Why Read the Bible?

For this 500th anniversary year of the first printed New Testament in the English language, it would be eternally beneficial for believers to commit to reading God’s word as a priority - as a priority in the sense that time is allotted in the schedule and time is sacrificed so that significant reading may occur. It would be impossible to exaggerate the good that reading God’s word with fresh vigor would produce. Our theme verse for the year, Psalm 119:161, says, “Princes have persecuted me without a cause: but my heart standeth in awe of thy word.” Nothing would insulate the believer from the oppressive force of modernity’s humanistic exultations and outcries of blasphemy for those who reject them, like time spent in God’s word! Charles Spurgeon said, “He might have been overcome by awe of the princes had it not been that a greater fear drove out the less, and he was swayed by awe of God's word. How little do crowns and sceptres become in the judgment of that man who perceives a more majestic royalty in the commands of his God. We are not likely to be disheartened by persecution, or driven by it into sin, if the word of God continually has supreme power over our minds.”

While it is clear from our theme verse that standing in awe of God’s word has monumental, preventative effects on those under persecution, many other reasons for reading God’s word could be listed. Let us examine (not all) but a few:

Why Read The Bible?

The Bible is God’s word to us.

Another term for God’s word, taken from the pages of theology, could be revelation. Revelation is the act of disclosing or discovering to others what was before unknown to them; appropriately, the disclosure or communication of truth to men by God Himself, or by His authorized agents, the prophets and apostles. Revelation makes plain or unveils that which has been hidden. Theologians have referred to revelation as “God’s self-disclosure.” 

In the introduction to Paul’s grand thesis on the gospel of Jesus Christ (Romans), we find these words: “For therein is the righteousness of God revealed from faith to faith…For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men…” (Rom. 1:17-18). From these words, we understand that Christianity is a revealed religion. Man, in all his self-aggrandizing hubris through centuries of “progress, growth, and development,” has done nothing but produce bloodshed, chaos, and poverty. As Adam’s fall, Noah’s flood, the tower of Babel, and the ongoing tale of history demonstrate, man never finds God. God has revealed Himself to man. The scripture is that revelation. The details of that revelation are “right” (Ps. 119:128), “wonderful” (v. 129), “light”  giving (v. 130), and awe inspiring (v. 161)! We must read the Bible, for the Bible is what God has chosen to reveal to us.

The Bible produces faith.

Above all else, faith is central to the Christian experience. Once Jesus ascended “out of their sight” (Acts 1:9), the church was left with the oft’ misunderstood description of our daily journey - “…we walk by faith, not by sight” (2 Cor. 5:7). We do not have the privilege of following or consulting Jesus in the flesh (2 Cor. 5:16), rather, we are required to follow Him “by faith.” This does not mean we are to “always let our conscience be our guide” (Jiminy Cricket), for the conscience can only hold you to the highest form of good and evil that it knows. It must be educated. The conscience is not impeccable (faultless). Nor does walking by faith entail responding to internal, emotional impulses (like the flash of a “good idea”). Faith is believing what has been revealed. A simple way to define it is to say that faith is believing what God said because He said it! Romans 10:17 makes this clear - “…faith cometh by hearing and hearing by the word of God.”

The Christian life involves taking each individual step in obedience to God’s word. That is faith. Hope is very similar. While faith believes God’s word for the present moment, hope believes what God has promised and prophesied for the future. Faith and hope, both produced and informed by God’s word, carry the believer through the vicissitudes of life. We must read God’s word in order to maintain faith and hope for all that will be required of us.

The Bible is the final authority in all matters of all faith and practice.

