Quotes & Sayings About Not Reading The Bible

I was given permission to serve myself Communion, with wine and a wafer, on the surface on the Moon. But I was advised not to say anything about it at the time. Someone had strongly objected to the Apollo 8 crew reading from the Bible. We didn't want to get into any further trouble with the religious critics. — Buzz Aldrin

Texts like the Bible and the works of the holy elders were written under the inspiration and guidance of the Holy Spirit. The person who studies them partakes of this Divine Grace in a mystical way. The soul is nourished with Grace even if the person who reads such literature does not understand the meaning of what is being read. "Just by reading this material," he claimed, "the individual becomes spiritually empowered by the Grace embedded in the words themselves. — Kyriacos C. Markides

Choose to view life through God's eyes. This will not be easy because it doesn't come naturally to us. We cannot do this on our own. We have to allow God to elevate our vantage point. Start by reading His Word, the Bible ... Pray and ask God to transform your thinking. Let Him do what you cannot. Ask Him to give you an eternal, divine perspective. — Charles R. Swindoll

Why do you think the Bible has survived thousands of years of tumultuous history Why is it still here Is it because its stories are such compelling reading Of course not ... but there is a reason. There is a reason Christian monks spend lifetimes attempting to decipher the Bible. There is a reason that Jewish mystics and Kabbalists pore over the Old Testament. And that reason Robert is that there exist powerful secrets hidden in the pages of this ancient book ... a vast collection of untapped wisdom waiting to be unveiled. — Dan Brown

Harry Potter," a voice says from my left. "Have you tried reading the Bible?" A woman, mid-forties, judgment scribbled all over her pinched, powdered face. Why do Bible lovers always have that constipated look on their face? Don't stereotype, Helena! I do my best to smile politely. "Is that the book where that lady turns into a statue after looking back at a burning city after God told her not to?" I say. "And where three defiant men are thrown into a furnace and don't burn. Oh, and isn't there a gal who feeds and puts to sleep the general of an enemy's army, and then uses a mallet to drive a tent peg into his brain?" She looks at me blankly. "But those are true. And that," she says, pointing to Harry, "is fiction. Not to mention devil worship." "Uh huh, uh huh. Devil worship? Is that like when the Israelites made a cow god of gold and worshipped it?" She's enraged. "You would love this book," I say, shoving The Goblet of Fire at her. "It's PG-rated compared to the Bible." "You, — Tarryn Fisher

I do not want to say anything which is too severe because it is not strictly true - let your own consciences speak, but still, I make bold to enquire, - Do not many of you read the Bible m a very hurried way - just a little bit, and off you go? Do you not soon forget what you have read, and lose what little effect it seemed to have? How few of you are resolved to get at its soul, its juice, its life, its essence, and to drink in its meaning. Well, if you do not do that, I tell you again your reading is miserable reading, dead reading, unprofitable reading; it is not reading at all, the name would be misapplied. — Charles Haddon Spurgeon

Her total intellectual association was the Bible, except the talk of Samuel and her children, and to them she did not listen. In that one book she had her history and her poetry, her knowledge of peoples and things, her ethics, her morals, and her salvation. She never studied the Bible or inspected it; she just read it. The many places where it seems to refute itself did not confuse her in the least. And finally she came to a point where she knew it so well that she went right on reading it without listening. — John Steinbeck

Reading and understanding the Bible involves lots and lots of interpretation. Not just in light of the world and culture around us, but in reference to other parts of the Bible. — John Piper

Except... what Jesus said was: "I will build My church," not you. The verse is not a prediction, it is a proclamation of the Lord of the Earth, who never once talked of "children in subjection." or "wives be grave... sober, faithful in all things." In fact, reading the New Testament from the Gospels into Paul's letters, is like watching the Wizard of Oz backwards -- going from a world of color and amazement, into a land of black-and-white with insane devout women trying to kill your dog. -- editorial 2014 — Glenn Hefley

