Why Is It So Difficult for Me to Read the Bible?

By Andre Eksteen

If you are honest with yourself, you have probably wondered why it is so difficult to read the Bible consistently. You want to, you know you must, but the desire just is not there. You start reading and your eyes wander. You turn two pages and it feels as if it is just words that change nothing inside you. You set the Bible aside and carry on with your day. You even feel guilty, yet it remains a struggle. Why is this so?

The first reason is simple: many people start with the wrong motivation. They see Bible reading as a duty, a rule, a religious activity that must be completed so that God will be satisfied. They treat it like homework — a task you have to finish to earn marks. This is a mindset of slavery. You do it because you believe you have to, not because you want to. And nothing you do purely out of obligation will ever awaken life inside you.

Let me give you a picture: imagine someone tells you that if you read the Bible for an hour every day for the next month, you will receive five million Rand. Suddenly your motivation changes. You will do it every day, no matter how tired or busy you are. Your circumstances are the same, but your attitude changes. That is exactly the point: the problem is not that you cannot read, the problem is that you are looking at the value of what you are doing in the wrong way.

But God does not work with bribes. He does not call you to open His Word because you are going to receive a reward. He calls you to open His Word because He has saved you by grace. Paul says in Romans 12:1: “I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service.” You do not do it to be accepted; you do it because you already are accepted. You do not read because you fear judgement; you read because you know He has delivered you from judgement. Gratitude drives you, not guilt.

And this is exactly where many people fail. They hold the Bible like a manual, full of rules and lessons they must memorise to become a better person. And it never works. Because the Bible was never meant to be a cold book of moral lessons. It is the living Word of God. It is where He reveals Himself — His heart, His plan, His character. It is the place where you can see Him. If you miss that, it becomes dead and dry. But if you see it, it becomes alive and indispensable.

Psalm 34 says: “O taste and see that the Lord is good.” This is not an intellectual exercise; it is an experience. You taste, you experience, you see. The Bible was not meant only to be read; it was meant to be eaten, digested, and to fill your whole being.

Now let us touch on something deeper. One of the main reasons people put the Bible down is because they remain on the surface. They read quickly, they take the obvious meaning, and then it sounds contradictory to them. Then they say, “The Bible does not make sense.” The fault is not with the Word; it lies with the level of understanding.

Just look at Genesis. In chapter 1 you see God creating everything perfectly. Each day ends with the words: “And God saw that it was good.” Perfect. Complete. But then in verse 2, Genesis 1:2, you read: “And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep.” How can a perfect God leave behind a mess? Did He undo His own work? Did He fail? If you read only on the surface, it remains a mystery. If you dig deeper, you begin to see that there is more here than you first realised. A war between light and darkness took place long before Adam opened his eyes.

Then you come to the flood. God wipes out everything that has breath, except for a small arkful. On the surface it sounds harsh, even cruel. You hear it was because of sin, but what about the innocent? What about the animals? Why would a righteous God wipe everything away? If you only take the surface, it does not make sense. But if you look deeper, the picture starts to become clear. It is not only about people being disobedient. It is about corruption — not only moral corruption, but physical corruption.

Man was created in the image of God. His breath entered us; His DNA — the building blocks of life — was anchored in us. From the beginning, the enemy’s plan was to corrupt that DNA, to twist it, to contaminate it. And at a certain point the corruption became so deep and so widespread that it affected not only behaviour, but the bloodline itself. So corrupt that even the DNA of animals and plants was altered. What God had made holy was twisted into something that no longer carried His image. If He had not intervened, Jesus could never have come. That is why the flood happened. Not because God is a cruel Ruler who wanted to destroy everything, but because He had to preserve the last pure line. He did not destroy — He protected. He protected the line through which Christ would be born. Without that intervention, the DNA of God in mankind would have disappeared.

Now you may understand why the Bible feels dead and empty to so many people. They read it without deeper insight. They read it without the Holy Spirit. They see only the surface and become discouraged. But when you realise that even the hardest verses and the most severe judgements are actually part of God’s plan to preserve His creation, the whole picture begins to open up.

Let me say it again: the Bible will always be difficult for you if you read it as a duty, or if you read it with your own eyes alone. You must open it with a longing to see God, and you must be willing to dig deeper. Every contradiction you think you see is actually an invitation. Every question you have is a door. But you have to step through, you have to dig, you have to taste. Otherwise you remain stuck on the surface, and then it feels empty.

That is why Jesus said: “The words that I speak unto you, they are spirit, and they are life.” You cannot experience life in depth by scraping only the surface. You must open your heart and allow the Word to feed you.

This does not mean you will feel like reading every day. It does not mean you will always understand. But it does mean you will keep reading, because you know you are not meeting a book; you are meeting a Person. You are meeting the Creator, the One who made you in His image. You are meeting the One who preserved your bloodline through centuries of corruption, just so that He Himself could be born as a man to save you.

The Bible is not a collection of words on paper. It is the breath of God preserved through the ages. It is His heart laid open. It is your life. And when you realise this, your whole mindset changes. You no longer read because you are afraid. You no longer read because you feel guilty. You read because you love. You read because you cannot live without it. You read because you know your own DNA is written from the letters of His Word.

But be careful about the translation you read. Many modern translations have twisted the Word of God to such an extent that it is no longer the sword of truth, but a soft cushion to keep people comfortable. They cut out the parts that sound too harsh, they change the meaning to fit the culture, and in doing so you lose the power of what God actually said. Do your research. Compare, dig, and do not stick to one Bible simply because someone recommended it to you. Seek the version that stays closest to the original, even if it cuts your heart open. Because it is better to be cut by God’s truth than soothed by man’s lies. And be warned — some translations even try to soften the monsters of God’s creation. Then you no longer read about Leviathan, but about a hippopotamus. The Bible speaks of a dragon, but your translation turns it into a zoo. And in this way they steal the supernatural and flatten the Word, just so that it causes less offence.

So I ask you today: why is it so difficult for you to read the Bible? Is it really because you do not have time, or because you do not feel like it? Or is it because you have not yet discovered the true motivation? Because once you do, you will see — the Bible is not a burden; it is your life.