HALIFAX, Nova Scotia, August 20, 2026 – I was offered the opportunity a few years back to learn Biblical (ancient) Hebrew so that I could read the Old Testament in the original script. I considered the opportunity, discussed it with God, and then respectfully declined. The same opportunity arose again recently, and again I respectfully declined. I’m not against learning Biblical Hebrew or against reading a text in its original language. Both of those things have their merits. I just don’t need to learn Biblical Hebrew in order to read the Bible. In fact, I don’t need to read the Bible at all, and I’ve learned from God that it’s best not to read it.

Let me explain.

The Bible is not a book in the sense that other books are, well, mere books. Unlike mere books, the Bible is a living instrument that God uses to teach us about himself, his Kingdom, and whatever it is we need to learn at any given moment. You can read the Bible, if you want to, in much the same way as you can read a mere book, but your reward in reading the Bible this way is that you’ll get from it as much as you would a mere book. That is to say, you won’t get nothing out of it, but you also won’t get much.

The Bible isn’t meant to be read by us: It’s meant to be read to us by God through his Holy Spirit. If we try to read the Bible under our own initiative and by our own understanding—if we pore over it like the temple elders pored over their scrolls, searching in vain for evidence that the Messiah should or should not come from Nazareth—we’ll learn about people who lived in different places at times, about what these people did (or didn’t do), and about how they died. In learning these things, we’ll form a rough idea of the characters named throughout the Bible, but that’s about it. In other words, we’ll get from the Bible the same depth of information we’d get from any other book, any other mere book.

But if we let God read the Bible to us through his Holy Spirit (the same Holy Spirit that lives in each one of us), something entirely different happens. We see beyond the words on the page, be they ancient or modern Hebrew, Greek, English, etc. In fact, we don’t even need words when God reads us the Bible. The day I was reborn, God spoke to me not in words but in ideas and images. The same thing happens when God reads us the Bible, which is why the language on the page in front of us doesn’t matter. God will help us understand what we need to understand and to see what we need to see supernaturally. Even the version of the Bible (King James vs English Standard vs New Revised Standard, etc.) is ultimately irrelevant: If changes were made to the original text that God didn’t approve, he’ll skip right over them, and we won’t even know they’re there.   

We don’t need to approach the Bible as experts in ancient languages: We just need to ask God to read it to us, and he will. And when we open his book (we still need to open it!) to the chapters and verses he wants us to focus on, he’ll open our understanding in ways that can never happen if we read the Bible on our own. He’ll teach us not through the words on the page but through his Word and by the power of his Holy Spirit.

So don’t bother reading the Bible; let God read it to you.