When it comes to the New Testament, we can be confident we are reading from accurate sources, because we have so many ancient copies to compare. For many ancient texts there are only a handful of manuscripts in existence. We have only nine or ten good copies of Julius Caesar's The Gallic Wars. The best-preserved, non-biblical ancient writing we have is Homer's Iliad, of which there are only 643 copies. Compare these numbers to the New Testament, which is based on nearly six thousand Greek manuscripts plus over nine thousand ancient copies in other languages. If that were not enough, even if all of these copies were lost, we could reconstruct all but eleven verses of the New Testament from ancient quotations of the Bible. — Douglas M. Beaumont

It is now 55 years since my last book report, which is a long time to live with a guilty conscience. So here it is: In the spring of 1956 I wrote a highly favorable review of the Bible without reading a word of it, and it was the last A I ever got in English. Why it has taken so long to come clean I'm not sure, except I have always been extremely sensitive about my academic reputation. — Pete Dexter

How many times have you struggled with the interpretation of certain Biblical texts related to the time of Jesus' return because they did not fit with a preconceived system of eschatology? Russell's Parousia takes the Bible seriously when it tells us of the nearness of Christ's return. Those who claim to interpret the Bible literally, trip over the obvious meaning of these time texts by making Scripture mean the opposite of what it unequivocally declares. Reading Russell is a breath of fresh air in a room filled with smoke and mirror hermeneutics. — Gary DeMar

What my research has brought me to believe is this," Katherine said. "God is very real - a mental energy that pervades everything. And we, as human beings, have been created in that image - " "I'm sorry?" Langdon interrupted. "Created in the image of ... mental energy?" "Exactly. Our physical bodies have evolved over the ages, but it was our minds that were created in the image of God. We've been reading the Bible too literally. We learn that God created us in his image, but it's not our physical bodies that resemble God, it's our minds. — Dan Brown

I am forced to reexamine. Thomas Merton's words about the Bible in general apply to the Old Testament in particular: There is, in a word, nothing comfortable about the Bible - until we manage to get so used to it that we make it comfortable for ourselves ... Have we ceased to question the book and be questioned by it? Have we ceased to fight it? Then perhaps our reading is no longer serious. For most people, the understanding of the Bible is, and should be, a struggle: not merely to find meanings that can be looked up in books of reference, but to come to terms personally with the stark scandal and contradiction in the Bible itself ... Let us not be too sure we know the Bible just because we have learned not to be astonished at it, just because we have learned not to have problems with it. — Philip Yancey

If this is not already a habit of yours, now is the time to begin reading a portion of the Bible every day. Ideally, read it together as husband and wife - in the morning, perhaps, or before bed. — Alex Kendrick

My friend and Old Testament professor Tremper Longman once told me that reading the Bible is somewhat like watching the movie The Sixth Sense. That movie has a startling ending that forces you to go back and reinterpret everything you saw before. The second time through, you can't not think of the ending as you watch the beginning and middle of the movie. The ending sheds unignorable light on everything that went before. — Timothy Keller

Through the reading of popular scientific books I soon reached the conviction that much in the stories of the Bible could not be true. The consequence was a positively fanatic orgy of freethinking coupled with the impression that youth is intentionally being deceived by the state through lies; it was a crushing impression. Mistrust of every kind of authority grew out of this experience, a skeptical attitude toward the convictions that were alive in any specific social environment - an attitude that has never again left me.
- Albert Einstein, Autobiographical Notes, edited by Paul Arthur Schilpp — Albert Einstein

It's not the amount of Bible you read, it's the amount of Bible you believe. — Carlos A. Rodriguez

Read the Bible daily. Make it part of your everyday business to read and meditate on some portion of God's Word. Gather your manna fresh every morning. Choose your own seasons and hours. Do not scramble over and hurry your reading. Give your Bible the best, and not the worst, part of your time. But whatever plan you pursue, let it be a rule of your life to visit the throne of grace and the Bible every day. — J.C. Ryle

Not that the study is not important. A Jewish rabbi I once studies with would often say, 'For us Jews studying the bible is more important than obeying it because if you don't understand it rightly you will obey it wrongly and your obedience will be disobedience.

