Reading God’s Word is insufficient if we don’t rightly understand the context and meaning behind the words we’re reading. It is possible to read the Bible and misunderstand the point of what God is saying. Such misunderstandings can actually be harmful to our lives and our relationship with God. Specifically, we need to steer clear of these dangerous approaches to reading the Bible.
The Emotional Approach: What Feels Good to Me?
If we’re not careful, we can approach Scripture looking for whatever will make us feel a certain way. It’s certainly not wrong to look to the Bible for encouragement, and Psalm 19:11 makes it clear that we’re supposed to come to the Bible in search of reward. But let’s be honest: Some verses in the Bible feel light and uplifting, while others feel heavy and sobering.
For example, when you’re reading through the Old Testament prophets and you come upon descriptions of human sinfulness and warnings of God’s judgment, these passages likely won’t leave you elated and energized. Similarly, as you read through Job, Ecclesiastes, Lamentations or even some of the Psalms, you will likely find yourself identifying with the sadness or sorrows expressed there. And if you’re only looking for what makes you feels good, you’ll either skip these parts of the Bible or twist them to say something they don’t actually say.
One of the most beautiful characteristics of the Bible is its honesty about the totality of human emotion. The Bible doesn’t shy away from happiness and sadness, joy and sorrow, peace and pain, success and struggle, victory and defeat, and ultimately life and death—all of which are familiar to us, and all of which ultimately lead us to Jesus. That’s why it’s important never to impose our expectations or feelings on a passage.
The Pragmatic Approach: What Works Best for Me?
Similar to the emotional approach, we can come to the Bible looking for something that reinforces what we think is best for our lives. In the process, we distort God’s Word to make it say whatever we want it to say. Or we gravitate toward God’s comforting promises for us while glossing over God’s difficult commands to us. Or we pick and choose which commands we like and which ones we don’t.
But this is not the way Bible reading should work. We should appreciate the Bible in a way that’s different from every other book in the world, for the Bible has authority over our lives. We don’t approach God’s Word looking for options to consider. We come to the Bible looking for truths to believe, promises to stand upon and commands to obey.
Before we even open the Bible to read it, pray, God, your Word is my guide. Whatever you say, I will believe and obey because you know what is best for my life in this world and the world to come. As you pray this—and then put this conviction into practice—you will find yourself no longer twisting God’s Word to accommodate your ideas for your life. Instead, your life will be transformed by God’s Word around his purpose for your life.
The Spiritual Approach: What Deep, Hidden Meaning Is There for Me?
Sometimes we read God’s Word looking for a new insight previously uncovered by anyone else. Multitudes of Christians over many centuries have studied this same Word, and Christian history has not been waiting for you personally to come on the scene and find something new.
We might read a passage and think, “Okay, at first read, it seems like it means this, but I want to go deeper,” and then we analyze the passage until we find in it a meaning that is tailored for us.
Let’s be content with the plain meaning of Scripture. Let’s rejoice in the reality that we are in a long line of people who have heard, believed and obeyed the same promises, exhortations, corrections, commands and timeless truths that God has given for the good of his people throughout history.
The Superficial Approach: What Does This Mean to Me?
This final dangerous approach to reading the Bible encapsulates many of the others we have looked at because it focuses on finding a personal meaning in every passage. This approach is extremely common among professing Christians. Don’t be surprised when you find yourself sitting in a Bible study or small group, someone reads a passage of the Bible, and everyone starts to discuss the question, “What does this passage mean to you?”
Imagine this scene in a Bible study on Genesis 22, where Abraham takes his son Isaac on a journey, lays him on an altar in obedience to God’s command, and then God suddenly provides a ram for the sacrifice instead. The group leader asks, “What does this mean to you?”
Bob is the first to speak up, and he says, “I think this chapter means I need to go hiking with my son more, just like Abraham did with Isaac.”
Then Joe chimes in and says, “Well, I think it’s clear from this passage that it’s okay to sacrifice animals, which means no one should be a vegetarian.”
Whenever we approach Bible study with the question, What does this passage mean to me? the conversation can quickly congeal into a pool of people sitting around sharing about everything except the actual meaning of the passage.
The first question we ask when we come to the Bible is not, What does this passage mean to me? Instead, we need to ask, What is God communicating in this passage? We’re not interested in what it means to certain people; we’re only interested in what God means for all of us.
At this point, some people might say, “But different verses mean different things to different people.”
Without question, when we think about application, verses may apply differently to people’s lives in their varying circumstances. But the meaning of the passage remains the same, and the point of Bible study is to discover what God means, period.
Adapted from How to Read the Bible: A Simple Guide to Deeper Intimacy with God by David Platt. Copyright 2025 by David Platt. Used by permission of Thomas Nelson Publishing.
