What’s the Difference Between Reading and Studying the Bible?

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Christians can spend years reading their Bible, yet know almost nothing about it. They may be able to recite a number of verses about a specific topic, but they’d be hard-pressed to explain what those verses actually mean in their context. They may know a lot about the Bible, but that doesn’t mean they know their Bible.

This ministry has made this difference especially noticeable to me. The thoroughness of the articles and podcast episodes is exciting and refreshing to many Christians who reach out to me. Many appreciate being equipped to dig deeper into God’s word and understand things beyond a surface level. I’ve heard from Christians who have read their Bibles for years, yet they feel like they never really understood it until they learned to read and understand it in its context.

While it’s impossible to lump everyone’s experience into neat, simple categories, I have certainly noticed a trend. A Christian can spend years of their life reading their Bible every day. However, very few Christians actually study it.

And that makes all the difference.

“Read your Bible!”

I’ll admit that I’m probably part of this problem. I, like many pastors and teachers, encourage you to “read your Bible.” And without clarifying what we mean, many people grow confused, even frustrated, because they do read their Bibles. However, the more they read, the more they realize they either don’t understand what they’re reading, or they feel like their walk with Christ doesn’t grow.

Thus, Christians may abandon their Bible reading. After all, they were told that reading their Bible would help them better understand God, deepen their faith, and grow in holiness. Yet as months or years pass, their growth moves at the speed of a glacier. 

The problem, I think, is what different people mean by the word “read.” Many people read their Bibles similarly to reading Lord of the Rings or a biography of George Washington. Their eyes go over words they recognize, and they may even get a feel for how something like Luke progresses as a story. However, they’re often left with a story and, perhaps, a handful of interesting quotes that don’t stick with them.

Others read by jumping around their Bibles. On Monday they may read a verse or chapter from Galatians, Tuesday they find themselves in Exodus, and on they go bouncing around. And why not? After all, they’re certainly reading words from the Bible, just like they were told to do. 

And this is where I and others may realize we haven’t been careful with our words. We know what we mean by reading the Bible. However, without clarification, we often leave people assuming something completely different. And in doing so, many Christians may find themselves frustrated because reading their Bible is unfulfilling.

So instead of reading your Bible, let me encourage you to study your Bible.

Study your Bible!

Reading is important, but it shouldn’t be the primary way a Christian is fed. Reading exposes the Christian to God’s word, but it doesn’t require them to actually understand what it all means. To dig deeper into God’s word, a Christian must also study it.

There’s no set time that a Christian should go from becoming familiar with God’s word through reading to suddenly feeling ready to dig deeper. It’s especially more difficult for a Christian to transition to it if they aren’t being discipled by someone who is already teaching them to dig deeper into God’s word. However, there are some features of Bible study that all Christians should start progressing toward.

First, Bible study requires us to know how to read the Bible in context. That means we need to stop reading a random “verse of the day” or throwing open our Bibles and hoping the Spirit will lead us to what we need. The Bible is a collection of 66 books, and each of those books has a few things we need to be mindful of:

  • When and where was it written? (World events, culture, competing religions/philosophies, and even the landscape influenced why people said and did certain things)
  • How did God interact with people at that time (i.e. Adam and Eve vs. Israel’s covenants vs. grace)
  • What type of book is it? (Genesis is history, Psalms is poetry, and 1 Corinthians is a letter)
  • Who wrote it? (Paul uses different words and language tools than John or James)
  • Who was meant to read it? (each writer wrote specific things to a specific audience for a specific reason)

These are important considerations that we often completely miss with our typical reading habits. However, understanding these things aren’t just useful – they’re often absolutely necessary if we want to properly understand what’s being said. This makes it critical for us to start at chapter 1, verse 1 of almost any book we’re reading.

However, these things aren’t always easily answered by just reading the text. Because the Bible wasn’t written to us today, we may miss some of these bigger points that the original audience would have immediately understood. This is where we get to the real meat of studying. And, unfortunately, it’s also where many people are likely to give up because it seems too daunting.

When studying God’s word, we do more than start at the beginning and keep going until we get to the end. God’s word is filled with references to other biblical texts, repeated themes, cultural imagery, historical figures, and many other things that aren’t immediately apparent. 

Study happens when we don’t just take the text at face value, but pause to dig deeper into what the writer is saying. Why does Hebrews 1 talk about Christ and angels? Why did God suddenly give people the gift of tongues in Acts 2? Why did Jesus get mad at a fig tree in Matthew 21:18-22? Why did Israel keep building Asherah poles? What did “Nephilim” in Genesis 6:4 mean to Moses’s audience?

The writer assumes his readers already understand the significance of these things in the same way I can say “YouTube celebrity” without having to explain what YouTube is or how a celebrity isn’t necessarily a movie star. But for people 2,000 years in the future, these things can be confusing. If that’s true for how we use language and references today, it’s equally true for the biblical writers.

If we want to study God’s word, we need to figure out what these things mean. Sometimes it’s apparent in the text, but other times we need to seek help from other Christians. As more time goes on, we have even greater access to useful tools that help us better understand what we’re reading. Year by year, we gain access to more information through the diligent study of historians, archaeologists, language experts, and theologians who continually build on the work of their predecessors. 

