Most of the bible isn't worth reading, study shows

The bible is too long.

Like, sure, it's God's word and all that. But sixty six books? We don't have time for that!

A book authored by He who made the universe is probably worth a glance or two, but at the same time God surely doesn't want us to compromise on our consumption of Plato, J.K. Rowling, or Netflix. It would be unreasonable of him to expect us to actually read the whole thing!

To save us all some time, I have taken the liberty of actually attending church for a year and noting how much each book of the bible is mentioned by the preachers. After all, if a preacher doesn't mention a book of the bible for an entire year, clearly God doesn't care if we neglect it too. Or even if He does, more importantly, our Christian friends wont think us under-read if we skip it.

This way we can come up with a ranking of the best books of the bible, and only read those.



The flat ranking

1. Psalms, 47                 6. 1 Peter, 19                        10. Ephesians, 13
2. John, 28                     7. 1 Corinthians, 17              10. Isaiah, 13
3. Romans, 24               7. Acts, 17                             13. Luke, 11
4. Colossians, 22           7. Philippians, 17                  14. Galatians, 10
5. Matthew, 21              10. 2 Corinthians, 13              15. Mark, 8

I only list fifteen as surely that is enough even for the most over-saved amongst us. As you can see, my research confirmed my suspicions; we really don't need to read the old testament at all, apart from the fun poem-y things and the feel-good bits near the end of Isaiah. 

As for the new testament, we can still afford to pick and choose a lot. We can certainly get away with just reading one of the gospels - in fact I'm really not sure why God chose there to be four in the first place, but I guess sometimes he makes mistakes.

And we can basically ignore the second half of the new testament as long as we skim through 1 Peter at some point - though having carved out the time to read it I'm not sure why it ranks so highly... it's all about depending on Jesus, abstaining from sinful desires, suffering, and living for God; not exactly my cup of tea!

But hang on. 

Those first four books on the list are all really long, and it's not that impressive to be mentioned in loads of sermons if the book also goes on for ages. What we want is to assess which books of the bible will contain the most useful nuggets per word we read, for maximum time efficiency. So let us try ranking by density of references. 

The density ranking

Aha, this is much more hopeful; now it's all about those short, juicy books!

1. Colossians, 111.1            5. 1 Thessalonians, 33.3              11. Titus, 22.2

2. Philippians, 77.3              7. Galatians, 32.3                        12. 2 Corinthians, 21.7
3. 1 Peter, 76.0                    8. 1 John, 28.0                            13. 1 Corinthians, 18.1

4. Ephesians, 43.0               9. Romans, 25.5                         13. 2 Timothy, 18.1

5. 3 John, 33.3                  10. 1 Timothy, 22.7                        15. John, 15

This is better news than I could have possibly have hoped for; we really can discard the entire old testament on this more sophisticated density model.

Though something's gone a bit wrong... 3 John is in fifth position on this ranking scheme, even though in an entire years' worth of preaches it only received a single mention, simply because it is extremely short. A new model that does not so reward brevity is in order; that way we can avoid wasting our time reading silly short letters. 

Let us try making the score proportional to the number of references and inversely proportional to the cube root of the length of the book, just for bants.

The weighted ranking

1. Colossians, 81.3               6. John, 44.1                              11. Acts, 27.3

2. 1 Peter, 65.2                     7. Ephesians, 41.8                     12. 1 John, 23.9

3. Psalms, 62.4                     8. 1 Corinthians, 37.4                13. 1 Thessalonians, 22.7

4. Philippians, 60.8               9. Matthew, 34.1                        14. Isaiah, 18.1

5. Romans, 52.8                 10. 2 Corinthians, 33.2                15. 1 Timothy, 17.7

Now that is more like it. The gospels are safely out of the top spots so we wont be confronted by Jesus (who makes me uncomfortable) too often. We still get to read some poetry occasionally but other than that it's just loads and loads of good old Paul.

