Quotes & Sayings About Reading Your Bible

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

I am most interested in encouraging Christians to think and read well. Christians, of all people, should reflect the mind of their Maker. Learning to read well is a step toward loving God with your mind. It is a leap toward thinking God's thoughts after Him. — James W. Sire

You should spend more time reading the Good Book and less reading all those novels. What are you going to tell the Lord on Judgement Day when He asks you why you didn't read your bible? Hmm?
I will tell Him that His press agents could have done with a writing lesson or two, I said. To myself. — Jennifer Donnelly

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

God's answer to your guilty conscience is the death of his Son. Your answer to a guilty conscience is usually something you do, like confessing harder, praying more, reading your Bible, paying more than your tithe in the offering and so on. These actions are what the writer to the Hebrews calls "dead works," the very things your conscience needs to be cleansed from and the very things that eventually get you wrapped up in the black shadow of your own guilt. — John White

Want to get your kids to read more? Try making books easily accessible. Put them where kids can easily reach and don't make them off limits. (within reason) — Melanie Kirk

The moment you don't feel like praying, get on your knees. And the moment you don't feel like reading your bible, you'd better get that Book open. — Lori Wick

The very practice of reading [the Bible] will have a purifying effect upon your mind and heart. Let nothing take the place of this daily exercise. — Billy Graham

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

What you read between the covers of your Bible is wisdom for a lifetime, rock-solid, forever truth - truth you can stand on, live by, and trust ... forever. — Elizabeth George

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

I love to read books. I love to read anything really, even the back of the cereal box.

But there is nothing that will ignite your soul like reading God's Word. — Rachel Wojnarowski

Reading the Bible will help you get to know the word, but it's when you put it down and live your life that you get to know the author. — Steve Maraboli

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

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

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

Mediation on the Scriptures will renew your mind. — Lailah Gifty Akita

Are you reading your Bible?"
Ah, well ... I was."
And then you quit."
You got it."
Then, you can expect to be weak on one of your flanks, and that's precisely where the Enemy will come after you with a vengeance. — Jan Karon

...if we're to experience change in our very nature, we need to enter the cocoon of the Word of God. When you sit in your lounge room or your favorite chair reading the Bible, think caterpillar. It's like you're spinning your own spiritual cocoon.

It's in the confines of the cocoon that the unseen work is done in the caterpillar...This is exactly what happens to us when we abide in the Word of God. It's here He can do His greatest work in us. As we commit to this process we too will experience internal transformation that in time will cause external change. — Christine Caine

You belong to the biblical race of Nephilim. Your real father was an angel who fell from heaven. You're half mortal." The boy's dark eyes lifted, meeting Chauncey's. "Half fallen angel." Chauncey's tutor's voice drifted up from the recesses of his mind, reading passages from the Bible, telling of a deviant race created when angels cast from heaven mated with mortal women. A fearsome and powerful race. A chill that wasn't entirely revulsion crept through Chauncey. "Who are you? — Becca Fitzpatrick

Too many read a chapter or two in the Bible, then for lack of interest put it down for weeks at a time and never look at it. Bernard compares the study of the Word and the mere reading of it to the difference between a close friendship and a casual acquaintance. If you want genuine knowledge, he says, you will have to do more than greet the Word politely on Sundays or nod reverently when you chance to meet it on the street. You must walk with it and talk with it every day of the week. You must invite it into your private chambers, and forego other pleasures and worldly duties to spent time in its company. — William Gurnall

Your god may be your little Christian habit - the habit of prayer or Bible reading at certain times of your day. Watch how your Father will upset your schedule if you begin to worship your habit instead of what the habit symbolizes. We say, 'I can't do that right now; this is my time alone with God.' No, this is your time alone with your habit. — Oswald Chambers

