Why Did God Write the Bible?

Sometimes daily Bible reading can lose its sense of purpose. “Why am I doing this, again? Oh yeah, if I check all these boxes, I’ll have read the whole Bible! But why I am reading the whole Bible, again?” It is godly to keep up the habit even when we do not understand why we’re supposed to do it. But it sure helps to know why we’re there. 

God made us for a purpose, and he wrote the Bible to help us get there. The “whole duty of man” is to “fear God and keep his commandments” (Ecc 12:13). The people who “are acceptable to him” are “anyone who fears him and does what is right.” What “the LORD your God require[s] of you” is “to fear the LORD your God, to walk in all his ways” (Deut 10:12).[1]

We were made to have a worshipful, obedient, delighted relationship with him. Our hearts love to be thrilled with amazing things because they were built to be amazed by God. So amazed that we tremble with happiness like a little boy watching a rocket launch. The old English word for that is fear. When our hearts fear him like this, we let out glad sounds of worship and become humble enough to listen to his ways. That’s why our whole duty is to fear him and walk in his ways.  

Fearing him isn’t just what we’re to do today, it’s the direction he’s taking all of humanity. God’s story ends with all creatures shouting, “To him who sits on the throne and to the Lamb be blessing and honor and glory and might forever and ever!” (Rev 5:13). We’re made to spend forever with our hearts amazed, bursting in worship, and walking gladly all his ways. 

If we were made to fear the Lord and keep his commands, that is why the Bible talks so much about the Lord and has so many commands. He wrote the Bible to teach us to fear him. We’re meant to read the miracles, the prophets’ mighty imagery, Jesus’s actions in the Gospels, and the many songs, left trembling at a glimpse of God’s greatness. And then we’re made to receive the many commands with gladness from that amazing God. We read of his glory and his ways, and we respond by fearing him and walking in his ways. That is why a rising king was to “read in it all the days of his life, that he may learn to fear the LORD his God by keeping all the words of this law and these statutes” (Dt 17:19). That’s why we read it every day, too. 

The only way we can get back into that wonderful, fearful relationship with God is through the Gospel, the good news that Jesus died in the place of sinners. That is why the Bible points us so often to our sin, our need for a savior, and Jesus’s worthiness as savior. Through that news, our relationship with him is restored and we can again fear him as we ought. 

All this helps us to see what is happening when we rise every morning to read his word. He is changing our hearts, teaching us to fear him. For our part, we’re sitting under that glorious word looking for any glimpse of his glory, his ways, or his Gospel. I try to keep this practical by noting in my daily readings every time I see those three things: his glory, ways, or Gospel. When I see his glory, I pause to marvel at it. When I see his ways, I resolve to walk in them. When I see the Gospel, I stop to embrace it. 

Reading the Bible, then, was never meant to be a rote exercise. It’s meant to be the most thrilling part of the day, the moment when your eyes are opened just a little more to see the glory of the holy one. He is good and glorious. May all the earth tremble before him!

[1] This verse continues on the say the same thing in a few different ways. It is also said with that language in Deuteronomy 6:4-5, which Jesus later calls the greatest commandment.