I Read the Bible but I Don’t Get It.
Reading was hard for me when I was growing up. I would read the words and not really understand what I was reading. I thought the words were just supposed to soak into my brain and I would automatically understand. But, no, that didn’t happen. I remember in third grade listening to this girl read aloud so beautifully. I would pray and pray that I would not be called on next. I could never measure up to the way that she read.
As I grew up, there was always someone who could read better than me but I wasn’t about to let anyone know. So I learned ways around reading so I didn’t have to feel inadequate around all the smart people. I went on to college to become a math teacher. Which was great because math teachers don’t have to read stuff, right? Right…
Do you know that math teachers have to take a Teaching Reading class? Well, they do. And I dreaded that class. All I could think is why would a math teacher need to teach reading? Math is about numbers, not words. I wanted to teach math, not reading. I hated reading. It was going to be sooooooo hard.
And it was hard. I had to read 10 novels that semester. 10 whole novels. I picked those books by the pinky rule. The pinky rule, you know, pick books no thicker than your pinky. To top it off, I had to ask for an extension and the professor was nice enough to give that to me.
I remember the professor talking about the reading cycle. The more we read, the better we get. The better we get, the more we enjoy it. The more we enjoy it, the more we read. I sat there thinking, “I guess I won’t be enjoying it anytime soon because I don’t know how to get better.” Deep down I wanted to be better at reading but it seemed impossible. I think a lot people feel that way about the Bible. People want to read their bibles. They know they should but it seems impossible.
While it was really, really hard to read all those books, it was also one of the best classes I took. It completely changed they way I thought about reading and the way I read. I sat in class and listened to my professor talk about what good readers do (we’ll, get there). It was an “Aha” moment that changed my life forever. He taught me what I should have been doing the whole time when I was reading. I didn’t know how to do any of the things he was teaching us. No wonder I hated it. How can you love something if you don’t know how to do it? I sat in that class soaking up everything my brain could hold and went on to get my master’s in reading. I wanted to make sure that wherever I taught, even math, my students would never, ever feel like I did in school.
Those reading classes didn’t just change how I read books. They changed how I read the Bible. Now as a bible teacher, I can share these strategies and help others read the Bible for themselves.
What Good Bible Readers Do
First, you need to know that you are a good bible reader. You might think that you are not but I’m telling that I know you are. You are because God made you, and He made you to be in His word.
Colossians 3: 16 says, “Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly as you teach and admonish one another…”
God expects the word to dwell in us. And if He expects that, it means He made us with the ability to take in His word. Though it might vary from person to person, God does not expect us to do something without giving us a way to make it happen.
Let’s look at some things good bible readers do.
1. They visualize what they read.
This was the reading strategy that changed my life. I had no idea that I was supposed to be making pictures in my mind of what I was reading. No idea! Some call it making a movie in their mind. Some of my friends pick out actors to play each character. I wonder who would play Paul, the apostle?
Visualizing is what a lot of people do when they read books, and we can do the same thing when we read Scripture. Making a picture in our mind of what Scripture is saying will help us understand what Scripture means. The picture is what helps Scripture to dwell richly in our minds. Sometimes having a journal with me when I read helps because I can draw a picture of what I see. I’m not the best artist but I just sketch it out. There are things from two or three years ago that I still remember simply because I drew a picture of them. Pictures help the meaning stick in our brains.
2. They make connections.
Good bible readers connect what they are reading with other stories in the Bible, other books, movies, real life, and themselves. That means I might write a little note in my bible that relates to that verse or story. Or maybe I use a sticky note instead of writing in my bible. Sometimes I send a text to a friend about what I found in the Bible and how it connects to my life. You don’t have to write anything down but stopping and thinking about how the scriptures connect to our lives keeps those verses in our brains a little longer.
If you want to be all sciency, which I do, then you would call those connections a synapse between the axon of one neuron in the brain and the dendrite of another neuron. When we make connections in our mind, we are actually creating a physical connection between two neurons in our brains. There’s lots of science behind all that thought connection but what you really need to know is that God is amazing. And He created our brains to make connections. Maybe, just maybe, He created that connection ability so that we could remember His Word.
3. They ask questions.
Good bible readers want to know why something happened, what something means, what caused someone to act that way, when it happened, how it happened and on and on. Asking questions causes us to want to know more and to read our bibles more. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve had to look up what words mean. That’s another thing that changed after I took that reading class. I used to be horrible with vocabulary. People would say words that I didn’t know and I would just nod my head like I knew what they were talking about. When I read and I came to word I didn’t know, I would just keep on reading. Now, when I’m reading, I stop and circle the word. I google it or get out a bible dictionary to find the meaning. And I write the meaning in my own words right there in my bible or in the book that I’m reading. I never want to forget what that word means because I want to understand what the bible is saying.
Asking questions means looking for the answers in other resources. I like to read the beginning intro information of each book of the Bible in my study bible. That has helped me understand where the book is taking place and when. Sometimes I look up Bible places or people’s names. The more I have read, the more I want to know about all these people and places of history.
Sometimes asking questions means getting help from someone who has studied longer than I have. There is always someone who has read the Bible more, and they can be a well of information and resources. Always be on the look out for those people in your church. I know they would love to talk with you about God’s Word.
Sometimes it means pondering for a while and leaving the question just hanging in my mind. Bible questions don’t always get answered right then and there or maybe ever, but a lot of them get answered in other books of the Bible as we read more.
4. They talk to other bible readers.
When I read my bible and make connections, I can’t help but share it. I talk to my husband about it or a good friend or even with my kids. I might share it online. Talking back and forth with others about scriptures drives my desire to read even more. Our conversations usually make me take a second look, to look deeper into what I learned from my own reading. I want to know what they learned, and I want my beliefs to be grounded in Scripture so that when I talk to others, I can point to scripture and not myself.
When we talk to other bible readers, we automatically do what good bible readers do: we make a picture in our minds, we make connections, and we ask questions. Sharing the Word of God with others makes my knowledge of Scripture deeper and sharper. “As iron sharpens iron, so one person sharpens another.” (Proverbs 27:17) Talking with others helps us to sharpen our Swords (Ephesians 6) because it causes us to go back and reread and search the Scriptures for what is true.
5. They try again.
Some days, I don’t understand what I just read, and I have to reread a chapter or section. There are times my mind is just not in it and that makes it harder for my mind to understand what I am reading. I have to put forth more effort. Everyone has days like that but we don’t give up. We try again the next day. It’s ok not to understand something the first or second or however many times we read it. But we try again.
Some books of the Bible are more difficult than others. It’s doesn’t mean that we should never try them. It means we might need to read something else first. For example, if I were brand new to reading the bible and I tried to read Isaiah, I would be totally lost. But if I started with Genesis and read other books of the bible first, Isaiah would start to make more sense.
It also helps to reread books of the bible that I haven’t read in awhile, especially if the preacher or bible class teacher teaches on that book. I get a lot “oh, I get it” moments when I go back and reread.
You can read the Bible. Yes, there are lots of things that we will never understand and that’s ok. One day, when we all get to Heaven we can ask God all the questions left unanswered…but it might not matter then.
2 Comments
Alexi
Thank you so much for this!
Mandy
You are so welcome! I’m so glad this was helpful 🙂