageable.
Get Wisdom
There’s one important way to make the Bible easier to understand: ask the Lord for wisdom.
If you’re trying to make sense of Scripture on your own accord, you’re going to struggle. Start each time in the Word with prayer, asking the Lord to open your mind and your heart to understand. Ask Him to give you wisdom.
The Bible tells us that,
“If any of you lacks wisdom, you should ask God, who gives generously to all without finding fault, and it will be given to you.” James 1:5 NIV
The Bible is God’s love letter to us and He wants us to understand it, not to be confused. Rather than giving in to frustration, ask for the wisdom that He gives generously and you will start to find nuggets of delicious truth whenever you turn the page.
Context
The most dangerous way to read your Bible is what I like to call “Bible Roulette.” If you’re picking up the Word of God, flipping through randomly, and selecting your verse of the day like you’re on a casino floor you open yourself up to the extremely dangerous practice of misinterpreting the word of God.
The Bible is wisdom and edification and love that can speak powerfully and actively into your life today just as it did to those who wrote it thousands of years ago. However, Bible verses were not meant to be cherry picked and used to apply to any portion of your life that you wish them to.
It’s incredibly important to understand the historical and cultural context that these books were written into so that we avoid inserting false meaning based on our wildly different modern cultural practices.
One of the easiest ways to get that context can be reading a Study Bible or finding devotionals by theologians on whatever book you are digesting. These teachers that have studied history and the Bible deeply can bring eye opening context in meaningful and understandable morsels.
Conclusion
It’s not always easy to pick up your Bible and know what to read, how to read it, or what it all even means. Without understanding what you’re reading or having the cultural reference point to process the text it can feel like fighting an uphill battle.
Don’t lose heart! When you read the Bible with intention, ask the Holy Spirit for guidance and wisdom, and make an effort to dig into the historical context instead of floating on the surface, your effort will not return void.