Food for your soul: Read the Bible!
- Tanton Chris
- Mar 24
- 4 min read
Updated: Mar 27
My Experience
The first conviction I had after encountering God was to get and read the Bible for myself, in language that I could easily understand. It was in that way I could connect with God regularly, by doing something practically! In this way I could meet with God through reading the words He has passed on.
A Shared Experience
This is a shared experience with many for whom the Bible resonates, and recently Bible sales have exploded in the UK: 'Bible sales in Britain have surged by a remarkable 87 per cent between 2019 and 2024'.
Even before the recent growth in interest, the Bible was still considered the best selling book of all time, and with good reason!
We sometimes talk about 'consuming' media and the Bible is supposed to feed us spiritually. One popular Pastor and Teacher wrote a book called 'Eat this Book' (Eugene Peterson) to express the role of the Bible in the Christian life. We go back to food regularly, it doesn't get old both because it is a necessity to sustain us but it is also frequently a joy to consume (or even for some, to prepare).
George Muller, best remembered as a Christian who provided large homes to support approximately 10000 orphans over his ministry, found strength regularly from this practice, and reflects:
"the first great and primary business to which I ought to attend every day was, to have my soul happy in the Lord[...] I saw, that the most important thing I had to do was to give myself to the reading of the Word of God and to meditation on it, that thus my heart might be comforted, encouraged, warned, reproved, instructed; and that thus, whilst meditation, my heart might be brought into experimental, communion with the Lord. [...] after having asked in a few words the Lord's blessing upon His precious Word, was to begin to meditate on the Word of God; searching, as it were, into every verse, to get blessing out of it; [...] for the sake of obtaining food for my own soul." [emphasis added]
George Mullers testimony chimes with my experience as well as other Christians and matches up well with what the Bible says about itself and its own purpose. Famously in 2 Timothy 3:16-17 the Apostle Paul writes to a younger Pastor, Timothy:
"All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, so that the servant of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work." (NIV translation)
This is often taken as part of the Bibles authoritative claim - it is God-breathed -as well as its positive function - it is useful!
Getting Started?
If you don't have a Bible available in print, it is wonderful that it is easy / practically free to read the Bible online today, here for example:
The gospel of Mark is the first book in the new testament and is the shortest gospel (narrative of the life of Jesus). It only takes about the time of a standard length movie to read through once, so is a good place to start if you are exploring who Jesus is or how God interacts with us.
I'm glad the Bible is available online, and there are different translations available to capture the meaning behind the original Hebrew and Greek - because Jesus was not an Englishman!!!
Going deeper, through the Bible
This article from the Gospel coalition goes much deeper on how the Bible functions, but still the best way to go deeper with God through reading the Bible is by personal experience - actually reading it yourself rather than reading about it. That can take place in a group setting for sure, but it is a great blessing we have easy access in the UK to personal Bibles.
Reading should include an attitude of expecting and asking God to help you make sense of the words and ideas. We are told in John 16:13 (ESV) that 'When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth' and though this verse is about more than Scripture reading, it is not less!
It still involves action however, sustained through time. Reading with a commitment to not just read favourite verses, but work through a book of the bible, several books, each of the testaments - and not to give up meeting with God over the word - will bring great gains to discipleship.
There are also many practical tools and helps available to help us do the nitty gritty of study today, if we do not understand a topic in our reading. Commentaries are helpful, as are other Christians, but nothing replaces us reading the Bible. We are promised help from the Holy Spirit as a 'teacher' and this is the key textbook!
Reading a variety of translations can be beneficial to bringing out the meaning, because we also learn from those who have gone before us and those who study the text alongside us. Though this post is quite individualistic, the practice of reading the Bible is also done in community. The Bible is the book of the people of God, a family of believers. We gain insights from brothers and sisters as well as the Holy Spirit.
Give thanks & take action!
Whether we don't yet have a relationship with God or we have known Him for 100 years, the Bible is still helping people every day, like quality food! Even after years of reading it, it is still a refreshing and amazing experience, with some parts seeming to be brand new. God is still giving people fresh experiences through this text for our situations today. He is still meeting with people over open bibles and hearts, like we meet with a friend or our family over dinner, so go for it - eat this book!
Comments