The proper aim in Bible reading is to grow in our love for God. The Lord Jesus told us that the greatest commandment is, Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind [Matthew 22:37].  In reading the Bible we gain information about God, and, through the ministry of the Holy Spirit, as we read we can encounter God.

Many American Christians are not clear about the proper aim of Bible reading. Americans are a practical people, who want tangible results. Often they make the aim of Bible study application or obedience to the Word. This is actually a self-centered approach. It is saying, “What can I get out of this?” Or “How can I benefit from this passage?” This approach has many pitfalls, not the least of which is a division between who we are inwardly and the way we behave outwardly. Jesus rebuked the Pharisees for this. He said, Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You clean the outside of the cup and dish, but inside they are full of greed and self-indulgence. Blind Pharisee! First clean the inside of the cup and dish, and then the outside also will be clean [Matthew 23:25-26].

We clean the inside of our “cups” by receiving the love of God and responding to it. The apostle John puts it this way, How great is the love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God! And that is what we are! … Dear friends, now we are children of God, and what we will be has not yet been made known. But we know that when he appears, we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is. Everyone who has this hope in him purifies himself, just as he is pure [1 John 3:1-3]. It is in receiving God’s love and responding to it that we purify ourselves. God starts from the inside. The transformation of our character to be like Jesus is God’s aim (Romans 8:29).

Obedience to scripture, which is important, should be an act of love. Jesus says, Whoever has my commands and obeys them, he is the one who loves me. He who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I too will love him and show myself to him [John 14:21].

Since the proper aim of Bible reading is to grow in our love for God, we can establish several principals for Bible reading. We must read reverently. The Psalmist tells us, The LORD confides in those who fear him; he makes his covenant known to them [Psalm 25:14].  A lackadaisical or disrespectful attitude will probably not lead to an encounter with God. A reverent attitude implies faith in God. We are told, without faith it is impossible to please God, because anyone who comes to him must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who earnestly seek him [Hebrews 11:6].  Reverence also implies humility. God declares, This is the one I esteem: he who is humble and contrite in spirit, and trembles at my word [Isaiah 66:2b].

We should read the Bible prayerfully. We are encouraged, If any of you lacks wisdom, he should ask God, who gives generously to all without finding fault, and it will be given to him [James 1:5]. This principle is especially important at those points when we are offended by God. God does not fit our neat little categories. He does not always do things the way we would do it if we were God. Most likely you will be offended by God at some point as you read the Bible. Don’t be surprised by this. Abraham, Moses, Habbakuk, Peter and many other great children of God were offended by Him at some point. These points of offense are grounds for the growth of our faith. We should pray for understanding and patiently wait for an answer. It may be years or even decades before we come to understand why God was so severe at one point or why he was so lenient toward wrong at another. These offenses remind us that there is a real God who exists, not just a projection of human imagination called God.

To love God with all our mind, we must read the Bible intelligently. We can employ the six interrogatives: who, what, why, when, where, and how. We need to look up words or places that are unfamiliar. A Bible dictionary (like Unger’s Bible Dictionary or The New Bible Dictionary) and a Bible handbook are rich sources of information. Eventually we need to put the pieces of the Bible together into a coherent whole. A concordance helps us to trace words through the Bible. The New Treasury of Scripture Knowledge gives cross references between one Bible passage and another. It truly is a treasure.