Why don’t Christians read their Bibles more? In a recent sermon, our pastor offered several reasons: People are too busy. The Bible is hard to understand. Reading the Bible is sometimes boring. And so on. The pastor then offered some solutions or counters to those reasons, in the hope that members of the congregation would read the Bible more regularly.

I have continued to ponder that sermon. It was a good sermon and will no doubt produce some good results. However, it struck me that the reason I don’t read my Bible more (and why I find it hard to study the Bible) is not any of the reasons the pastor gave. For me, while I do read the Bible, I think the biggest obstacle is the tremendous emotional and spiritual effort required. When I read, “The Lord is my shepherd, I lack nothing” (Psalm 23:1), I am comforted. But when I read, “Love your neighbor as yourself” (Matthew 22:39) or “The heart is deceitful above all things and beyond cure. Who can understand it?” (Jeremiah 17:9) or “In your struggle against sin, you have not yet resisted to the point of shedding your blood” (Hebrews 12:4) or any number of similar verses—well, that requires deep soul-searching and perhaps seeing things that I don’t necessarily want to admit are there.

Hebrews 4:12 tells us “For the word of God is alive and active. Sharper than any double-edged sword, it penetrates even to dividing soul and spirit, joints and marrow; it judges the thoughts and attitudes of the heart.” Such surgery can be painful, but it is necessary for life and health.