Why read the Bible?

How the trend away from the study of Scripture has disastrous results for our society.

Over the last few years, there has been a growing lack of engagement with Scripture. In fact, in a survey performed by the American Bible Society, the number of people who identify as “Bible Disengaged” increased by 45% over the past year, and the number of Scripture Engaged has shrunk by 1 in 5.

Why are people less interested in reading the Bible than they were a few years ago? What does this mean for society, and why is it important that we value the study of Scripture?

The trend away from biblical engagement comes as our culture is shifting away from authoritative, legalistic worldviews and towards greater reliance on feelings, experiences, and personal desires.

Critical Theory, one of the most prevailing conceptions of reality in the United States, values “lived experience” above almost any other authority.

In addition, the abortion, homosexuality, and transgender movements increasingly place a person’s identity and moral compass upon whatever feels right at any given moment. The young people of today demand that each person submit to their authoritarian perception of who they are and what they desire to do. To propose that a person’s identity is different from their perceived idea of themselves is to enact violence. To offer alternative authority other than a person’s own feelings or desires is to be a judgemental bigot.

Given this obsession with self as the ultimate sovereign, it is understandable that our society has lost its taste for a work of literature that demands complete submission to an all-powerful God. It is unsurprising that those who worship themselves balk at the idea that one must take this God at His Word, even if His commands contradict our own feelings, experiences, or desires.

The innerant Word of God asks more of us than we are often willing to give. When we enter the world within its pages, it invites us to know a God who is so completely, utterly different from ourselves that He accepts nothing less than complete surrender of our bodies, minds, souls, and hearts.

Therefore, in view of God’s mercy, offer your bodies as living sacrificies, holy and pleasing to God. This is your spiritual act of worship. (Rom. 12:1)

In fact, this God is so completely unknowable to the human mind that the only way we know anything about Him at all is that He has chosen to reveal Himself to us.

For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, declares the LORD. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts. (Isaiah 55:8-9)

What does that mean for us? It means that when we come to the Bible, we must put aside all preconceived ideas of what it will declare; we must reject all personal vendettas or agendas, and as much as possible, with the help of the Holy Spirit, discern the will of God which is revealed in its pages.

This attitude of approaching Scripture is very different from how many modern philosophers and theologians encounter the Holy Word of God. Take, for example, feminist or womanist theologians. While many of these women may have the good intent of remedying how Scripture has been misused by those who sought to use it for their own gain (while other feminists and womanists have a simple deconstructionist agenda), the result of their work exalts the will of man, rather than the will of God.

Delores S. Williams, an associate professor of theology and culture at Union Theological Seminary in New York City, describes the womanist theologian’s intent thus:

"The question must be asked: 'How does this source portray blackness/ darkness, women and economic justice for nonruling-class people?' A negative portrayal will demand omission of the source or its radical reformation by the black church. The Bible, a major source in black church liturgy, must also be subjected to the scrutiny of justice principles."

By its very description, then, a womanist theologian champions editing or omitting portions of Scripture that do not align with her liberation agenda.

This prideful excising of Scripture is both wrong and extremely dangerous.

While acknowledging that all people will come to the Bible with their own misguided ideas about the words within its pages, it is vital that we place the authority of God’s Word above the narrative of our own hearts. Otherwise, we fabricate a religion which worships ourselves, even if it is under the guise of Christianity.

John Calvin puts it this way:

…we must go, I say, to the Word, where the character of God, drawn from his works is described accurately and to the life; these works being estimated, not by our depraved Judgment, but by the standard of eternal truth. If, as I lately said, we turn aside from it, how great soever the speed with which we move, we shall never reach the goal, because we are off the course....[I]t is better to limp in the way, then run with the greatest swiftness out of it….because error never can be eradicated from the heart of man until the true knowledge of God has been implanted in it.

In other words, if we attempt to understand God apart from how He has chosen to reveal Himself, we will stray from true knowledge of who He is and instead make a God which reflects the evil desires of our own hearts. As Paul puts it, “They exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshipped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever. Amen!” (Rom. 1:25)

So why is it important that we read the Bible? Why is it necessary to humble ourselves before the radical ideas revealed within its pages?

Because without the Word of God we would have no hope of knowing God at all.

It is in the Bible that we read about the creation of the world by the hand of an almighty God (Gen. 1-2).

We read about the fall of mankind, who followed the “prince of the power of the air, the spirit who is now at work in those who are disobedient.” (Eph. 2:2, Gen. 2)

We learn of God’s righteous judgement on those who have broken His law (Rom. 1-3, 6:23, 1 Chron. 16:14)

We read of God’s kindness and compassion, whose “steadfast love is greater than life" (Ps. 63:3)

It is in the Bible that we read of God’s chosen people, Israel, who were set apart for a purpose, yet continued to fall away from His holy plan (Deut. 7, Deut. 14:2, etc)

We read about the Savior who came to this earth, who “being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, but made himself nothing...and being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself and became obedient to death, even death on a cross” (Philippians 2:6-8)

We read that “if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved” (Romans 10:9).

And it is in the Bible that we learn that this same Savior will be returning one day to judge the earth, and that all will be raised--those who have the righteousness of Christ, unto life, and those lost in sin, unto damnation (John 5:28-29, Rev. 21:1-8).

This story, this good news, is the most powerful and beautiful narrative to ever be told.

Our blessed Redeemer chose to reveal Himself through the person of Jesus Christ in the Words of the book that gathers dust on our shelves. The most transformative Words ever spoken we skim through while yawning and meditating on our next meal.

What would happen if our culture valued the words of God? How would our society change if each and every person submitted themselves to the authority of God’s Word? We should all long for and cry out for that day.

For the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and of spirit, of joints and of marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart. (Hebrews 4:12)