Today, we are rarely left in the dark about the various questions that come up as we’re studying God’s word. We don’t face the same barriers as Christians in the early centuries. Today, our greatest barriers are whether we know how to use these tools, and whether we’re willing to overcome laziness, distraction, or pride to learn how to use them well.

Measuring reading

The difference between reading and studying the Bible requires massively different approaches. An obvious difference comes down to how we measure success. 

How do we measure whether or not we’ve successfully read the Bible? Ultimately, by determining whether or not our eyes have gone over words in a language that we understand. If you don’t speak Spanish, you can’t really claim to have “read” a Bible that’s translated into Spanish. But if an English speaker opens an English Bible and recognizes some words on a page, they can claim to have successfully read their Bible. 

If that’s what reading means, then the effort required is incredibly low. And, as people, we’re much more likely to put in the minimal amount of required effort if we don’t have a compelling reason to go further. Thus, it’s no surprise that many Christians who read their Bibles every day do so with a “verse of the day,” opening to a random part of the Bible, or something equally simple.

Ultimately, the bar for reading the Bible is very low. Thus, it often yields equally low results. That’s not to say that God won’t grow someone through any level of Bible reading, but the Holy Spirit doesn’t illuminate truth that we haven’t encountered. God’s word is always valuable, but just as someone won’t get saved by only reading Psalm 94:19, someone also won’t struggle through supernatural gifts, the doctrine of election, or gender roles without encountering them through more than a casual glance of words.

Measuring study

Study differs from reading in several ways. One is the motivation behind it. It’s difficult to study God’s word just to check an item off our list because studying results from our hunger for truth. So while reading allows us to put in minimal effort, studying has goals that aren’t as easy to pin down. Here are three things that may help us better measure how well we’re studying.

Beyond time spent

While reading begins and ends in a single sitting, studying can often take days or weeks. A full understanding of whether people are in Hell now or in the future isn’t as simple as reading a paragraph from a website along with a handful of verses. It requires understanding varying viewpoints, looking at original languages, and making connections that appear all throughout the Old and New Testaments. This can even lead to us getting so bogged down that we are “stuck” in a passage for several days, meaning it may take us weeks to work through a book of the Bible instead of just a few days.

Answering questions

Study is often done to answer something we don’t understand. However, we can’t measure the success of our study by whether we end it with a firm answer. There are people who devote years, even a lifetime, to studying certain topics in the Bible. While we can spend a day or two studying the meaning of “wisdom” and feel like we have a firm grasp of it, it’s less easy to study Paul’s comments about “baptism for the dead” in 1 Corinthians 15:29 and walk away feeling like we definitely know what he’s talking about. Thus, successful study may be a bit more subjective as we have to determine whether we’re satisfied with our level of understanding for now.

Applying study methods

Perhaps the better way to think about studying isn’t the destination, but the journey. We all know ourselves, and thus we know whether we tried to glorify God with the amount of work and passion behind our study. We know whether we used the tools available to us, if we used good study tools, and whether our hearts were in the right place during the process. Even if we don’t arrive at an answer at the end of our study, we can still look back and find great value in how we were unable to answer the question as well as we’d hoped.

Not one, but both

Up to this point, I’ve intentionally been black-and-white about choosing to either read or study. However, I want to point out that it’s not nearly as clear as all of that. Both are valuable and necessary for Christians. 

First, reading is a necessary first step for Christians. If reading God’s word isn’t a regular thing for us, then the more difficult process of studying it will be nearly impossible. After all, how will we notice themes, characters, words, and even the author’s intent if we aren’t regularly exposed to it? It’s like watching a favorite movie for the fifth time – the more we’re exposed to it, the more we see little details.

Second, reading can save us from getting frustrated at the slowness of studying. Over the years, I’ve learned that it’s vital to complement deep study with some relaxing reading. While studying Romans, perhaps I’ll enjoy the refreshment of the Psalms or revisit the life of Christ in the gospels or see the early church in Acts. Even though reading these will still bring up questions that I may want to explore, the purpose is to take a break from reading multiple commentaries about a single passage and instead just rest in the truth of God’s word.

Finally, I don’t want to make study sound like an alien concept that requires years of training or is only reserved for a select group of people. Some people reading this may already do this without thinking of it as “study.” All we’ve really talked about is digging deeper into God’s word. My point isn’t to shame anyone or make them feel like reading is a sub-par spiritual discipline. 

Instead, I want people to realize that there really is more to God’s word than just encountering some words on a page. If the Bible really is profitable for teaching, reproof, correction, and training in righteousness so that we can be fully equipped to serve our God, then it’s even more important for us to understand what it’s saying. 

Let this discussion encourage you to read and study your Bible. Feel the call to do something that may be new and uncomfortable because you know it will have a greater benefit to your spiritual life. And, above all, let your motivation be to know your God even more by understanding the Bible He’s given us.

Onward in the Faith resources to help you study

Encouraging or equipping Christians to study the Bible is woven throughout most of my articles and podcast episodes. However, I do have a few things dedicated specifically to this. If you’d like to learn even more, check out the Bible Interpretation & Specific Verses section of my Topics page.