The Habit of Bible Reading

I read this from Halley's Bible Handbook and it really goes well with what we learned in Bible Study yesterday.
It's a bit long but it's worth reading.
I hope this encourages us to read His Word. =)
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Everyone should love the Bible. Everybody should read the Bible.

Everybody.

It is God’s Word. It holds the solution of life. It tells about the best Friend humanity ever had, the noblest, kindest, truest Man who ever walked on this earth.

It is the most beautiful story ever told. It is the best guide to human conduct ever known. It gives a meaning, a glow, a joy, a victory, a destiny, and a glory to life elsewhere unknown.

There is nothing in history, or in literature, that in any way compares with the simple record of the Man of Galilee, who spent His days and nights ministering to the suffering, teaching human kindness, dying for human sin, rising to life that shall never end, and promising eternal security and eternal happiness to all who will come to Him.

Most people, in their serious mood, must have some question in their minds as to how things are going to stack up when the end comes. Laugh it off and toss it aside as we may, that day will come. And then what?

Well, it is the Bible that has the answer. And an unmistakable answer it is. There is a God. There is a heaven. There is a hell. There is a Savior. There will be a day of judgment. Happy is the person who in this life makes his or her peace with the Christ of the Bible and gets ready for the final takeoff.

How can any thoughtful person keep his or her heart from warming up to Christ and to the book that tells about Him? Everybody ought to love the Bible. Everybody. Everybody.

Yet the widespread of neglect of the Bible by churches and by the church people is simply appalling. Oh, we talk about the Bible, and defend the Bible, and praise the Bible, and exalt the Bible. Yes indeed! But many church members seldom ever even look into a Bible – indeed, would be ashamed to be seen reading the Bible. And an alarming percentage of church leadership generally seems to be making no serious effort to get people to be Bible readers.

We are intelligent about everything else in the world. Why not be intelligent about our religion? We read newspapers, magazines, novels, and all kinds of books, and listen to the radio and watch television by the hour. Yet most of us do not even know the names of the Bible books. Shame on us! Worse still, the pulpit, which could easily remedy the situation, seems often not to care and generally does not emphasize personal Bible reading.

Individual, direct contact with God’s Word is the principal means of Christian growth. All the leaders in Christian history who displayed any kind of spiritual power have been devoted readers of the Bible.

The Bible is the book we live by. Bible reading is the means by which we learn, and keep fresh in our minds, the ideas that mold our lives. Our lives are the product of our thoughts. To live right, we need to think right. We must read the Bible frequently and regularly so that God’s thoughts may be frequently and regularly in our minds; so that His thoughts may become our thoughts; so that our ideas may become conformed to God’s ideas; so that we may be transformed into God’s own image and be made fit for eternal companionship with our Creator.

We may, indeed, absorb Christian truth, in some measure, by attending religious services, listening to sermons, Bible lessons, and testimonies, and by reading Christian literature.

But however good and helpful these things may be, they give us God’s truth secondhand, diluted through human channels and, to quite an extent, obscured by human ideas and traditions.

Such things cannot possibly take the place of reading for ourselves the Bible itself, and grounding our faith and hope and life directly in God’s Word.

God’s Word is the weapon of the Spirit of God for the redemption and perfection of the human soul. It is not enough to listen to others talk and teach and preach about the Bible. We need to keep ourselves, every one of us, in direct touch with God’s Word. It is the power of God in our hearts.



Bible reading is a basic Christian habit.

We do not mean that we should worship the Bible as a fetish. But we do worship the God and the Savior the Bible tells us about. And because we love our God and our Savior, we love dearly and devotedly the book that is from Him and about Him.

Nor do we mean that the habit of bible reading is in itself a virtue, for it is possible to read the Bible without applying its teachings to one’s own life. And there are those who read the Bible and yet are mean and crooked and un-Christian. But they are the exception.

As a rule, Bible reading, if done in the right spirit, is a habit out of which all Christian virtues grow – the most effective character – forming power known to mankind.



Bible reading is an act of religious devotion. Our attitude toward the Bible is a pretty sure indication of our attitude toward Christ. If we love a person, we love to read about him or her, do we not? If we could only bring ourselves to think of our Bible reading as an act of devotion to Christ, we might be inclined to treat the matter less lightly.

It is a glorious thing to be a Christian. The most exalted privilege any mortal can have is to walk through life hand in hand with Christ as Savior and Guide. Or, to put it more correctly, to toddle along at His side and, though always stumbling, never letting go of His hand.

This personal relationship of each of us with Christ is one of the intimate things of life, and we do not talk much about it, probably because we often believe that we are pitifully unworthy to wear His name. Why would the Creator of all things care about me? But deep down in our hearts, in our serious moods, we know that because of our weakness, our worldliness, our frivolity, our selfishness, and our sins, we need Him more than we love anything else in this world. He is our Father. And in our saner moments we know that we should not willingly offend or hurt Him for anything. Why would we intentionally hurt the One who loves us and whom we love? We are thoughtless.

The Bible is the book that tells about Christ and His immeasurable love for us. Is it possibly to love Christ and at the same time be complacently indifferent to His Word? It is possible? Each one of us has to make daily choices – to serve Him and not the world. The Bible teaches us how!

The Bible is also the best devotional book. Booklets and books of daily devotions, now published in such abundance, may have their place. But they are no substitute for the Bible. The Bible is God’s own word, and no other book can take its place. Every Christian, young and old, should be a faithful reader of the Bible.