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Bible Reading Feels Like a Chore? Try This Instead

If Bible reading feels like a chore, the problem may not be your discipline. It may be your approach. Scripture was never meant to be one more box to check before bed. It was meant to be a place where you meet God, and there is more than one way to get there. Abiding with Jesus through the word is a journey with the Holy Spirit, and that journey has room in it for variety. Why Bible Reading Starts to Feel Like an Obligation I was raised in the church. I heard the Bible from the time I was small, and yet for a very long time reading it felt like such a chore. There was a long season as a young person when I thought, "I have to do this every day." So I asked the obvious question: what happens if I don't? In my setting, the answer was that bad things would happen if I did not read my Bible every day. What I eventually realized was that I had been approaching the Word with fear. Being faithful to read the Bible daily is what showed me the difference. This practice has shaped my character. It carries what I actually need. Abiding with Jesus Is a Journey with the Holy Spirit You are going to hear me talk about the Holy Spirit a lot here, and there is a reason for that. Jesus told His disciples it was better for them that He go, because He was going to send a counselor. He is a comforter. He reminds us of everything Jesus said. He leads and guides us into all truth. So the Holy Spirit is something like our coach. He illuminates Scripture. He helps it connect. This means that opening your Bible is not merely an intellectual exercise. It is a supernatural one. You are not reading alone, and you were never meant to. Why Variety Matters in How You Approach Scripture It is really, really good to practice variety in your spiritual life. Things can get stuck when you do the same thing over and over again. I have seen that in my own marriage and in my friendships, and the same dynamic shows up in our time with God. Some personalities love waking up and doing exactly the same thing every day, and they find real comfort in it. Others get bored. That is why it helps to have more than one way to come to the word. An organization called the Navigators created a simple way to remember five ways to connect with God through the word, using the five fingers of a hand: hear, read, study, memorize, and meditate. You do not have to practice all of them all the time. There may be one in particular that God says is yours for this season, and the invitation is to lean into that one. The question worth asking is simple. Lord, as I come to the word, what do You want me to do with it today? Hear the Word The first way is to hear it. Romans 10:17 says that faith comes from hearing, and hearing by the word of God. I grew up hearing the Bible read. My parents read it to me. My mom liked to play it in the house on the cassette players we had back then, so I was exposed to hearing it early. A Sunday gathering does the same thing. When Scripture is read aloud, you are hearing the word of God. This is something I still do every day. I listen to at least one chapter of the Bible read to me, and I enjoy it. I use a Bible app with a narrator whose voice I do not get tired of, and there are plenty of good options out there. If you have a commute, listen to the Bible on your commute. I do not think hearing replaces the other ways, but it is one way I practice variety in my time with the Lord. What Did the First Christians Do Without Printed Bibles? They listened. The early church primarily engaged with the Bible by hearing it, because there was no printing press and paper was expensive. So they gathered, and much of the time they spent together was someone reading the Word of God over them. Hearing Scripture read aloud in a room full of people is one of the oldest Christian traditions. That same need still exists. A translation effort underway in Malawi, in partnership with Wycliffe Bible Translators, is producing three languages in spoken form first rather than written form. There are not enough people literate in those languages for a written translation to serve them well, so the Bible is being translated into an audible form they can download onto the phones they already have and onto devices being distributed there. People will hear Scripture for the first time in their heart language, the language they learned on their mother's knee, the same way the first church heard it. Read the Word Daily, Read It All, and Read to Connect The second way is the one most of us are familiar with. Revelation 1:3 says, "Blessed is the one who reads, and those who hear the words of the prophecy and keep the things which are written in it, for the time is near." Reading the Word is a big deal. Three thoughts help here. Read it daily, read it all, and read to connect. Read it daily. Right now I am mostly reading one chapter a day. Sometimes I come across parts of the Bible that are harder to get through. I just finished 1 Chronicles, and the first ten chapters are genealogies. Ten chapters. They are in there for a reason, and I did a little digging to learn something about them, but I was not going to read one genealogy after another for ten days straight. That was not going to be good for my soul. So I moved through those a bit more quickly, then slowed back down and took the narrative chapters one at a time. I do this with a friend, and we encourage each other. Read it all. It is not strictly commanded, but it is a wonderful thing to start in Genesis and finish in Revelation. You see the narrative of Scripture in its entirety. You see the thread of Jesus running from the Garden of Eden all the way through to the New Jerusalem, which comes down at the very end of time. You see Him in all of it, and you simply do not get that experience unless you commit to it. Read to connect. Read with purpose and intention to actually connect with God. That is what it is for. Does God Reward How Much Bible You Read? No. There are no prizes for how much Bible you read. When you get to heaven, there is not a separate, special place reserved for people who read more Scripture than the next person. That is not how it works. Volume is not rewarded. What is rewarded is connection, and the reward we experience in this life and the next is that our character is shaped and we are genuinely changed. Where to Start This Week Pick one of the two. If your reading has gone dry, let someone read it to you this week. Put a chapter on in the car and simply receive it. If you have been listening but not sitting with the text, open it yourself and read slowly enough to notice what is actually there. Either way, start here, in John 15:4-5: "Abide in Me and I in you, as the branch cannot bear fruit of itself unless it abides in the vine, neither can you unless you abide in Me. I am the vine, and you are the branches. He who abides in Me, and I in him, bears much fruit. For without Me you can do nothing." Read it with your own inner voice. Then read it again. If Bible reading has felt like a chore, the way back runs through connection rather than pressure, with the Holy Spirit as your guide and you doing the one thing a branch has ever had to do: stay attached to the vine.