I suggest you stick to simply reading Colossians when you have nothing better to do, though you really should read 1 Peter at some point. But feel free to skip anything that doesn't meet your fancy. Remember: man was not made for the bible, but the bible for man. And of course if ever you feel like reading some poetry, do check out the fun psalms - 16, 23, 27, 62, 103, 139, 145 -  but don't venture beyond that!

There you go. A perfect formula for getting that balance between feeling religious, and not actually wanting to spend much time reading the bible.

You're welcome.

**END OF SATIRE**

We are eager to hear from God, yet we neglect to read what he has already spoken.

We say that we live for God, yet we conform to culture more than to scripture.

We say that we delight in God, yet we enjoy fiction more than we enjoy his word.

We say we preach the whole gospel, but we neglect most of the bible in our sermons.

Do not add to what I command you

and do not subtract from it,

but keep the commands of the Lord your God that I give you    - Deuteronomy 4:2

All scripture is God-breathed and is useful for 

teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness,

so that the servant of God may be

thoroughly equipped for every good work.                                 - 2 Timothy 3:16-17

  Blessed is the one

who does not walk in step with the wicked

or stand in the way that sinners take

or sit in the company of mockers,

but whose delight is in the Lord,

and who meditates on his law day and night.

  That person is like a tree planted by streams of water,

which yields its fruit in season

and whose leaf does not wither - 

whatever they do prospers.                                                          - Psalm 1:1-3

My intention in writing this post was to point out, and help us to think about the fact, that most of us prefer some bits of the bible to others. Also, I aimed to analyse and gently critique the 'pick and choose' sermon style that is prevalent in many churches.

A lot of churches are not covering the books of the bible at all equally in their sermons, and this 'cherry-picking' attitude filters down into the way we view the bible in general. This results in comfortable sermons, a theology catering to church leaders or to the fancies of the individual, and a lack of exposure to much of the bible for those who are not vigilant in their personal study of scripture. 

In the experience of my own reading of scripture and of those whom I know, it seems that we leap on the nice 'memory passages' like Romans 8, and with equal enthusiasm leap away from the trickier books, like Micah. This is something I am manifestly guilty of; my previous fifteen blogs were on Psalm 23! 

I would like to challenge everyone reading this to try reading a book of the bible you haven't read for a while - perhaps try Micah. Read it the whole way through. Pray through it. Ask God for help understanding the tricky bits. Study and meditate on it. Ask yourself why you haven't read it for a while. Consider making this sort of venture a habit.

Perhaps it's okay to read some bits of the bible more than others, and that some verses stand out to everyone. But is it okay to only occasionally mention anything in the old testament outside of the psalms, and is it okay that no-one knows what happens in Zechariah?

Do we trust that the whole bible is God's word, or do we put it through the filters of our common sense, and our sense of how 'relevant' things are, before we decide what to read? Do we really delight in all of scripture, or just the bits that sit nicely with us? Most importantly, do we find that all scripture increases in us our delight in Jesus Christ?

Perhaps it needs to be stressed that a more balanced approach to personal devotions is needed than is possible in church sermons. But perhaps we should also make sure that our sermons are more 'evenly spread' throughout the bible. And perhaps we should also make it a habit to do sermon series that go through a single book of the bible in detail, lest we get too pre-occupied with our own motives to grasp all that God has said to us.


I have not written much in this section because I want this to be the start of a conversation.
I genuinely would love to know your thoughts on this!

God bless,

Jeff

P.S. The figures and bar chars above were genuinely taken from a years worth of my sermon notes. A lot of these notes were taken from my 'home' church in Coventry, my 'university' church in Cambridge, and the Christian Union I attend, so no single person can be held accountable for the unbalanced nature of the results.

Furthermore, I am fully content in both the churches I attend and am on the executive committee for my CU; it is hopefully clear that this post is in no way an attack on any of these (or any other) churches or organisation. I wish only to ask questions and provoke thought.