Although we know that God promises to reward those who earnestly seek him (Hebrews 11:6), we still neglect to read our Bibles. If we’re honest, there are plenty of times when we don’t want to read the Bible.
In these times, have you ever paused to entertain the honest question, why don’t I want to read the Bible?
We want to share with you a few reasons why we may avoid spending time with God by reading his Word. We can only share these with you because all these reasons have kept us from reading the Bible at some point in time!
Why Don’t I Want to Read the Bible? Five Potential Reasons
Instead of listing five reasons, we have chosen to ask five questions. As you read these five questions, you will have to be the one to answer them honestly, and discern if any of these reasons for neglecting Scripture apply to you.
Hopefully, whether you are halted in your Bible reading by one of these hindrances or not, thinking through these five questions will equip you for the day when you or someone else you care about is neglecting time in God’s Word. If you find it difficult to discern if any of these reasons relate to you, consider asking a Christian friend to talk through this article with you.
Our hope is that once these obstacles to Bible reading are exposed, you will recognize them and be equipped to hurdle them the next time you find yourself hesitant to open God’s Word. So when you are wondering, why don’t I want to read the Bible?, here are five questions to ask yourself.
1. Am I Living in Unrepentant Sin?
There are many things that may de-motivate you from reading the Bible. Here’s the first: You might be hiding from God.
There’s some sin in your life that you have not been willing to turn from. You know that what you are doing grieves God (Ephesians 4:20-32), but perhaps for various reasons, you’re not willing to truly turn away from that sin.
So, you don’t want to seek him because you know there’s an area of sin you’re unwilling to forsake, and you know this displeases him.
God says that his ears are not open to those who persist in unrepentant sin (Psalm 66:18). But here is something else he says: “If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness” (1 John 1:9 ESV).
If we acknowledge our sin for the evil that it is, confess it to God, and turn away from it, God will forgive us, cleanse us from it, and welcome us once again with open arms.
The author of Psalm 32 describes the refreshing blessing of honestly confessing sin and receiving God’s forgiveness.
Blessed is the one whose transgression is forgiven,
whose sin is covered.
Blessed is the man against whom the Lord counts no iniquity,
and in whose spirit there is no deceit.
For when I kept silent, my bones wasted away
through my groaning all day long.
For day and night your hand was heavy upon me;
my strength was dried up as by the heat of summer.I acknowledged my sin to you,
and did not cover my iniquity;
I said, “I will confess my transgressions to the Lord,”
and you forgave the iniquity of my sin.
(Psalm 32:1-5 ESV)
Though the psalmist doesn’t outright say it, he implies that his sin and guilt were crushing him until he confessed his sin to God and received forgiveness. Only then was his burden truly lifted. Only then was he truly free.
Friend, God is never closed off to you—we close ourselves off from him.
So, if this point seems to be speaking to you, come to God today and say, “God I’m in sin, and I want to repent. My relationship with you is more important to me than this thing I am doing or clinging to. Please give me power to forsake this thing that grieves you. I forsake it today.”
And just so you’re fully assured of his response to you, here is God’s Word to you today: “Repent therefore, and turn back, that your sins may be blotted out, that times of refreshing may come from the presence of the Lord…” (Acts 3:19-20 ESV). In other words, God is ready to meet you with refreshment when you repent.
If sin is keeping you from the Bible, choose to confess it to God and forsake it today! God promises you forgiveness, cleansing, and refreshment if you do.
2. Am I Truly Saved?
Hiding from God will certainly de-motivate you from reading the Bible. But the greatest demotivator for reading the Bible is if you don’t truly know God! In 2 Corinthians 13:5, the Holy Spirit instructs us through the apostle Paul, “Examine yourselves, to see whether you are in the faith” (ESV).
Maybe you know things about God; maybe you even know much of the Bible, but do you have a personal relationship with Jesus?
John 17:3 says, “This is eternal life, that they know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent” (ESV). The life God offers us is not a life of reading this book over and over. It’s a life of knowing God, and we know him through what he has revealed about himself in his book, the Bible. That’s why we read it.
