The Bible is the word of God (1 Thessalonians 2:13; 2 Timothy 3:16); it’s God’s inspired communication of truth to humanity. But it is recorded as literature, with its different books showcasing many styles and genres. Its writing spans 1500 years and at least 40 human authors. This tension poses some challenges for Bible reading, as to how we discern what God is saying. Do we read it as if God has dictated it to us (as many Muslims view the Qur’an)? Or do we recognise the human packaging that the “very words of God” come in (1 Peter 4:11), and study the context and background for better understanding?
Your reading experience will be far richer if you learn—as I’m doing—to avoid these common mistakes.
The answer, as virtually all biblical scholars and teachers agree, is the second option. That’s why just opening the Bible at random and reading isn’t a recognised way to get guidance from God. This, along with some others, are some of the mistakes I’ve made along the way as I have learnt to read the Bible the way God intended us to. So, let’s look at ten of the mistakes I made in my reading of the Bible.
1. The Fridge Magnet Mistake
Certain verses seem to be popular for putting on Bible covers, bumper stickers, bookmarks and fridge magnets. The most popular one currently seems to be Jeremiah 29:11, “For I know the plans I have for you,’ declares the Lord, ‘plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you a hope and a future.”
I was familiar with this verse long before I’d read it in the book of Jeremiah.
You can feel the positive vibes loading when you read it, can’t you? You might then quote “If God is for us, who could be against us” along with an “amen” in response. But here’s the problem. You can’t take something that God said to a certain group of people at a certain point in history and treat it as a word for your situation—even if it’s the inspired word of God.
My problem was that I was familiar with this verse long before I’d ever read it in the book of Jeremiah. Thus I read it out of context. Jeremiah was originally speaking to a defeated, humiliated people who’d been forcibly exiled some 1400kms away from their homeland. They were living there under terribly oppressive, foreign rule. For Jeremiah to state that God still had plans for that people, saying he will still prosper them—despite them being under God’s judgment—would’ve been hugely encouraging.
But can you see how context matters? We can’t just cut out this verse and paste it into our very different situation, applying it to our lives unthinkingly.
2. Confusing Wisdom With Law
Wisdom sayings aren’t designed to be guarantees. For example, Proverbs 6:10-11 states, “A little sleep, a little slumber, a little folding of the hands to rest and poverty will come upon you like a robber and want like an armed man.” Of course, it’s generally true that if you are lazy, you may become poor. But there are plenty of people throughout history who have slept a lot and not become poor because of vast inherited wealth.
Proverbial sayings give generalities, not specifics. You can often find exceptions to the rule. But in my zeal to follow the word of God, I took them to heart as absolute truths, paying no attention to their genre.
3. Ignoring the Bigger Picture
When I first read the story of Abraham being asked to sacrifice Isaac (Genesis 22:1-2), I was very troubled. How could I reconcile what I knew about God with this command to sacrifice a human being? I imagined someone saying to their pastor: ‘God is asking me to sacrifice my son to him, can you confirm I am receiving the correct guidance from God?’ The answer would, quite plainly, be: ‘No, you are not!’ But Abraham heard correctly.
God was showing us the gospel had been planned long before it came to pass.
My mistake was that God was choosing a significant person, Isaac, the promised son, to give an understanding of a situation far, far in the future. As we read the story, we discover that God didn’t intend for Abraham to sacrifice Isaac, as he already had a young ram on standby (Genesis 22:13). But in the future, God would actually sacrifice his Son, Jesus. And Abraham was directed to foreshadow this incredible gospel message to us—even if he was unaware at the time. God wasn’t setting a precedent. No. God was showing us the gospel had been planned long before it came to pass.
4. Missing the Importance of Quotations
When I read the New Testament letters (or epistles), I often used to make the mistake of treating Old Testament quotations as random. So I didn’t spend much time thinking about them. But I was missing out on their significance. Big time.
For example, in 2 Timothy 2:17-18 Paul writes about how Hymenaeus and Philetus “swerved from the truth.” But then he quotes from Numbers 16:5, “The Lord knows those who are his” (2 Timothy 2:19). This is taken from the story of Korah’s rebellion, when God judged Korah for rebelling against Moses. This provides a lot more context to what Paul was trying to convey to Timothy about troublesome, presumptuous, once-members of his church.