This is also true. — Eugene H. Peterson

I believe scripture is not just resilient but rebellious against its abuse by people. Scripture says it refuses to be used in that way for long. That is why the gospel that has been used by the oppressors is the same gospel that liberated the oppressed: They were reading the same book. Something in the DNA of Christian faith and in the Bible agitates against that kind of misuse. — Allan Boesak

There is not enough Bible-reading among us. It is not sufficient to have the Book. We must actually READ it, and PRAY over it ourselves. It will do us no good, if it only lies still in our houses. We must be actually familiar with its contents, and have its texts stored in our memories and minds. Knowledge of the Bible never comes by intuition. It can only be obtained by diligent, regular, daily, attentive, wakeful reading. — J.C. Ryle

My father, Li Tong, used to say, 'Church leader who does not believe in God is like barefoot shoe salesman.' We call our bureau leader the Caiaphas of China." "What does that mean?" "You remember Caiaphas from the Bible?" "No." "Did someone take your Bible from you?" "No. It's on my shelf. Remember? I've got three of them." "Perhaps Ben Fielding should give two away and then start reading the other one. — Randy Alcorn

Moralizing is reading the Bible not to learn about Jesus but only to learn principles for how to live life as a good person by following the good examples of some people and avoiding the bad examples of others. That kind of approach to the Scriptures is not Christian, because it treats the Bible like any other book with moral lessons that are utterly disconnected from faith in and salvation from Jesus. — Mark Driscoll

Did Gran go to a gynecologist? That is totally weird. I never thought about my grandmother's vagina before. I don't want to be thinking about my grandmother's vagina. Not here, at her funeral. In a church. While i'm doing a reading from the Bible. — Meg Cabot

It is easy to think that the Church has a lot of different objects - education, building, missions, holding services. Just as it is easy to think the State has a lot of different objects - military, political, economic, and what not. But in a way things are much simpler than that. The State exists simply to promote and to protect the ordinary happiness of human beings in this life. A husband and wife chatting over a fire, a couple of friends having a game of darts in a pub, a man reading a book in his own room or digging in his own garden - that is what the State is there for. And unless they are helping to increase and prolong and protect such moments, all the laws, parliaments, armies, courts, police, economics, etc., are simply a waste of time. In the same way the Church exists for nothing else but to draw men into Christ, to make them little Christs. If they are not doing that, all the cathedrals, clergy, missions, sermons, even the Bible itself, are simply a waste of time. — C.S. Lewis

What do you believe, Aunt Elizabeth?'
'I believe ... I am comfortable with reading the Bible figuratively rather than literally. For instance, I think the six days in Genesis are not literal days, but different periods of creation, so that it took many thousands
or hundreds of thousands of years
to create. It does not demean God; it simply gives Him more time to build this extraordinary world.'
'And the ichthyosaurus and plesiosaurus?'
'They are creatures from long, long ago. They remind us that the world is changing. Of course it is. I can see it change when there are landslips at Lyme that alter the shoreline. It changes when there are earthquakes and volcanic eruptions and floods. And why shouldn't it? — Tracy Chevalier

My friends knew that I was reading the Bible. First, the dean of the chapel took me out to lunch and shared his belief that the Old Testament was dispensable and, with it, any prohibition about sexuality and immorality. But I had been reading and studying the three different narratives of the Old Testament, and it seemed to me that you couldn't dispense with it in its entirety without violating a foundational rule about canonicity: no creating canons within canons. In fact, I had just gone over this in my graduate seminar in Queer Theory and it made me wonder if the chapel dean ought not sit in on my class. His position seemed like a hermeneutic of convenience, tailoring the text to fit my experience, and not a hermeneutic of integrity, where the text gets the chance to fulfill its internal mission. — Rosaria Champagne Butterfield

If you like eating meat but want to eat ethically, this is the book for you. From the hard-headed, clear-eyed, and sympathetic perspective of butchers who care deeply about the animals whose parts they sell, the customers who buy their meats, and the pleasures of eating, this book has much to teach. It's an instant classic, making it clear why meat is part of the food revolution. I see it as the new Bible of meat aficionados and worth reading by all food lovers, meat-eating and not. — Marion Nestle

All of creation, in the biblical view, was to ultimately prepare the way for the creation of man. But one does not need the Bible alone to hold this view. A purely scientific reading of the universe is in keeping with this view. Everything - every natural and physical law - is exquisitely tuned to produce life, and ultimately man, on earth. — Dennis Prager

