How Should We Read the Bible?

Mike Breen explains how to read the Bible, keeping two important questions in mind.

Questions for Discussion and Personal Reflection

  1. If you've read the Bible in the past, how helpful has your "reading method" been?
  2. Do you believe that the Bible has something to say to you today? Why or why not?

I think the Bible authenticates our faith and, um, and helps us to kind of establish our faith and understand it. I think the Bible is written with two themes in mind. Those two themes are like, um, the interwoven strands of a, of a piece of fabric. Um, the, the warp and the, the, the woof of a piece of fabric. And, uh, one of those strands is relationship and the other strand is responsibility. And so when you open the Bible and you read whatever it is. If it's a story or maybe a song, maybe one of those strange prophecies that you can find in the Old Testament, you read it with those two questions in mind. What is, what is the Bible saying to me about my relationship with God and on the basis of my relationship with him, my relationship with other people, and then what is the Bible saying that— out of the relationship with God— what, what should I be taking responsibility for? Relationship and responsibility are the kind of double helix of the Bible's D. It's the kind of, um, longitude and latitude. It's how you orientate yourself in the Bible. You, you ask yourself what's the relationship that, that God's talking about here and, and what's the responsibility? And if you do that honestly, anybody can understand every page of the Bible. You don't have to be a scholar. You just have to read it from that perspective.