Some time ago, I read an article where some Christian writer guy basically told me I was reading my Bible wrong. He listed multiple ways people go about reading the Bible incorrectly. At the time, it outraged me. Seriously, it’s not good enough to read the Bible, but now you have to do it a certain way?!? The audacity.

I hereby dramatically withdraw my earlier outrage and objection…for the most part. While I still don’t agree with that author’s specific take on where people go wrong, I do think his overall point is valid. You can read your Bible incorrectly. Here’s my take.

At a basic level, I think most of us (which usually means me) have a tendency to take the words on the page literally. Additionally, we fail to “read between the lines” as they say. The Word of God, in my opinion, is not limited to the words written down in the Bible. He speaks truth in many ways. He shares His wisdom in many ways. His Word is living, breathing, dynamic.

2 Corinthians 3:3 – You show that you are a letter from Christ, the result of our ministry, written not with ink but with the Spirit of the living God, not on tablets of stone but on tablets of human hearts.

According to Richard Rohr, “Mature religion fosters experiences of depth, not just belief in doctrines, which asks almost nothing of us.” If we are only turning to the Bible for a list of what to do and not to do, we are missing the bigger picture. Are the Ten Commandments a good list? Of course. But the Bible isn’t merely a playbook for how to keep on the straight and narrow. There is so much left to interpretation from His parables and the subtleties of expression. And there is so much to be said for how the Bible speaks to you based on where you are in your spiritual journey.

One of my neighbors has been digging in deep for the last five years, really growing her faith. Part of her experience has been to become a student of the Bible and to intimately understand the history, context, connection among verses and books and people. She told me there are so many insights just sitting there in front of her now that she never saw before, because she wasn’t ready to see them. I feel certain there are many, maybe countless, layers to God’s Word. And depending on where we are and what we are prepared to see, He chooses to peel a few layers back and invite us deeper into truth. In addition to its depth, I think His Word is ultimately flexible, and that He can show us multiple truths from the same passage, based on the experiences we are having at that moment.

So  yes, you can go wrong reading the Bible. Especially if you are reading it just to establish doctrines, protocols and guard rails for your faith, instead of seeking, trying to read between the lines, peel back layers and see what previously was unseen by you.  Or if you are leaning on it as the single source of insight from God and not understanding that His Word leaps from the page, literally.