This is the mantra of all Baptist mantras (if we actually had mantras). Belief in scripture as the court of final appeal governs our belief in soul liberty. Freedom of conscience is not the belief that we are permitted to “find our own truth,” but rather, that we are free to believe what scripture dictates without government oppression. The Psalmist said, “…I esteem all thy precepts concerning all things to be right; and I hate every false way” (Ps. 119:128). Jabez Lamar Monroe Curry said:

No religious denomination has a moral right to a separate existence unless it differs essentially from others. Ecclesiastical differences ought always to spring from profound doctrinal differences. To divide Christians, except for reasons of gravest import, is criminal schism. Sects are justifiable only for matters of conscience growing out of clear scriptural precept or inevitable logical inference. Human speculation, tradition, authority of pope or council or synod or conference or legislature, is no proper basis for an organization of Christians. Nothing short of the truth of revelation, the authoritative force of God’s word, rising above mere prejudice or passion or caprice, can justify a distinct church organization (Ancient Baptist Journal, Vol. I – Issue I, p. 89).

 We have no right to any degree of dogmatism apart from the clear teaching of scripture. All things that we endorse or reject must be actualized as a consequence of our understanding of God’s word. This kind of faith led Jeremiah Jeter to say, “We shall earnestly aim to so write that, if any person should be offended, the fault shall be his and not ours. We are so firmly convinced of the soundness of our principles that we can well afford to discuss them with calmness and goodwill to all men.”

A revival of ordinary believers everywhere, with Bibles in heart and hand, answering God’s truth to all who pose a question, would be revolutionary in today’s hyper-secularized, emotion-driven society. God’s word quells the rancor of the skeptic. It silences the arguments of the gainsayer. It brings clarity to the troubled soul. The 1689 London Baptist Confession says, “The Holy Scripture is the only sufficient, certain, and infallible rule of all saving knowledge, faith, and obedience…” Amen! We must read God’s word in order to know God’s mind concerning all that concerns us in this life and the one to come.

The Bible is a miracle of God’s making.

We understand that the giving of God’s word has been a Divine work all along (2 Tim. 3:16-17). The scriptures were given by inspiration, a process whereby God breathes His words into the minds of men so that they understand what words He wants them to write. It is that simple. And because of the ongoing Providential hand of God, these words given have been preserved so that we have them - we hold them in our hands today! How could we despise so great a blessing (1 Thess. 5:20-21)?

The yellowed pages of history are replete with examples of faithfulness that God used to preserve His word. One historical report said, “The Waldenses of northern Italy were foremost among the primitive Christians of Europe in their resistance to the Papacy. They not only sustained the weight of Rome’s oppression, but they were successful in retaining the torch of truth until the Reformation took it from their hands and held it aloft to the world.” Their conclusion to this soul-stirring truth was to say, “It is therefore evident that the translators of 1611 had before them four Bibles which had come under Waldensian influences: the Diodati in Italian, the Olivetan in French, the Lutheran in German, and the Genevan in English. We have every reason to believe that they had access to at least six Waldensian Bibles written in the old Waldensian vernacular.” The point is, God preserved His word through miraculous movements of Providence, leaving the medieval testimony of our forebears to be “traced by the gloomy light of martyrs' fires.” The suffering of those who gave us our Bible should be motivation alone for us to read His word with a revived commitment.

The Bible sustains the believer.

Without a faithful relationship with the word of God, there is little hope for your faith to stand the tests that are certain to befall you. The drag of materialism, the despair of daily living, the grief of life’s losses, and the degenerative effects of temptation are sure to leave you faint in the way if you do not stand “in awe” of God’s word. A careful look at the warfare of the Christian makes it clear: the key weapon for the spiritual soldier is God’s word. Satan, our adversary, goes about with one primary goal - deception (1 Pet. 5:8-9; Rev. 19:20; 20:3). Our defense (Ep. 6:10-18), which includes truth, righteousness, the gospel of peace, faith, salvation, and the Sword of the Spirit, is all found in our relationship to God’s word. Without a familiarity with and a love for the Bible, we are left to fight the Devil unprepared. 

In 2026, let us read the Bible that God has given us. Let us read it with supreme reverence for God and His truth, and let us read it with gratitude for the sanguine price paid by so many.