How Do I Make the Most of Reading the Bible

Do you ever wish that reading the Bible made a bigger impact in your life? For the past 2 decades, there’s one question I ask EVERY time I read the Bible, and it’s made the biggest difference in my life. In fact, it’s changed everything for me. If you’ve ever asked, “how do I make the most of reading the Bible?” I believe asking this one question can change everything for you, just like it has for me.

Now it may not come as a shock to you that I love the Bible. Yes, love the Bible. See I've been an avid reader my entire life at least as far back as I can remember. Aka I was the child who got in trouble for staying up too late yes reading. Well, that was probably more in middle school, not high school. High school I literally was up way too late doing homework. That's another story.

So I've always loved reading. It may come as a shock to you though to learn that I have not always loved reading the Bible. No, when I first started reading the Bible it literally didn't make sense to me. I thought the stories were crazy. I didn't understand them. There were references to things that frankly made no sense to my everyday life because they were about things that honestly just seemed to not have any connection whatsoever. But then starting in college it actually started to make sense to me and I began devouring the Bible as I said I've always been an avid reader and so I love to read and when I finally started to make more sense of the Bible I started having more questions and I wanted to figure out how it could actually make a difference in my life.

Now most of us know that the Bible is or at least can be useful to our everyday life. A lot of us have heard the Scripture in 2 Timothy that says, and I'm going to quote the Message because I love this translation of it, "Every part of scripture is God-breathed and useful one way or another -- showing us truth, exposing our rebellion, correcting our mistakes, training us to live God's way. Through the Word we are put together and shaped up for the tasks that God has for us."

I love this translation.

So we know that the Bible can be useful but how? Because a lot of us read the Bible and it doesn't actually change our everyday life or at least maybe not the way that we imagine that it could. Many of us have learned that when we read the Bible we can ask the questions what does it say? what does it mean? and what does it mean to me?

And we know that the different books of the Bible are written in different genres like poems and prophecy and history and personal letters. And we also know that there is a difference between the time in which the Bible is written and our everyday life today. So there's this context gap. So a lot of times we have to do a little bit of translation work in order to figure out what it means for our context today.

But it's after that point, or at that point I should say where the most important question comes to play.

And this is how I make the most out of reading the Bible by asking this question: if I believe this to be true what would be the evidence in my everyday life? Right it's the so what question. We know what it says, we know what it means, we know what it means to us, so what?

See a lot of us stop before we ask the so what question, but if we ask this question, so what? so what would actually be the evidence in my actual life that I believe this to be true? If we ask that question regularly I truly believe that it not only changes our life but it changes the lives of the people around us it changes the lives of those in our neighborhood changes the lives of those around the world.

Let me give you an example. If I take Jesus at his word and believe what He said in Matthew 22, "love the Lord your God with all your heart with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the first and greatest commandment and the second is like it love your neighbor as yourself. All in the law all the law and the prophets hang on these two commandments." If I actually believe those words of Jesus to be true then what would be the evidence in my life?

Well it would probably look like my worship of God is just as important as loving my neighbor as myself because Jesus says that basically, the two are like each other. You can't do one without doing the other. So if I believe it to be true then the evidence in my life would be that I wouldn't elevate loving God and worshiping God over loving my neighbor as myself or I wouldn't elevate loving my neighbor as myself over loving God and worshiping God.

Let's use another example. Say I believe that what it says in Genesis 1 about everyone in creation being created in the image of God. Say I believe that to be true, well then what would be the evidence that I believe that every single human on the face of the planet is actually an image-bearer of God? Well, if I believe that to be true then there should be a lot of evidence in my everyday life because I interact with people all the time. And if I believe that they are God's image-bearer that would shape my relationship with my kids, my spouse, my family, my neighbors, the strangers that I encounter throughout the day. It would have a really significant impact on how I interact with and relate and treat others.

I believe that the most important question about the Bible isn't necessarily just what does it say or what does it mean or what does it even mean to me, but actually, if I believe it to be true then what is the evidence in my everyday life that it's true. And that's the question that helps me make the most out of reading the Bible because that's the question that actually impacts my everyday living.

So can I encourage you today to start asking the question “what would be the evidence in my everyday life that I believe this is true whenever you're reading the Bible?” Because this is a question that has had the most impact on my life for the past two decades and I believe it can for you too.