Why I don't read the Bible

In my last blog, I promised that my next blog would be titled why I don’t read the bible. And I’ sure that you were thinking, “Oh the suspense?” Of course, it would be asinine for me to say that I don’t read the bible, obviously I do read it, because I quote it regularly in my blogs. What I mean when I say that I don’t read the bible is that I quit reading the bible and began to study it. There is a difference.

If you read your bible daily, that’s is great. You are doing better than most. Maybe you are doing a one year plan, where you read the bible in a year, or maybe you you read for 20-30 minutes a day and see how far you can get. This is considered reading the bible.

So what does it mean to study the bible? Studying the bible means that you read a part of the bible, and than you prayerfully consider what you read, and thinking about how you can apply it to you life. Let me give you an example of what I do to study the bible. I just began doing this about 2 weeks ago, and it has already been life changing.

I am currently reading five different bibles. I am reading the Message (MSG), the New International Version (NIV), the New Living Translation (NLT), New American Standard Version (NASV) and the New King James Version (NKJV). I am reading the bible one verse at a time, but in each of the five different bibles. I read the verse in one bible, and that the same verse in the next, and so on and so forth. Can I just say, wow. It is amazing at what you can get when you read different versions. By doing this I have been able to absorb what I am reading, and actually remember it, plus get a better understanding from the different translations, in apposed to just reading it through and not putting any though into it.

On top of reading the five versions, I also look up certain words that have deeper meaning in them, in the Strong’s Exhaustive Concordance of the Bible, and Strong’s Complete Expository Dictionary of the Old and New Testament. These help to give a deeper meaning of some of the words that are translated from the original Greek or Hebrew, as we all know that things are always lost in translations. I also read cliff notes, side bars, attributes, etc that are found in my different bibles.

It took me that last 2 weeks just to read the first 3 chapters in Jeremiah. I never would have known that the Book of Jeremiah was not written on Chronological order had I been but reading through it, nor the story behind why it isn’t written in order. However, after a little simple research, I was able to find out how to read it in chronological order.

In closing, I have enjoying studying the bible a lot more than just reading it, it makes it a lot more interesting and fun to do. If you are simply just reading the bible, I challenge you to try studying it to see what happens. I you don’t have different versions of the bible, and you don’t have the funds to buy a new bible, all of the versions are available online for free. I am currently getting my NKJV, and my NASV on line.