A Beginner’s Guide to Reading the Bible
Why do you read the Bible?
Why do you read the Bible the way that you read the Bible?
I once heard theologian and Bible scholar N.T. Wright asked the question, “What’s the best way to read the Bible?”
“Frequently and thoroughly,” was his response.
I think we’ve been convinced that the reason we read the Bible is simply because we’re supposed to. It’s good for you. Like eating green vegetables. It’s what good Christians do. But when that’s the sales pitch, it’s not persuasive and we’re left with a lot of guilt and shame when we leave our Bible unopened for days, even weeks, at a time.
And that shouldn’t be.
We read the Bible because we meet God when we open its pages. In reading the Bible, we make ourselves available to be surprised by God. We allow ourselves to be shaped and formed by its stories and poems and prophetic words and commands and exhortations.
The different kinds of books
Open a Bible to the table of contents. The Bible isn’t just a single book. It’s a library. And like your local public library, it’s filled with a wide variety of different kinds of literature. Like you’d read a mystery novel differently than you would a cookbook, you’d read different kinds of books within the Bible differently.
Torah: Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy. These are often called the Pentateuch or the five books of Moses. They start with creation, tell the stories of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and then God’s recuse of the this family from slavery in Egypt. They include the first laws that God gives Israel and the stories of wandering in the desert for 40 years, leading right up to entering the Promised Land.
Historical books: These include two different takes on one story. First, Joshua, Judges, Ruth, 1 & 2 Samuel, and 1 & 2 Kings. This version begins with entering the Promised Land, how there came to be kings, the stories of David, when the nation divides in two, and ends on the tragic note of exile from the Promised Land.
Second, 1 & 2 Chronicles, Ezra, Nehemiah, and Esther. This version retells the stories about the kings from a different perspective, and then continues the story when the nation returns from exile.
Wisdom literature: Job, Psalms, Proverbs, Song of Solomon, Ecclesiastes. These are poetic books. They’re like philosophy, asking what does it mean to live a good life through the lenses of suffering, worship, wisdom, and love.
Prophets: Isaiah, Jeremiah, Lamentations, Ezekiel, Daniel, Hosea, Joel, Amos, Obadiah, Jonah, Micah, Nahum, Habakkuk, Zephaniah, Haggai, Zechariah, Malachi.
These are poems that parallel the events found in Kings and Chronicles. Where Kings and Chronicles tell what happened, the prophets communicate how God feels about what happened. Emotion is important in the prophets. And where the book of Deuteronomy is like the constitution for the nation, the prophets sound the alarm that the people are failing to keep their end of the covenant with God.
Gospels: Matthew, Mark, Luke, John. These are four separate collections of stories about Jesus. Many of these stories appear in more than one of these books (Matthew, Mark, and Luke share a fair amount of material). They all share in common the radical good news that the life, death, and resurrection bring to God’s world.
Letters: The rest of the New Testament. Each of these is written by one a leader of the early church (most of them are from Paul) to a specific community of people, oftentimes addressing a particular situation happening in that church. In some ways, it’s like overhearing one side of a phone conversation. But these letters are packed with theology and ethics and encouragement. They are the manifesto of the Church today. They answer the question: Jesus is alive, now what?
When I was a part of an Anglican church, each week in our Sunday worship we read from a Psalm, had an Old Testament reading, a New Testament reading (usually from one of the letters), and it all culminated in a Gospel reading when the congregation stood up. Each week we were being trained to hear Jesus—the Psalm pointed us to Jesus, the Old Testament pointed us to Jesus, the New Testament pointed us to Jesus, until finally, Jesus himself spoke to us in the Gospel.
Again N.T. Wright likens it to windows in different rooms of a house overlooking the same landscape. When you stand in the living room you can see the road outside. When you’re in the bedroom, you can see the same road, but the different angle reveals different details. It’s similar to our reading the Bible. All of Scripture tells a single, coherent story of God rescuing the world, but each individual book reveals to us different aspects of the story.
Different ways to read
There are a variety of ways to read the Bible. You may find yourself in a rut. I find I change up the way that I read about every 6 months or so. Here are a couple.
A chapter a day: This is probably the easiest when you’re just getting started to develop a regular habit. It can be limiting because the Bible wasn’t written broken up into chapters in the same way modern writers break up stories into chapters. These chapter numbers were added in medieval times for making reference easier.
A whole book in one sitting: The first writers, readers, and hearers of the Bible didn’t experience it a chapter at a time. It’s not meant to be soundbites. church in Rome heard the book of Romans all in one sitting. And it sounds and feels so different like that instead of single verses at a time. There are just different things that you see when you read books like the Gospels and Revelation all in one sitting.
Lectionary: Several denominations provide a lectionary, which is pattern of dwelling in God’s story throughout the year. You can use the Revised Common Lectionary, which provides a Psalm, Old Testament reading, and New Testament reading for each day of the years.
A Bible reading plan: If you use an mobile app like YouVersion, you can access hundreds of different daily plans for going through the Bible. (Just make sure the content is actually the Bible.) Some are for covering the entire Bible in a year. Some take you through it in 90 days, if you’re feeling ambitious.
You can subscribe to The Sabbath Life newsletter, where I provide a weekly reading. Each week I send an email with readings for 5 days. That way, if you forget a day or miss for any reason, there’s flexibility. This plan covers the entire Bible over four years and utilizes each of the genres each year. Right now we’re reading Exodus. Next we’ll read Mark, and then 1 & 2 Kings.
“But where do I start?”
Here are some helpful places to get started in reading the Bible:
Mark: This Gospel, more than the other collections of Jesus stories, flows like a modern novel or movie. Mark tells stories about things Jesus does and people Jesus encounters.
Psalms: This is a collection of praise and worship songs. They are prayers of gratitude and wonder and also prayers of sadness and anger. They show us how to talk to God honestly in all our ups and downs.
Philippians: One of Paul’s letters to a small church in Greece. It’s full of encouragement to live a life full of joy.
1 John: A brief letter from one of the people who knew Jesus firsthand. John writes in simple language about how we know what the love of God looks like.
Others: Romans 12, Matthew 5–7 (the Sermon on the Mount), Isaiah 40, John 15.
So get started. Open the Bible. Explore. Meander. Loiter. Sit and wait. Don’t be in a hurry. Get ready to encounter God.
If you want to go deeper:
The Story of God, the Story of Us by Sean Gladding.
This is like a novelization of the Bible. The Old Testament is told through the perspective of a grandpa sitting around a campfire with his family during the Babylonian exile, while the New Testament is presented around the supper table of a house church as they remember the stories of Jesus.
How to Read the Bible Book by Book by Gordon Fee and Douglas Stuart.
This is a reference book that I always keep handy. It takes each book of the Bible, breaks them down by outlines, and offers hints and tips for things to look for as you read.