What is a disciple? It is not a mindless follower. A disciple is a student.
When Paul prohibits women teaching men, he (in the same breath) requires Christian women to be students of the Word "Let a woman learn ... " (1 Tim 2:11).
Because biblical learning is required of us, we ought not to be afraid of it. We must overcome our ignorance! We ought to read good, solid books on Christian doctrine. It is good for us! We must cultivate a taste for books that will build s up in the faith- not take us to fantasy land. Just read a page or two at a time if need be, and never at the expense of your Bible reading. — Nancy Wilson

Have been reading "Genesis" several Sundays, not as a Christian reads for "spiritual consolation," "instruction," etc., not as aninfidel reads to carp and quarrel and criticize, but as one who wishes to be informed and furnished in the earliest and most wonderful of all literary productions. The literature of the Bible should be studied as one studies Shakespeare, for illustration and language, for its true pictures of man and woman nature, for its early historical record. — Rutherford B. Hayes

I have tried reading the Bible but that's a tough read there. I watch a lot of religious documentaries. I have a keen interest in religion for someone who's not religious. — Jim Jefferies

I should as soon expect a farmer to prosper in business who contented himself with sowing his fields and never looking at them till harvest, as expect a believer to attain much holiness who was not diligent about his Bible reading, his prayers, and the use of his Sundays. — J.C. Ryle

It would be a pity if, in a desire (rightly) to treat the Bible as more than a book, we ended up treating it as less than a book by not permitting it the range and use of language, order, and figures of speech that are (or ought to be) familiar to us from our ordinary experience of conversation and reading. — John C. Lennox

Any serious reading of the Bible means personal involvement in it, not symbol mental agreement with abstract propositions. And involvement is dangerous, because it leaves one open to unforeseen conclusions. — Megan McKenna

The reason the world is not seeing Jesus is that Christian people are not filled with Jesus. They are satisfied with attending meetings weekly, reading the Bible occasionally, and praying sometimes. It is an awful thing for me to see people who profess to be Christians lifeless, powerless, and in a place where their lives are so parallel to unbelievers' lives that it is difficult to tell which place they are in, whether in the flesh or in the Spirit. — Smith Wigglesworth

[Solitary confinement] is terrible. That is terrible. You're in a grave. You can't do anything. Everything's brought to you and you're in a room all day, except to come out of the showers. So when I would come out, I would entertain myself by singing, doing little mock concerts. And then when I was in the room, I would develop a routine. Like I have a lot of hair under here, so I would take my hair down and take all day to braid it on purpose. Stretch the hours out. Then I might write. And I would clean the floor. And I would look out the window. And then I'd devote a whole day to just reading. I was Christian then, trying to be. So I would read the whole Bible. I would break it down into sections. You're in a grave and you're trying to live. That's how to best describe it: trying to live in a grave. You're trying to live 'cause you're not dead yet, but nobody hears you when you call out, 'Hey, I'm alive! — Megan Sweeney

The quiet child became a rebellious adolescent. He was working his own way through Kant and Darwin and mathematics while the Gymnasium pounded him with rote. He veered off into religion - Judaism - and came back bitterly disillusioned: "Through the reading of popular scientific books I soon reached the conviction that much of the stories in the Bible could not be true. . . — Richard Rhodes

He was a quick fellow, and when hot from play, would toss himself in a corner, and in five minutes be deep in any sort of book that he could lay his hands on: if it were Rasselas or Gulliver, so much the better, but Bailey's Dictionary would do, or the Bible with the Apocrypha in it. Something he must read, when he was not riding the pony, or running and hunting, or listening to the talk of men. All this was true of him at ten years of age; he had then read through Chrysal, or the Adventures of a Guinea, which was neither milk for babes, nor any chalky mixture meant to pass for milk, and it had already occurred to him that books were stuff, and that life was stupid. — George Eliot

I'm not so sure reading Scripture will keep us from having to face trouble as much as it will focus our attention on our Help in those times. The Bible's full of stories about good folks with troubles. Good folks. God-fearin' folks. — Mona Hodgson

In fact, the Devil is delighted when we spend our time and energy defending the Bible, as long as we do not get around to actually reading the Bible. — R.C. Sproul Jr.

