Life and death hang on our ability to hear God—and to hear God, we have to read (or at least listen while someone else reads). He reveals Himself, His will, and His gospel through words. Therefore, you can argue that reading is the most important thing we’ll ever do.

Why don’t you read the Bible more than you do?

Our minds might rush to all kinds of reasonable excuses. “My job has been really demanding this season.” “My child won’t sleep through the night.” “The mornings are my only chance to exercise.” “I’ll start again when life slows down a bit.” Oh, how Satan loves the pitifully tiny hurdles we allow to keep us from the Bible. And believe me, I’ve spent time stuck behind each of those hurdles.

If we’re honest with ourselves, a lot of modern American excuses boil down to one: I’m just too busy right now.

Really?

Am I really too busy to hear from God? Am I too busy to have my soul revived by his living and active word? Am I too busy to receive the wisdom I desperately need in all of my busyness? Am I too busy to have my dim eyes awakened again to ultimate, spiritual reality? Am I too busy to have my easily distracted mind focused on the most important things? Am I too busy to taste the sweetest honey and receive the finest gold? Are we really too busy?

We’re not—and we know it. So, why don’t we read God’s word more than we do? In part, because we haven’t admitted the real reasons we don’t read the Bible.

Battling Spiritual Illiteracy

At Desiring God, our team of teachers wants to bring Bible-saturated, Christ-treasuring theology to bear on the greatest needs of our day. We’re first and foremost committed to the enduring needs in every generation: Christ and the gospel, sin and holiness, the church and prayer, heaven and hell. We’re also aware, though, that some needs are particularly acute in each generation, and so we’re studying the needs of our day and asking God how we might help.

This series is an attempt to address the disturbing decline in reading, especially the reading of the Bible. According to one study, 84 percent of American adults read for five minutes or less per day. According to Lifeway, only 31 percent of churchgoers read the Bible daily. That means less than 10 percent of all American adults read the Bible daily. That’s a crisis if you believe Romans 10:14–17:

How then will they call on him in whom they have not believed? And how are they to believe in him of whom they have never heard?…So faith comes from hearing, and hearing through the word of Christ.

Life and death hang on our ability to hear God—and to hear God, we have to read (or at least listen while someone else reads). He reveals himself, his will, and his gospel through words. Therefore, you can argue that reading is the most important thing we’ll ever do—and fewer people today are reading anything, much less reading the Bible. In a day when people are reading less and less, we need to teach people the vital, happy habit of meeting God in his word.

Why You Don’t Read the Bible

So, why don’t we read the Bible? When we look below our busyness and read what God tells us in his word, we see several deeper causes. The series will address a number of the biggest barriers to faithful, life-giving Bible reading, but I’ll mention a few here. I wonder which most accurately diagnoses your Bible neglect.

Read More