God sent his Son Jesus to die as our substitute for all the sins we have committed, daily commit, and will commit against him, because the just penalty for those sins is eternal suffering in hell. Jesus willingly suffered in our stead so that we might receive God’s forgiveness, so that our relationship with God might be healed and so we might be saved from God’s eternal wrath toward our sin (1 Peter 3:18)!
Have you turned from your sins and come to Jesus, asking for the forgiveness he freely offers you? Everyone who trusts in Jesus is brought into a loving relationship with God, and God gives each person his Holy Spirit, who inclines our hearts to want to know and to love God more (Ezekiel 36:27).
You may struggle with wanting to read the Bible because you don’t have a real relationship with its Author. But today, God offers you that relationship! For “everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved” (Joel 2:32 NIV).
If not having a real relationship with the Lord is keeping you from the Bible, accept his extension of love, forgiveness, and friendship today! You can be saved from the eternal debt you owe and the penalty due your sins, and Jesus can bring you into a loving relationship with God that lasts into eternity (John 3:16)! Just exercise the faith to sincerely ask him for it!
3. Is It the Enemy’s Voice I Hear?
Maybe you do have a relationship with Jesus, and your conscience is clean. You walk in the light and love the Lord. But you still find yourself struggling to read the Bible. The reason for this could be that you are under attack.
We learn from the book of Ephesians that every believer in Jesus fights in a spiritual war (Ephesians 6:10-20). “For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places” (Ephesians 6:12 ESV).
This verse tells us that we have unseen enemies. Foremost among them is our enemy, Satan, who wants to keep us from God and destroy our faith in him. The Bible calls him the accuser (Revelation 12:10) and the father of lies (John 8:44).
So maybe you have experienced this: every time you go to read the Bible, you are anxious, feel unworthy, fear God’s condemnation, think God is unhappy with you for no reason, and feel crushed by a burden of unidentifiable guilt.
A general sense of condemnation is not the work of the Holy Spirit, but of the accuser. The Holy Spirit’s job is to convict us of sin (John 16:8). He does this job well. True conviction is specific, and it’s always paired with a clear path of repentance. If you generally feel down on yourself, that’s likely the whispering work of someone seeking to condemn you.
You have a real enemy who does not want you pursuing God or listening to his Word. What do you do when you’re hammered with accusation and feel rising internal resistance to read the Bible? Here is God’s instruction from the book of James: “submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. Draw near to God, and he will draw near to you” (James 4:7-8 ESV).
First, resist the devil! God promises that if we say “no” to the devil and his lies, he will flee from us. Say, “No way am I listening to despairing thoughts! I’m going to read my Bible regardless of how I feel.”
Second, draw near to God! God promises that if you draw near to him, he will draw near to you! Tell God how you feel and tell him how badly you desire to seek him, and he will seek you out of his great love for you (Psalm 119:176; Luke 15:3-7)!
Finally, read Psalm 35 and Romans 8. We have found these two passages to be so helpful when under spiritual attack. Psalm 35 is a prayer of deliverance from enemies. Romans 8 will reassure your heart of God’s great love for you.
If the Enemy is keeping you from the Bible, resist him, and choose to draw near to God anyway!
4. Am I Feeling Unwell?
You may lack desire to read the Bible because of external opposition, but it’s also plausible that you may also lack desire to read the Bible due to natural internal opposition.
The physical realm is just as important to our spiritual lives as the spiritual realm. Our bodies and souls are inseparably intertwined by God’s design. Your body affects your soul, and your soul affects your body.
You, dear friend, may not want to read the Bible because you are sleepy, hungry, fighting an illness, or currently sick, stressed, racked with some other unidentifiable emotion, or in need of exercise.
God cares for your whole self. He knows you’re human (Psalm 103:14), and none of your needs or weaknesses surprise him.
Take a little inventory. Do you come to the Word sleepy? Could you rearrange your schedule to read the Bible at a time when you’re more alert? Are you sitting down to read the Bible at a time when you’re hungry? Is there a simple lifestyle change that might improve your general health so that you are more inclined to want to sit down and read your Bible? Maybe going to bed a bit earlier, eating or drinking something while you read, or getting exercise prior to reading could motivate you to read God’s Word.