This does not happen overnight, of course. It takes years of reflection. It requires disciplined prayer, Bible study and reading, innumerable conversations with friends, and dynamic congregational worship. But unlike learning other thinkers or authors, Jesus's Spirit can come and live within you and spiritually illuminate your heart, so that his gospel becomes glorious in your sight. Then the gospel "dwells in your hearts richly" (Colossians 3:16), and we find the power to serve, to give and take criticism well, to not expect our spouse or our marriage to meet all our needs and heal all our hurts. — Timothy Keller

The Bible does not thrill; the Bible nourishes. Give time to the reading of the Bible and the recreating effect is as real as that of fresh air physically. — Oswald Chambers

Reading the Bible for spiritual transformation is not a one-sided endeavor: it is a dialogue of human spirit and Holy Spirit. — Richard J. Foster

Clearly, it is not simply exegesis that determines how we read the Bible; rather, it is our vested interests, our hopes, and our fears that largely determine our reading. And because the reach of the gracious God of the Bible is toward the other, we ought rightly to be skeptical and suspicious of any reading of the Bible that excludes the other, because it is likely to be informed by vested interest, fears, and hopes that serve self-protection and end in self-destruction. Palestinians' and Israelis' fear of the other, said to be grounded in the Bible, has been transposed into a military apparatus that is aimed at the elimination of the other. It is wholly illusionary to imagine that such an agenda is congruent with the God of the Bible who is commonly confessed by Jews and Christians. — Walter Brueggemann

One has either got to be a Jew or stop reading the Bible. The Bible cannot make sense to anyone who is not "spiritually a Semite." The spiritual sense of the Old Testament is not and cannot be a simple emptying out of its Israelite content. Quite the contrary! The New Testament is the fulfillment of that spiritual content, the fulfillment of the promise made to Abraham, the promise that Abraham believed in. It is never therefore a denial of Judaism, but its affirmation. Those who consider it a denial have not understood it. — Thomas Merton

Reading our Bible is actually fundamental, but there is more if we are going to walk in His truth. Even if we read the Bible, if we do not read it by the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of Truth, we will not understand it correctly. — Rick Joyner

I have never looked to religion for comfort - belief is just not in my genes. But reading Mastering the Art of French Cooking - childishly simple and dauntingly complex, incantatory and comforting - I thought this was what prayer must feel like. Sustenance bound up with anticipation and want. Reading MtAoFC was like reading pornographic Bible verses. — Julie Powell

The primary purpose of reading the Bible is not to know the Bible but to know God. — James Merritt

I'm not going askew from the principles on which the United States was built; I'm right there with our founding fathers. I'm a patriot and a Christian, and I'm moving forth with what they started. But now it's gotten to where I'm some kind of nut or Bible beater.
I say, so be it. I'll still go across the country spreading God's Word, like I've done since I was twenty-eight. I may be only one man reading Scripture and quotes, carrying his Bible, and blowing duck calls to crowds, but, hey, it has to start somewhere. It's what makes me happy, happy, happy. — Phil Robertson

If we are not being moved in heart and moved to new places in life - new levels of obedience to God - we are not really reading the Bible the way God wants us to. — George H. Guthrie

What justifies specifically churchly exegesis of Scripture? Can church doctrine guide our reading? Why should it? Why should we interpret the story of Abraham and Isaac by the passion of Jesus? The answer is bluntly simple: What justifies churchly reading of Scripture is that there is no other way to read it, since "it" dissolves under other regimes. Thus a hermeneutical exhortation from this first perspective. Be entirely blatant and unabashed in reading Scripture for the church's purposes and within the context of Christian faith and practice. Indeed, guide your reading by church doctrine. For if, say, the doctrine of Trinity and Matthew's construal of the passion do not fit each other, then the church lost its diachronic self in the early fourth century at the latest, and the whole enterprise of Bible reading is moot. The question, after all, is not whether churchly reading of Scripture is justified; the question is, what could possibly justify any other? — Ellen F. Davis