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

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

Can a sinner be turned into a saint? Can a twisted life be made right? There is only one appropriate answer - "O Lord God, You know" (37:3). Never forge ahead with your religious common sense and say, "Oh, yes, with just a little more Bible reading, devotional time, and prayer, I see how it can be done. — Oswald Chambers

Remember again the principle: We will never be over those things that God has set under us until we learn to be under those things that God has placed over us. There is strength through surrender. Are you under the Word of God? Is the Bible your mandate for life? Are you loving it, reading it, obeying it, and living it? Are you consciously filled with the Holy Spirit? Have you yielded every part of the temple of your body to him? Are you grieving him in any way? Are you graciously submitting to those human authorities that God has set over you: in the home, in the church, in civil government, and in the workplace? Have you made Jesus Christ the absolute Lord over everything in your life? — Adrian Rogers

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

Make a daily effort to nourish your soul with inspiration from the Bible for personal growth and transformation. — Lailah Gifty Akita

Learning is the heart of discipleship. You can't just take up your cross daily. You need to take up the Bible every day. — Mark Batterson

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

In America, we have bible-reading applications: every single one of those applications asks permission to turn on your microphone, your camera; it wants permission to read your e-mails and the right to send e-mails wherever it chooses. — John McAfee

If your goal is to be a disciple of Jesus Christ and most of your focus has been on finding the church that will best meet your needs, figuring out which translation of the Bible is the best, or reading the best books on discipleship that you can find, but your life is the same as it was before - I would argue that you aren't becoming a disciple. Nothing other than following Jesus Christ can make you his disciple. — Kevin Watson

I've tried reading the Bible. I never make it past all the talk about the firmament. The firmament is the thing, on Day 1 or 2, that divides the waters from the waters. Here you have the firmament. Next to the firmament, the waters. Stay with the waters long enough, presumably you hit another stretch of firmament. I can't say for sure: at the first mention of the firmament, I start bleeding tears of terminal boredom. I grow restless. I flick ahead. It appears to go like this: firmament, superlong middle part, Jesus. You could spend half your life reading about the barren wives and the kindled wraths and all the rest of it before you got to the do-unto-others part, which as I understand it is the high-water mark. — Joshua Ferris

Renew your mind daily by reading the Holy Scriptures. — Lailah Gifty Akita

Today one can read the Gospel also on so many technological instruments. You can carry the whole Bible on your mobile phone, on your tablet. It is important to read the Word of God, by any means, but by reading the Word of God: Jesus speaks to us there! And welcome it with an open heart. Then the good seed will bear fruit! — Pope Francis

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

He had too much fun teasing "the boy" over the real meaning of the words in The Song of Solomon or Pope's The Rape of the Lock.
"Read that verse to me again," Ty said, smiling. "You ran over it so fast I missed most of the words."
Janna tilted her head down to the worn pages of the Bible and muttered, " ' Vanity of vanities . . . all is vanity.'"
"That's Ecclesiastes," Ty drawled. "You were reading The Song of Solomon and a woman was talking about her sweetheart. 'My beloved is gone down into his garden, to tubes of spices, to feed in the gardens . . .' Now what do you suppose that really means, boy?"
"He was hungry," Janna said succinctly.
"Ah, but for what?" Ty asked, stretching. "When you know the answer, you'll be a man no matter what your size or age. — Elizabeth Lowell

Daily Bible reading and mediation will deepen your understanding of life and God. — Lailah Gifty Akita

Devote yourself to reading of the Holy Scriptures. — Lailah Gifty Akita

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

No one could believe that Rachel Held - once such a promising young evangelist - was losing faith. Their prescriptions rolled in: "God's ways are higher than our ways. You need to stop asking questions and just trust him." "There must be some sin in your life causing you to stumble. If you repent, your doubts will go away." "You need to avoid reading anything besides the Bible. Those books of yours are leading you astray." "You should come to my church." "You should listen to Tim Keller." "You need to check your pride, Rachel, and submit yourself to God. — Rachel Held Evans