First of all bible reading is commanded. “Seek ye out of the book of the Lord, and read” (Is. 34:16). “Till I come, give attendance to reading, to exhortation, to doctrine” (1 Tim. 4:13). Even Jesus took time to read the scriptures:
“And he came to Nazareth, where he had been brought up: and, as his custom was, he went into the synagogue on the sabbath day, and stood up for to read. And there was delivered unto him the book of the prophet Esaias. And when he had opened the book, he found the place where it was written, The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he hath anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor; he hath sent me to heal the brokenhearted, to preach deliverance to the captives, and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty them that are bruised, To preach the acceptable year of the Lord. And he closed the book, and he gave it again to the minister, and sat down. And the eyes of all them that were in the synagogue were fastened on him” (Luke 4:16-20).
You may not be able to read publicly but all should read nonetheless. No one is excused from reading God’s Word. For one thing, God expects it. On several occasions Jesus cited the reason for spiritual error and ignorance was not reading God’s word. “Have ye not read;” “Or have ye not read in the law;” “Yea, have ye never read;” “Did ye never read in the scriptures;” “Ye do err, not knowing the scriptures;” “Have ye not read that which was spoken unto you by God;” “Search the scriptures” (Matt. 12:3,5; 21:16,42; 22:29,31; John 5:39). We need to remember the Bible is the solution to spiritual ignorance and error. “Through thy precepts I get understanding: therefore I hate every false way” (Ps. 119:104). The more we read the better we will comprehend concerning God’s will (Eph. 3:3-4; Neh. 8:8).
Another fantastic reason for reading the Bible is that it is a book of salvation (2 Tim. 2:10; 3:15). The Ethiopian eunuch was reading from Isaiah 53 and Philip preached to him from where he was reading which led to his conversion (Acts 8:26-39). Finally, Bible reading is good for consolation (Rom. 15:4); and for encouragement, “…they delivered the epistle; Which when they had read, they rejoiced” (Acts 15:30-31).