Fifield's connection to his congregation extended to their views on religion and politics too. In the apt words of one observer, Fifield was "one of the most theologically liberal and at the same time politically conservative ministers" of his era. He had no patience for fundamentalists who insisted upon a literal reading of Scripture. "The men who chronicled and canonized the Bible were subject to human error and limitation," he believed, and therefore the text needed to be sifted and interpreted. Reading the holy book should be "like eating fish - we take the bones out to enjoy the meat. All parts are not of equal value." Accordingly, Fifield dismissed the many passages in the New Testament about wealth and poverty and instead worked tirelessly to reconcile Christianity and capitalism. In his view, both systems rested on a basic belief that individuals would succeed or fail on their own merit. — Kevin M. Kruse

Does the Bible ever say anywhere from Genesis to Revelation, 'My house shall be called a house of preaching'? Does it ever say, 'My house shall be called a house of music'? Of course not. The Bible does say, 'My house shall be called a house of prayer for all nations'. Preaching, music, the reading of the Word - these things are fine; I believe in and practice all of them. But they must never override prayer as the defining mark of God's dwelling. the honest truth is that I have seen God do more in people's lives during ten minutes of real prayer than in ten of my sermons. — Jim Cymbala

There's this thing that I like to call the RC Sproul principle of hermenutics.
When you're reading the bible and you come across someone doing something really stupid, don't say to yourself "I'm glad I'm not him". Ask yourself "How am I that stupid? — R.C. Sproul Jr.

You know the story in the Bible?', Jacob asked suddenly, still reading the blank ceiling. 'The one with the king and the two women fighting over the baby?'
'Sure. King Solomon.'
'That's right. King Solomon.' he repeated. 'And he said, cut the kid in half ... but it was only a test. Just to see who would give-up their share to protect it.'
'Yeah. I remember.'
He looked back at my face. 'I'm not going to cut you in half anymore, Bella. — Stephenie Meyer

NOT LONG AGO I WAS READING A PASSAGE IN THE Bible in which Jesus was praying for his disciples. He prayed that they would love each other, as he'd taught them to do. He prayed that they'd embrace a mission to teach other people to create communities that loved each other, as they'd experienced with him. When I read the passage, though, I saw it differently. He wasn't just calling them into a life of sacrifice. He was calling them into a life of meaning, even the kind of meaning that would involve suffering. Suffering for a redemptive reason is hardly suffering, after all. — Donald Miller

Which means, therefore, that our Bible reading is never just for seeing, never just for learning and doctrine. It is not even just for savoring, if that savoring is thought of in a private way that leaves us unchanged in our relationship with others. No. We read the Bible - we always read the Bible - for the kind of seeing and savoring Christ that transforms us into his likeness. — John Piper

I know not a better rule of reading the Scripture, than to read it through from beginning to end and when we have finished it once, to begin it again. We shall meet with many passages which we can make little improvement of, but not so many in the second reading as in the first, and fewer in the third than in the second: provided we pray to him who has the keys to open our understandings, and to anoint our eyes with His spiritual ointment. — John Newton

In the story, the eunuch was riding along the desert road in his chariot reading Isaiah, and he was returning from Jerusalem having gone there to worship. But I started to wonder if he was also familiar with Deuteronomy, specifically 23:1, which says, No one whose testicles are cut off or whose penis is cut off shall be admitted to the assembly of the Lord. (Why John 3:16 is the most popular verse in the Bible and not Deuteronomy 23:1 is beyond me.) — Nadia Bolz-Weber

I have a new nickname. A few of the guys have noticed that I am reading the bible on my free time. I am now 'preacher.' Not very fitting, if you ask me. Don't preachers have to stand up and teach people? I guess it could be worse. Some of the guys were talking about their favorite kind of music. Nobody said classical. I wasn't surprised, and I didn't volunteer my preference. Later on, I was talking to Tyler Young, and he asked me what I liked to listen to, so I told him about Beethoven. He asked me what songs I liked. I told him I especially liked Air on a G String - big mistake!! He thought I was talking about women's underwear. He's calling me 'G' now. I think I prefer Preacher. Tyler has a big mouth, especially when he thinks he's going to get laughs, and before I knew it, he'd told everyone about Air on a G String. Now I'm 'Preacher G. — Amy Harmon