5. Misunderstanding ‘Gotcha’ Passages
You’ve probably come across those aggressive atheistic blogs that list lots of difficult passages from the Bible, pushing the conclusion that God is evil in some way. A classic passage to quote is Psalm 137:9. “Blessed shall he be who takes your little ones and dashes them against the rock.” The argument then goes something like this: How can God allow this declaration of blessing to those who violently kill children to be part of his inspired word? I was troubled by this and other similar ‘gotcha’ verses for a while. So I took some time to read them in context (see point 1, above).
Once I looked at the context, things became a lot clearer. For example, the verse actually quotes what the Edomites said to Israelites as Babylon was sacking Jerusalem. The context is that they are now in exile, remembering this evil and asking God to bring justice against the sons of Esau for the horrific things they said. God is in no way endorsing this attitude. But it is recorded in his word to show the pain his people were experiencing. It even models how that pain might be processed: by bringing it in lament to God. Not so ‘gotcha’ anymore, don’t you think?
6. The Anachronistic Mistake
We are so caught up in our 21st century cultures that we read our cultural norms into passages set thousands of years ago.
We read our cultural norms into passages set thousands of years ago.
For instance, those exposed to Western worldviews through globalisation tend to celebrate passages that bring out God’s love for humanity. But they then scratch their heads at passages that do the same for his righteous justice. Now, take those same passages into Islamic-dominated North Africa and the opposite is true. In this cultural setting, God acting decisively in punishing wrongdoers feels natural. It resonates emotionally. But passages on God’s love feel more discordant. Neither are less true; we just need to acknowledge we are from different cultures, reading in a different time.
7. Forgetting the Bible’s Dual Authorship
While the books of the Bible have distinct human authors—and sometimes editors or collators—the Bible is also inspired by the Holy Spirit. And we need to remember this. So it shouldn’t be unusual for us to see different layers and complexity in what we read. I’m not suggesting you go over the top here, looking for secret codes. Yet the abundance of typologies pre-figuring Christ shouldn’t be surprising to us (see point 3, above). Similarly, we shouldn’t find it shocking to learn that the vast majority of Revelation is rooted in the Old Testament.
It shouldn’t be unusual to see different layers in what we read.
While we should read the books of the Bible in their literary context, we mustn’t forget that God has inspired every word. He is the ultimate ‘series’ editor. This means that we should expect greater depth and more connection between books of the Bible than might be expected if they were only written by humans.
8. Treating Bible Characters Like Cartoons
When I first became familiar with Bible stories as a child, I assumed biblical characters could be classified into goodies and baddies. Thus we should imitate the goodies and vilify the baddies. But that two-dimensional, cartoon-view of Bible characters ignores a lot of complexity and nuance, which is really helpful to us as we read the Bible.
God is patient with heroes of the faith who don’t get everything right.
We see that people are flawed and sometimes respond in faith. God is patient and shows faithfulness to heroes of the faith who don’t get everything right. This takes the pressure off us. It means God can still use us, even when we don’t always have everything together. This also shows that while ‘good’ characters engaged prostitutes (such as Samson or Judah), and took on common cultural practices of polygamy (such as Abraham and Jacob), God isn’t necessarily endorsing these practices—especially when they contradict other teaching in the Bible.
9. Lacking Empathy
When I first read the book of Jonah, I judged Jonah as a pretty low-faith, compassionless and religious bigot—I’m being vulnerable; don’t judge me. For Jonah seemed happy to be rescued by God. But he got angry when God rescued other people. Only, later I realised that I was the guy lacking compassion.
When I finally tried to get into Jonah’s shoes—that’s a big element of being empathetic—I saw the world a bit more from his perspective. As history records, the Assyrians were ruthless with their subjugated peoples. Therefore Israel suffered much brutality at their hands. If I had understood that Jonah’s mission was the equivalent of a Jew in the 1930s being asked to call the Nazis in Berlin to repentance, I would have had a lot more compassion on his emotions and responses.
10. Forgetting the Role of Editors
The books of the Bible were compiled from loose manuscripts and sometimes an editor ordered them in a certain way that doesn’t line up with our priorities of later centuries. This different way of collating explains why it’s sometimes difficult to harmonise the Gospels or work out why events appear in different orders—chronological order is a feature of modern biographies and was less important in the 1st century.,
You’ll see, for example, when reading the Gospels that parables will get placed next to each other because they share a theme, not because Jesus actually taught them in that order. We also see the role of editors in Kings and Chronicles, where similar events are conveyed with slightly different editorial angles.
Summing Up
Hopefully, you can see that learning to read the Bible well, takes skill. It takes time. But it is worth putting in that effort. Your reading experience will be far richer if you learn—as I’m doing—to avoid these common mistakes.
