6 ways to grow through Bible-reading

Here are 6 ways we can avoid Bible-Reading damaging our health:

1. Read it (not notes!) Just read the Bible.

I think that Bible-reading notes can be helpful, but if you have never read the Bible without notes, can I encourage you to ditch them, at least for a while? Get used to reading the Bible as a book you can understand. Read it as that love letter from Jesus. Read it to find him. You do not need notes to get it.

2. Read all of it

And this applies to all of the Bible. It is all about Jesus. It is all good, exciting, beautiful truth about our Lord and Saviour. It centres on his cross, and it sings, whispers, heralds, shouts, cries and placards his name in every chapter. For the last seven or so years, my pattern of Bible reading has been to start at Genesis, read as much as I want each morning, and when I get to the end of Revelation, start at Genesis again. Of course, that’s not the only way, but it is an exciting way. You will see Jesus everywhere, and you will see him more and more—through every king, priest, prophet, servant, warrior or shepherd. You will see glimmers of his incarnation, life, death, resurrection, ascension and return to judge and save; then you will see them played out in sparkling colours in the Gospels. You will begin to see Jesus in sacrificial systems, in the temple, in cleanness laws, in the Exodus, the exile, the return, and a thousand other images.

3. Read it with the Spirit alongside you and Jesus before your eyes

Earlier, I said the Bible is a love letter to us from Jesus. This is a slightly flawed image. The Bible was written as the prophets and other writers: “though human, spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit” (2 Peter 1 v 21). It was the Spirit who guided, directed and dictated what the human authors would write. However, the love letter idea is still a helpful one, because we can’t separate the work of Jesus and the Spirit; they always act together, in perfect love and unity as they obey their great Father. The Spirit’s work and his delight is always to shine a light on Jesus, to bring him before our eyes and glorify him. We grow into the Son’s likeness as his Spirit does this for us. So if you get stuck reading the Bible, you can ask the Spirit. He may well not enable you immediately to understand all the cross-references in the passage, the nuances of the original Hebrew or Greek, or the structure of the book it is part of (in fact those things are very unlikely!), but he will show you Jesus. And that is the point.

4. Read it with your church

The Spirit gives us the Bible to show us Jesus, and he then gives us the church to help us see him more clearly and more often. That is why it is not wrong, and is often a good idea, to turn to notes, because they come from the wider church. But it makes a lot more sense to turn to the church that Jesus has put you in. It is a huge blessing to be able to own a Bible and read it ourselves, but the danger is that we forget to read it with others. The Bible presents Jesus to us as his family, together, as we talk about it, chew it over and extract all the flavour and goodness from it. Read the Bible with your church; get together during the week to do so—in groups or in twos and threes. When you hang out with brothers or sisters for a coffee, meal or beer, tell them what you have seen about Jesus this week. Hold him before their eyes from your Bible reading, and they will love him all the more, and then they will want to do the same. After all, you grow only as your church grows.

5. Read it often—like a novel

Of course, unlike a novel, the Bible is true, but otherwise it is similar. A friend told me a story about his grandparents. His grandad was about to go to heaven, and was being transferred from his home to a hospice for his last few hours. And my friend’s gran, whose favourite author is Jane Austen, grabbed Pride and Prejudice and said: “I think I’ll take some old friends with me”. Of course, Pride and Prejudice is (arguably!) beautiful, but it isn’t true. But the way his Gran turned to that book was not as a manual, but as something familiar, something almost relational, where she’d meet with some old friends. In the Bible, we meet with our oldest and best friend. And the great thing is, he’s real. Doesn’t that make you want to read the Bible?

6. Just remember who it’s about

When the risen Jesus went on a walk with his friends on the day of his resurrection, they didn’t recognise them, and he had to explain to them what was going on. To show them himself, he showed them the Scriptures, saying: “Did not the Messiah have to suffer these things and then enter his glory?” And beginning with Moses and all the Prophets, he explained to them what was said in all the Scriptures concerning himself. (Luke 24 v 26-27) We don’t get a walk with Jesus—not yet. But we do get the Scriptures. We do get to see what is said in all the Bible concerning Jesus. A few minutes later, those friends said to each other: “Were not our hearts burning within us while he talked with us on the road and opened the Scriptures to us?” (v 32) You understand the Bible and find your feelings fired up as you meet Jesus in his word. It will change so much, and help you grow so much, if you sit down with your Bible, ask the Spirit for help, and think: I am about to hear from Jesus, about Jesus. I am opening up his love letter. He is true, he is beautiful, and he is speaking to me.

This is an extract from John Hindley’s new book, You can really grow: How to thrive in the Christian life.