Ways to Read the Bible

Why do we read the Bible? That may seem like a strange question. Aren’t we supposed to read our Bibles? But why? Is it to try to understand God’s will? Is it to more deeply understand God’s nature? Is it for inspiration? We all have our reasons. In our Zoom church services we took a passage, Mark 10:46-52, read it several times and then shared what we got out of that particular scripture. We noted the man’s persistence in spite of the crowd telling him to keep quiet. We thought it a little odd Jesus asked a blind beggar what he wanted. Of course, when Jesus said the man’s faith healed him, that brought up deeper theological questions about faith and healing. But one person responded a different way to what he read. He saw himself as the blind man and wondered what he would have done under that kind of peer pressure. Would he have been as bold with everyone telling him to hush up? Would he have had the faith Jesus saw in blind Bartimaeus? It made me wish I had thought of that.