The Bible Challenge?

Finding it hard to get into reading the Bible?

Many people find the Bible hard to read, a little daunting and even irrelevant. It’s easy to get lost in all the family trees, which can seem unrelated to our ordinary, everyday lives. But the Bible is not an ordinary book.

There are two very important steps in reading your Bible:
1. Pray before you open up: the Bible is a collection of books written under the inspiration of God, so asking the Holy Spirit to guide you as you read is a good idea!

2. Use a translation you can understand: while older translations have beautiful language, they can be a little hard to decipher. There are newer translations that use more contemporary language—you can read many of them at www.biblegateway.com.

If you find it hard to get into the Bible at all, or don’t know where to start, try some of the following ideas. Rather than reading page by page from Genesis to Revelation, start with something you find interesting. The stories of God’s interaction with ordinary (and sometimes extraordinary) people are not just for small children. Try Genesis 12-50, Exodus, Ruth, Samuel and Kings, Esther, Jonah and Acts. If you have trouble finding where these are, most Bibles have a contents page. When reading the stories, ask “Who am I in this story?” Think about how you would have responded to the situation, and learn to look for God’s involvement in your own story.

Give yourself a goal, like aiming to read one psalm or one parable of Jesus every day. Start a Bible journal to help you write out your thoughts. After reading a short section or chapter, record how you react to the story, what it makes you think and feel, and maybe the questions it makes you ask.
One last important tip: don’t expect to understand everything! The Bible was written in a different culture, so not everything is going to make immediate sense to us. There are many books and resources available that can help explain confusing Bible passages, and it’s likely that people in your local church who have been reading the Bible their whole lives would love to help you understand it better.