Finding Your Way in the Bible

How long do you have to live in a new town before you start to really find your way around?

For some it happens quickly, but for most of us it takes time. At first, everything feels unfamiliar and strange. There are questions all over the place: “Where does this road take me?” “How do I get to the grocery store?” “What gas stations are nearby?” “How do I get home from here?” We can’t yet really find our way around. Then, after a while, things start to fall into place. The roads start to feel less like confusing corridors of a maze and more like familiar hallways of a home. The grocery store is no longer over there somewhere; instead, it’s on 3rd Street right next to the old courthouse—the one with the overgrown pine tree out front. And, most importantly, you no longer wonder how to get home, because you know the way.

The same sort of thing can be said for our experience in reading the Bible.

For many of us, the Bible feels like an unfamiliar new town. We’re not really sure where things are, what roads are available to us, or where those roads might lead. We flip open the pages of it, land somewhere, and struggle to find our way forward. Although we can read and understand the words on the page, we have no context for them—we don’t know who’s talking, what’s going on, or how they got there—so those words, and verses, and chapters, do little else than make us feel lost.

What’s our move, then? Usually it’s something like, close the Bible and maybe give it a go another time.

It doesn’t have to be that way, though.

The Bible’s a big book—a big collection of books. There are 66 “books” contained within the pages of most Bibles—39 in the Old Testament and 27 in the New Testament. It’s no wonder a lot of us struggle to find our way, even with the best intentions, when we flip open the Bible to a random place to read. That’s like moving to a new town and not paying attention to any of the street names as you make your way through it. Why would anyone do that? Instead, someone new to a town would take whatever time is needed at first to pay special attention to the information provided—street names, landmarks, maps, etc.—as they work to find their way in and around their new home.

I think we ought to come to the Bible in the same way.

In the past I have suggested for people new to the Bible to start from the beginning and just get reading. Read for as long as it takes to make their way through the entire thing. I don’t make that suggestion anymore. That’s way too big of a task for most of us to take on from the start. I think it’s far better to start with a book like Mark. It is not a super short book like 2nd or 3rd John, but it’s also not one of the longer books like Isaiah or Jeremiah. Mark spans 16-chapters and could be read in a couple of hours if someone wanted to read it in one sitting. It’s a great book to come to first in order to start to find your way in the pages of the Bible.

A question remains, though: how does someone do that?

The answer: slowly, over time.

Start with the first chapter of Mark, and make it a goal to read that entire chapter in one day. And then, the next day, read Mark 2. And then, the next day, read Mark 3. And then… you get the idea. In a little over two-weeks you’ll have read the entire Gospel of Mark. As you’re reading, day after day, you’ll have questions and you’ll be wondering about the story and you’ll still be trying to find your way in it, but don’t worry too much about that then. Just like a new town, it will be unfamiliar for a little while, but not forever.

What, then, should you do on that 17th-day? Move on to another book in the Bible? No! Read Mark 1, again. Then, move to Mark 2 on the next day. Then, to Mark 3 the day after that, and so on until you finish Mark’s gospel again. In just over 2-more weeks you’ll have read Marks’s account of the life, ministry, death, and resurrection of Jesus for the second time.

A pretty amazing thing will start to happen as you make your way through Mark again. Little by little, you’ll start to anticipate different parts of the story. You’ll be reading in Mark 1 and thinking about what’s coming next in Mark 2. Or you’ll be reading about the Parable of the Sower in Mark 4 and be thinking about Jesus’s explanation of that parable later on in Mark 4. This is the sign that you’re starting to find your way in the pages of the Bible! In the same way that the once unfamiliar new town starts to feel like your town, your anticipation of what’s to come next in the Gospel of Mark is a sure indication that the Bible is becoming more familiar to you.

To be clear, this is where finding your way in the Bible starts; not where it ends. Keep going. Keep reading Mark until Mark feels like a town in which you could be the tour guide. Then, after you think you could give a tour of the Gospel of Mark, move on to another book in the Bible and do the same thing.

Slowly, over time, you’ll find your way and before you know it that town you’re becoming familiar with will start to grow.