This Book Reads Me

Well—not a book, exactly. A library. A sprawling, ancient, living library. The Bible. It’s the one I return to daily, not because I’ve mastered it, but because I haven’t. Not even close.

You can’t really read it like other books. Not from start to finish, as though it were a novel or a textbook. Genesis doesn’t offer gentle beginnings—it opens with imagery and paradox, and within a few chapters, the world is already groaning. Creation. Fracture. Blood. Towers. Then come commandments, laws, and rituals that bewilder and disturb. Stories that unsettle the soul.

And yet—these pages are strangely familiar. Because while the horrors of the text might seem far off, we’ve seen their shadows cast in our own time. The 20th century was arguably the bloodiest in human history—and much of its violence was inflicted by governments upon their own people.

And now, here we are in the 21st. It’s early yet, but already the signs are ominous. Technological power outpaces wisdom. Division deepens. War, displacement, exploitation—they haven’t slowed. If anything, they’ve become more subtle, more systemic, more global. It’s not hard to imagine that this century might prove just as bloody. Maybe worse.

In all of this, I return to the Bible not just because it’s meaningful, but because it’s trustworthy. This is a text that has been sifted, wrestled with, preserved, and translated across millennia. Its survival is not accidental. Generation after generation has found it to be a reliable compass—not in the way modern people often want, but true in a deeper, more enduring sense. It has stood through wars, persecutions, empires rising and falling. And still it speaks.

That’s why I tell people: don’t start at the beginning. Start in the middle. Start with Jesus. Choose any Gospel—Matthew, Mark, Luke, or John. I started with Matthew. And I was undone. Jesus didn’t just teach; he overturned everything. His Sermon on the Mount—those blessings for the poor, the meek, the mourning—etched themselves deep into me. They continue to shape the contours of my life.

This library is full of genres. Stories, poems, proverbs, letters. Histories soaked in intrigue and power-lust. When I watch the news and feel my spirit sink, the Bible reminds me that none of this is new. And still, God has woven hope and grace through it all with cross and the empty tomb as the centrepiece.

The Psalms sing my joys and express my grief when I’m unable to find my own words. The Proverbs punch with brevity and insight. The prophets thunder truth, only to quietly indict me when I think they’re just talking about other people.

Even the love poetry of Song of Songs is part of this divine chorus—unashamed in its celebration of desire, intimacy, and longing.

Then there’s Paul and the other letters. Not always easy reading. But once their words crack open, they shine.

And finally—Revelation. So often misunderstood, so often misused. The happy hunting ground of heretics. But when it lands, it lifts. I’ve watched whole congregations overflow with excitement, swept up in the imagery of a world remade.

So yes. I read the Bible over and over again. But more truthfully—it reads me.

It’s not just a book I want to understand. It’s a life I want to live. A song I want to sing with my whole being. A story I want to embody. And I’ll be reading it—being read by it—for the rest of my life.

Not a book,
but a library—
dust and breath
pressed into paper.

I do not start at the start.
Genesis burns too fast—
light, blood, blame.
I begin with Jesus,
who blesses the broken
and speaks in a voice
that stirs my soul.

This book is not safe.
It bleeds with war,
weeps with loss,
thunders with truth.
And still—
it mirrors the world.
Ours may yet be
the bloodiest century.

But in its pages
are poems to borrow,
wisdom that bites,
and parables
that undo me.

It sings, it sears,
it won’t sit still.
And when I read,
I am read.
It finds what I bury,
calls what I love,
and names me whole.

I return to it daily—
not to conquer it,
but to be shaped.

This book
is not finished with me.
And I am not finished with it.