Will you get more out of the Bible if you are a better reader?
Obviously, yes! To say otherwise is absurd. The Bible is read. Reading is a technical skill. It requires competency. There is a degree of understanding that you need to begin reading but then you also grow in degrees of competency thus becoming a better reader. Reading is also an art. In much the same way that we talk to each other, we know that there are people who are better at conversation. That’s to say that they don’t just have the skills to talk, but they are artful in conversing. Reading is much like that.
However, our society generally lacks the skill, and much more, the artful skill of reading.
A particularly artful reader is someone who sees the beauty in literature. Someone who comprehends not just at an intellectual level, but more a heart level the prose that are put before them.
Literature is in effect, artful writing. It is generally lengthy as well. It is something that stirs within the reader the experience of the world it portrays as it develops deeper meanings behind the stories that it tells. Meaning matters. The meaning of a text of literature will correlate to the exploration and meaning in human experience more universally. When done well it is a beautiful thing. It not only shapes the way that you see the world but provides you with an experience of seeing the world in a new way that is beautiful perhaps or refreshing. It takes you out of your lived experience and into another’s. And then you re-enter your world once again with new experience yourself.
As I said earlier, if you’re a better reader then you will of course be a better reader of the Bible. If you are an artful reader, someone who is able to experience more heartfelt what the Bible conveys in its meaning, then again you will be an even better reader of the Bible.
The world of the Bible is another world to ours. We need the skill to enter that world, to be transported into it. We also need the skill to imaginatively experience that world. Then, to re-enter our own world with an informed perspective from the Bible’s world. All of this stands in contrast to simply intellectually understanding the ideas of the Bible. Doing that would not be the kind of experiential reading which is more appropriate of a work of literature and would diminish what the Bible offers us.
As we read the Bible, let us read it artfully, skilfully. Not superficially or merely intellectually.
To grow in our skill of reading the Bible we would do ourselves a service if we read more broadly in general. Reading poems will help us read and understand the Psalms. Reading biographies may vary will help us understand the biographies of Jesus, the Gospels. Reading fantasies, novels, stories, will help us in identifying and understanding meaning in stories, which translates well to reading the Bible and mining it for meaning as well.
Let me encourage you to become a good reader and a broad reader so that you can become a better Bible reader.
Ryken, L., & Mathes, G. (2021). Recovering the lost art of reading: A quest for the true, the good, and the beautiful. Crossway.
Bigvai and Shiphrah 