The parts of Scripture help us to understand the whole, and the whole helps us to understand the parts. Evangelical culture rightly values Bible study, but I suspect we need to value Bible reading more. We should allow proper space for uninterrupted, extensive reading.

We’re now two months into the new year. If you’re like many attempting to read through the Bible this year, you’re at a crossroads. You may falter, burning out (as the story often goes) in a difficult section of Scripture like Leviticus and failing to establish a Bible-reading habit. Or you may make it over that initial hump, and regular Bible reading moves from being a checked box to a customary part of life.

I want to help you have the latter experience. I want to offer advice based on years of reading the Bible cover to cover and processing such experiences with others who’ve attempted the same. My advice boils down to this: As you read, keep going and don’t worry too much about understanding. That will come.

At first, such advice can feel blunt and, frankly, even unspiritual. But it’s a key part of succeeding in Bible-in-a-year reading plans and increasingly knowing Scripture in order to increasingly know God.

Reading Habits

From a young age, we’re trained not only to read but also to comprehend what we’re reading. Reading pedagogy focuses on decoding texts, and we’ve developed tools to help us do so. In decades past, we used to stop to look up words we didn’t know in physical dictionaries. Nowadays, we pause to google words, references, or concepts we don’t understand. We’re frustrated when we don’t comprehend our text and can be tempted to quit altogether.

Bible study methods common among evangelicals often reinforce these reading habits. We’re taught to stop and ask questions when we don’t understand a verse or passage. One of the most common questions small group leaders in inductive Bible studies ask is “What questions did you have about the passage?”

This is a good impulse. The Bible is meant to be understood (Ps. 119:105; 2 Tim. 2:7). God wants us to grasp the meaning of his Word. Yet an expectation that we’ll always comprehend what we’re reading can be perilous when attempting to read the Bible in the space of a year. Left unchecked, this expectation keeps us from the understanding we’re diligently seeking. How so?

Parts and the Whole

Grasping the meaning of a long, unified book like the Bible requires two types of mutually reinforcing understanding. To understand the parts (individual verses or passages), we must understand the whole. Yet to understand the whole, we must understand the parts. This forms a sort of interpretive spiral we must constantly negotiate.

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