Tips for Reading the Bible for the First Time

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Tips for Reading the Bible for the First Time

Not everyone grows up with a spiritual or religious background, so it’s especially important to be sensitive to people who haven’t had the opportunity to delve into scriptural reading. When you’re first reading the Bible and learning the lessons it offers, you should keep a few things in mind so that you have the most enriching experience possible. Here are just a few tips for reading the Bible for the first time, no matter your age or what background you come from.

Choose the Bible That’s Right for You

When you’re just starting out, you might choose to use a King James Version study Bible to help you along your path to understanding the readings. There are many outlets of study outside the book alone, but as a starting point, a study Bible will explain the more detailed matters as you go along. You may even choose to read multiple varieties of study Bibles to gain further insight into the same text from different perspectives. In fact, many biblical scholars do this to better understand what may have been left out of or added to different versions of the Bible. This is all a part of studying, and learning scripture this way is healthy. Just make sure you take notes when necessary so that you can reference them later for further study of the text, as there’s a lot of ground to cover.

Read in the Community of Others

Reading along with others who are also learning or who are better acquainted with the text will enrich your reading experience, as you’ll be able to discuss the different parts of the book as you go along. You should always keep an unbiased mindset whenever discoursing scripture—people of all walks of life hold different beliefs, and when during group study, the point is to hold an open-minded conversation. So remember to keep others in mind—we all have different outlooks on things, which makes the conversation more enriching as we come to understand scripture together.

Keep Context in Mind

You’ll also need to keep in mind that the Bible consists of many books, the events of which took place at different times and places. The Bible itself is a collection, anthology, or library of texts that were all brought together as holy, scriptural, and deemed to be the official text of what we now know as the Bible. You must always think along these lines whenever you discuss and read the Bible for your own study. There are many ways to approach biblical study, but these are just a few tips for reading the Bible for the first time so that you can have a firm grasp as you begin your journey.

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