Pastor David Platt Explains How (Not) To Read the Bible

“I just think about even my time with God this morning in his Word,” he continued, “just the thought [that] I was spending time with God, the God who spoke and the whole world came into being—and he was speaking to me.”

That morning, Platt said, God was “speaking specifically to some fears in my life,” and that comfort is something Platt wants for every follower of Jesus. “I long for every person to experience the wonder of intimacy with God through his Word,” said the pastor.

Yet Platt has found that many Christians seem oblivious to the “treasure” they have in God’s Word. Psalm 119:162 says, “I rejoice at your word like one who finds great spoil,” he pointed out. 

“There’s treasure waiting for us every day,” said Platt, “and I just, I think many Christians, they don’t view God’s Word that way, with that kind of expectation, like, ‘I’m going to discover treasure that will lead to—Psalm 1—happiness, blessing, true prosperity, fruitful life.’”

“I mean, who doesn’t want true prosperity, true happiness, true blessing, true life?” Platt asked. “And to realize that happens through delight in the law of the Lord and meditating on it day and night.” 

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But while the Bible is as precious as treasure, Platt warns that people need to be careful about how they read it and that it’s possible to read Scripture in ways that are dangerous.

“One way would be to twist the Bible to say things that it doesn’t actually say,” he explained, which is easy to do “if we don’t actually understand the context of what we’re reading.”

“Instead of adjusting our lives to it, we can adjust God’s Word to our lives,” said Platt, “and we can start to justify or reinforce some things in our lives that God’s actually wanting to reorient and transform.”

Another dangerous way of reading the Bible is to consume God’s words without actually obeying them.