Last fall, The Atlantic published “The Elite College Students Who Can’t Read Books.” The professor interviewed in the article was dismayed to discover that many students had made it all the way to an elite college without ever having read a single book in high school. Articles in various publications addressing the larger issues of reading and literacy have followed in the intervening months. Underlying most of these articles is the observation that by the time today’s students get to college, they’ve read little.

It’s apparently common in English instruction in secondary schools to assign students short passages, which they then analyze according to rules the teacher has laid out. Such instruction prepares them for the English sections of college entrance examinations. But I’m not sure it helps the students to read. Reading becomes a chore, carried out according to obscure rules that make little sense to the student and appear as practical as the binomial theorem.

This has implications for how students read the Bible. They don’t read it well because they don’t read. Analyzing the stray paragraph or reading bits and pieces of books doesn’t help. Only a familiarity with books of all sorts enables students to pick up on the clues about what an author is doing and how he’s doing it. They need to read—a lot.

To foster biblical literacy, we need to foster literacy in general.

Need for Biblical Literacy

It’s important that when people read the Bible, they read it well. From more than 30 years’ experience teaching the Bible, I know that most people don’t do this.

Only a familiarity with books of all sorts enables students to pick up on the clues about what an author is doing and how he’s doing it.

Over the last 10 to 15 years, I’ve seen a flood of books how to read various portions of the Old Testament. The reason these books were published is clear: Many Christian adults have read little and, in effect, need to be taught how to read.

Recently, I was told that in a women’s Bible study on the book of Hosea, several participants thought Hosea should be read like a story. They expected a chronological development of a plot: an introduction, a sequence of action rising to a climax, and a clear resolution.

They were frustrated that the book wasn’t meeting their expectations, which made it more difficult for them to understand it. They hadn’t been taught that the Bible comprises various genres of literature, each requiring a different reading strategy. And they likely had little practice reading the kinds of genres that make up the Bible.

What’s more, Bible studies for laypeople tend to focus on word studies or fill-in-the-blank responses to questions about what the passage says. In this, they aren’t too different from the instruction students receive in high school English classes.

Narrow and Shallow Reading Habits

When I taught at a seminary, I’d do a reading survey with the incoming students. Most had read fewer than a half dozen books a year. They’d read few novels. They’d read few, if any, plays. They’d read little nonfiction. They hadn’t developed the habit of reading, and worse, they didn’t read for enjoyment.

On the other hand, if students did read a lot (apart from required reading), their reading was often confined to a particular genre, usually young-adult fantasy fiction. The young women gravitated to romantasy, the young men to grimdark fantasy. But they didn’t tend to read beyond those narrow confines.

In particular, they didn’t read poetry. A familiarity with poetry, even English poetry, is a big help in understanding the Bible’s poetic portions.

Further, students didn’t read classic literature of differing genres. They didn’t read the histories of Herodotus or Thucydides. They didn’t read the epic poetry of The Iliad or The Odyssey. They didn’t read Donne. They didn’t read Milton. They didn’t read Dickens. They didn’t read Austen.

They didn’t read. And you can’t read the Bible well if you don’t read.

Encourage Deep and Wide Reading Habits

It’s one thing to know what students haven’t read. It’s another thing to get them interested in reading those books. Perhaps the best way isn’t to make reading those works an assignment or a requirement; this reduces reading to a chore. We want reading widely to become a pleasure.

Teach by example, and be excited about recommending books. As I teach undergraduate students, I’ve noticed that the books I mention in class and are most excited about are the ones students tend to be most interested in and respond to favorably. Perhaps the fundamental problem isn’t with the students but with us.

Grow as a Reader

If you want to grow as a reader yourself, here are some ideas that may help.

1. Read the Bible backward.

Start with Revelation and work back to Genesis. This will give you a fresh perspective, forcing you to consider each book on its own terms.

2. Read the Bible in chunks.

Most Bible reading plans have you read three or four chapters a day. While this is a digestible amount, it usually means you don’t get a whole story at once. Try reading complete sections.

You can’t read the Bible well if you don’t read.

For example, read Genesis as follows: Chapters 1–11, commonly called the “primeval history,” take us from the beginning of creation to Abraham. Chapters 12–23 give us the story of Abraham. Chapters 24–26 recount the story of Isaac. (Notice how much shorter it is than the surrounding stories of Abraham and Jacob.) Chapters 27–36 tell the story of Jacob. Finally, chapters 37–50 tell the story of Joseph that sets the stage for the exodus story in the next book.

3. Connect your other reading with your Bible reading.

As an example, several years ago, I was working on a brief exposition of the book of Ecclesiastes. I was having trouble with one verse. At the time, I was also reading a biography of Johann Sebastian Bach. One comment made about the importance of land for the king in Bach’s time illuminated Ecclesiastes 5:9 for me and helped the whole section make sense.

No Regret

Are you excited about what you read, particularly about the Bible? Do you read it for the sheer pleasure of reading God’s Word, or do you read it because you feel you must?

Be inventive and dare to take chances with your Bible reading. You won’t regret it, and your example will build a culture of literacy that encourages others to be readers too.