Unless you first do the hard work of answering those questions about a text, your meditations won't be grounded in what God is actually saying in the passage. Something in the passage may "hit" you - but it may hit you as expressing almost the opposite of what the biblical author, inspired by the Spirit, was saying. When that happens, you are listening to your own heart or to the spirit of your own culture, not to God's voice in the Scripture. A great number of books advise "divine reading" of the Bible today, and define the activity uncarefully as reading "not for information but to hear a personal word of God to you." This presents a false contrast. It is certainly true that meditation personalizes the Word, but before we can meditate on what the text personally means to us and our time, we must first need to know as much as possible what the author meant to say to his readers when he wrote it. — Timothy Keller

Thus I came ... to a deep religiosity, which, however, reached an abrupt end at the age of 12. Through the reading of popular scientific books I soon reached a conviction that much in the stories of the Bible could not be true ... Suspicion against every kind of authority grew out of this experience ... an attitude which has never left me. — Albert Einstein

Now the things done may not be evil or improper; they in fact may be good and godly (such as reading the Bible, praying, worshiping, preaching); but if they are not undertaken in a spirit of complete reliance upon the Holy Spirit, then the flesh is the source of all. The old creation is willing to do anything-even to submit to God - if only it is permitted to live and to be active. — Watchman Nee

To live a distant, withdrawn, and secluded life is diametrically opposed to spirituality as Jesus Christ taught it. The true test of our spirituality occurs when we come up against injustice, degradation, ingratitude, and turmoil, all of which have the tendency to make us spiritually lazy. While being tested, we want to use prayer and Bible reading for the purpose of finding a quiet retreat. We use God only for the sake of getting peace and joy. We seek only our enjoyment of Jesus Christ, not a true realization of Him. This is the first step in the wrong direction. All these things we are seeking are simply effects, and yet we try to make them causes. — Oswald Chambers

So many people mistakenly take the Bible as a mere reading book! They read it every now and then! Well, that's a noble thing to do, but a more solemn way is to see the Bible as not just a reading book, but a true practical book for true worshipers, and live it as such! — Ernest Agyemang Yeboah

Justice delayed is not necessarily justice denied. There will come a day when God will settle accounts and people will be held responsible for the evil they've perpetrated and the suffering they've caused. Criticizing God for not doing it right now is like reading half a novel and criticizing the author for not resolving the plot. God will bring accountability at the right time - in fact, the Bible says one reason he's delaying is because some people are still following the clues and have yet to find him.15 He's actually delaying the consummation of history out of his great love for them. — Lee Strobel

The Bible teaches that we are to live in this world, but we are not to partake of the evils of the world. We are to be separated from the world of evil. When I face something in the world, I ask: Does it violate any principle of Scripture? Does it take the keen edge off my Christian life? Can I ask God's blessing on it? Will it be a stumbling block to others? Would I like to be there, or reading that, or be watching that, if Christ should return at that time? — Billy Graham

To be a critical reader means for me: (1) to affirm the enduring power of the Bible in my culture and in my own life and yet (2) to remain open enough to dare to ask any question and to risk any critical judgement. Nothing less than both of these points, together, can suffice for me. I was a reader of the Bible before I was a critic of it, but I found becoming a critic to be liberating and satisfying, and therefore I judge criticism to be a high calling of inestimable value. Yet, I recognize the prior claim of the text and the preeminence of reading over criticism; accordingly, I see and occasionally am apprehended by moments in which the text wields its indubitable power. The critic's ego says this could be a taste of the cherished post-critical naivete; the reader's proper humility before the text says that a reader should not judge such things. — Robert M. Fowler

Obedience is the thing, living in active response to the living God. The most important question we ask of this text is not, 'What does this mean?' but 'What can I obey?' A simple act of obedience will open up our lives to this text far more quickly than any number of Bible studies and dictionaries and concordances. — Eugene H. Peterson

Until the Bible begins to talk to us, we really have not been reading it. — Aiden Wilson Tozer