If ordinary human nature is keeping you from the Bible, ask God for wisdom to make any adjustments to your life that may help increase your desire for his Word.
Know that God is gracious towards you and believe that going to his Word will do your soul and body good! Although you may not feel like reading the Bible, reading the Bible can help you feel better! God’s Word has a powerful effect on our souls, which brings health to our bodies (Isaiah 55:2-3; Proverbs 4:20-22).
5. Am I Angry with God About Something?
Here’s one last suggestion as to why you may be not wanting to read the Bible. You may be wading through a difficult season. Trials often come with the temptation to believe the worst about God (James 1:13). We know that God is the ultimate ruler of the universe, and so when something terribly painful comes into our lives, we are tempted to be angry with God.
All over the Bible we are welcomed to express every emotion, every thought, every grievance directly to God (1 Peter 5:7; Psalm 62:8), and we see examples in the Bible of godly people saying some surprising things to God. Jeremiah, Job, Habakkuk, and the author of Psalm 88 are a few examples.
With any relationship, our natural inclination is to distance ourselves from that person during conflict. The same is true of our relationship with God. If you are upset with him, you’re not going to want to talk to him or hear from him. When you are in intense pain, even if you desire to draw near to God, that pain may disorient you such that drawing near to God feels intensely difficult.
If you identify anger in your heart toward God, tell him! Confess your ugliest thoughts toward him (1 John 1:9), and you will be healed of them. Ask him to transform your thoughts (Romans 12:2), and help you believe that he is good.
Open your Bible and ask him to meet you there. God waits with open arms for you to run back to him (Luke 15). Even if all you can get out is angry thoughts and tears, he can soften your heart.
If anger is keeping you from the Bible, run with your anger to God! Run with your whole heart to him and pour it out like water before him (Psalm 62:8). He can interpret tears and sighs, groans, and the thoughts you don’t know how to express in the silence (Romans 8:26).
Just go to him and give him what you can of your heart. Ask him to remove any barriers keeping you from drawing close. For he is near to you in your pain—perhaps nearer than in easier seasons, for “the Lord is near to the brokenhearted and saves the crushed in spirit” (Psalm 34:18 ESV).
Why Don’t I Want to Read the Bible?
There are many reasons we resist reading the Bible, and in this article, we have not listed them all. But did one of these five reasons resonate with you?
If so, see that as a gift! See it as a hurdle the Lord helped you identify, so that you no longer keep bumping into it, but with his help, might jump over it.
Ask the Lord for the desire to know him and hear from him, and with his help may you overcome every obstacle that would keep you from his Word.
He eagerly awaits your every effort to seek him. For, “the Lord waits to be gracious to you, and therefore he exalts himself to show mercy to you” (Isaiah 30:18 ESV).
May you hurdle every obstacle keeping you from Scripture. May you persevere in seeking the Lord with your whole heart. His promise to you is Jeremiah 29:13, “You will seek me and find me, when you seek me with all your heart” (ESV).
If upon coming to the end of this article, you’ve found that you are not truly a follower of Christ, we ask you earnestly to make the best of decisions for your current life, future life, and eternal life. Call on Jesus to forgive you of your sins and make you his own today. He will give you his Spirit, who will open your eyes to see his glory in his Word, the Bible. (If you would like to talk with someone about what it means to have faith in Christ, one of our responders would be delighted to talk to you: Chat Now).
But if you’ve come to the end of this article and felt overwhelmed by the realization of how you’ve allowed life to take over your commitment to the Word, remember God delights to reinvigorate your heart toward his Word again. Ask God to restore your desire for his Word. This is a prayer that he’ll be delighted to answer.
In faith that God will answer your prayer, go the way of obedience; recommit to reengage with the Word and trust God to restore your delight in it as you do.
And may God grow your love for him and your assurance of his love for you, as you regularly listen to his voice as you read the Bible.