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Motivation to read the Bible

No one can compel you to read your Bible. We can give you all kinds of tips, but the motivation must come from you. The Bible provides comments on some of the things that might motivate us and gives some compelling reasons to encourage us to come to him and his word. 

“Come, everyone who thirsts, come to the waters; and he who has no money, come, buy and eat! Come, buy wine and milk without money and without price. Why do you spend your money for that which is not bread, and your labor for that which does not satisfy? Listen diligently to me, and eat what is good, and delight yourselves in rich food. Incline your ear, and come to me; hear, that your soul may live; and I will make with you an everlasting covenant, my steadfast, sure love for David.”

Some of the key words in these verses are “thirst”, “has no money”, “does not satisfy”.  These phrases are all to with lacking something that is basic to our human needs.  The verses also suggest that by listening to what God has revealed we will receive a genuine satisfaction of a basic human need.  

Motivation:  The Bible provides access to something which will satisfy our human need to understand why things are the way they are.  We have an inherent desire to know what is true and a curiosity to find answers for life’s big questions such as; is there meaning & purpose behind life, is my own life and the choices I make of any meaning and value in a bigger picture?  The Bible offers to provide insights into those questions in a way which an abundance of food/drink/wealth never can. 

“Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.”

In these words, Jesus claims that if you come to him and listen to his teaching then you can be relieved of burdens and feel at rest.  For the people listening to him he was saying that he would not lay heavy burdens of rules and regulations on them which just made them feel more and more guilty.  This is what the religious leaders of his day (e.g. the Pharisees and Sadducees) were like.  Instead he would reach out to people with compassion and forgiveness and this would give people rest.

Motivation: embracing the worldview, ideas and attitudes, that Jesus expressed can relieve some aspects of the pressures and expectations of life. We may feel the burden of other people’s unjust or authoritative behaviour but this will not weigh down on us if we see the bigger picture of God’s purpose in Jesus.

Romans 5:8-11 Ephesians 2:12-16 

“but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Since, therefore, we have now been justified by his blood, much more shall we be saved by him from the wrath of God. For if while we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more, now that we are reconciled, shall we be saved by his life. More than that, we also rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received reconciliation.”

“remember that you were at that time separated from Christ, alienated from the commonwealth of Israel and strangers to the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world. But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ. For he himself is our peace, who has made us both one and has broken down in his flesh the dividing wall of hostility by abolishing the law of commandments expressed in ordinances, that he might create in himself one new man in place of the two, so making peace, and might reconcile us both to God in one body through the cross, thereby killing the hostility.”

The key ideas in these two passages from the letters of the apostle Paul are the healing of a broken relationship with God so that we can be reconciled, or brought near to God, because the original cause of the break in the relationship is fixed for good. 

Motivation: Reading the Bible and responding to what Jesus has done in a way which brings the forgiveness of our wrongdoing, can bring the immense sense of relief that comes from repairing a broken relationship and knowing that there is no longer a barrier between us and God.

Are there other reasons to read the Bible?

There are no doubt many other motivations to reading the Bible but it is worth thinking about a couple that are often mentioned.

For comfort?

Sometimes the Bible offers hugely comforting words in times of distress.  For example:

However, that is not always the purpose of the way God has revealed himself.  Sometimes we need to be prepared to be shocked and humbled by what we read.  There are often examples of terrible human behaviour in the Bible which is not comforting to read at all, but it is designed to help us see what God is looking for from us.  He made humans ‘in his image’ so sometimes the Bible uses very hard language and examples of people not reflecting his image to show how important it is to know what that means.  The verse below shows that the word of God is intended to be searching and revealing of how we truly are so that we are changed by it.

For prosperity?

There is a view that reading the Bible and praying to God will bring us a guarantee of success and prosperity in life.  There is no such promise in the Bible, in fact the weight of examples and guidance in scripture is that is more likely that we will have to give up opportunities for prosperity, position or wealth if we are to remain true to following Jesus.  Here is an example of how Jesus describes this.