I am truly amazed that after all this time, religious groups still need to attack entertainment and use these tragedies as a pitiful excuse for their own self-serving publicity. In response to their protests, I will provide a show where I balance my songs with a wholesome Bible reading. This way, fans will not only hear my so-called, violent point of view, but we can also examine the virtues of wonderful 'Christian' stories of disease, murder, adultery, suicide and child sacrifice. Now that seems like 'entertainment' to me. — Marilyn Manson

Seeking - really seeking - is more than just reading a few verses from the Bible in the morning and trying to be a good person that day. Seeking requires me to sacrifice the things I feel compelled to chase so I can be available to notice God's clear direction. Whatever we chase, like it or not, gains our full attention. Dear Lord, forgive me for all the times I've rushed by Your gifts and overlooked Your blessings. Today, I want to pause and really seek You with all I've got. I love You, Lord. In Jesus' Name, Amen. — Lysa TerKeurst

Reading the Bible responsibly and respectfully today means learning what it meant for ancient Israelites to talk about God the way they did, and not pushing alien expectations onto texts written long ago and far away. — Peter Enns

There's a lovely Hasidic story of a rabbi who always told his people that if they studied the Torah, it would put Scripture on their hearts. One of them asked, "Why on our hearts, and not in them?" The rabbi answered, "Only God can put Scripture inside. But reading sacred text can put it on your heart, and then when your hearts break, the holy words will fall inside. — Anne Lamott

From Obama's book, "The Audacity of Hope:" "I am not willing to have the state deny American citizens a civil union that confers equivalent rights on such basic matters as hospital visitation or health insurance coverage simply because the people they love are of the same sex - nor am I willing to accept a reading of the Bible that considers an obscure line in Romans to be more defining of Christianity than the Sermon on the Mount." — Barack Obama

Next to praying there is nothing so important in practical religion as Bible reading. By reading that book we may learn what to believe, what to be, and what to do; how to live with comfort, and how to die in peace.
Happy is that man who possesses a Bible! Happier still is he who reads it! Happiest of all is he who not only reads it, but obeys it, and makes it the rule of his faith and practice! — J.C. Ryle

I do not understand why reading the Bible in public should make others feel uncomfortable ... it may be such an example that serves to remind them of the Book they have neglected. — Billy Graham

If you think that it would be impossible to improve upon the Ten Commandments as a statement of morality, you really owe it to yourself to read some other scriptures. Once again, we need look no further than the Jains: Mahavira, the Jain patriarch, surpassed the morality of the Bible with a single sentence: 'Do not injure, abuse, oppress, enslave, insult, torment, torture, or kill any creature or living being.' Imagine how different our world might be if the Bible contained this as its central precept. Christians have abused, oppressed, enslaved, insulted, tormented, tortured, and killed people in the name of God for centuries, on the basis of a theologically defensible reading of the Bible. — Sam Harris

Good way is to study Bible characters - take them right from the cradle to the grave. You find that skeptics often take one particular part of a man's life - say, of the life of Jacob or of David - and judge the whole by that. They say these men were queer saints; and yet God did not punish them. If you go right through these men's lives you will find that God did punish them, according to the sins they committed. A lady once said to me that she had trouble in reading the Bible, that she seemed to not feel the interest she ought. If you don't keep up your interest in one way, try another. Never think you have to read the Bible by courses. PROPER NAMES. Another interesting study is the meaning of proper names. I need hardly remark that every name in the Bible, especially Hebrew names, — D.L. Moody

For many Christ-followers, the Bible is a book of principles to show us how to live. No wonder we struggle to spend time in the Word - how excited are you about spending time reading a to-do list that's 1,500 pages long? When we view the Bible primarily as a book of principles for living, we miss the point. The point of the Bible is not principles but a Person. Jesus said in John 5:39, "These are the Scriptures that testify about me." He is the point. If our interaction with the Word isn't resulting in a deepening intimacy with Jesus, a deepening experience of His love and grace, we are missing something huge. — Alan Kraft

Even with a more traditional reading that condemns gay sex, the Bible never condemns gay people for who they are and what they feel. We may disagree on whether the Bible can be reconciled with same-sex marriage, but we should be able to agree that the Bible is not homophobic and does not justify the unkind attitudes some Christians have become known for. — Justin Lee