After I sent out my recent essay on why we should read the Bible, I realized there was something I hadn’t fully expressed—something important enough that I wanted to send this brief follow-up.

It’s a common belief—among every generation—that we are the smartest, most advanced, most morally and intellectually evolved people to ever walk the earth.

So when someone tells us we should read the Bible because it’s “good for us,” our natural reaction might be to roll our eyes, sigh deeply, and maybe skim a few verses now and then… or at least try to pay attention when the pastor reads from scripture on Sunday morning.

That was certainly my attitude, even as I’ve dipped in and out of Bible study classes over the past four decades.

But recently, my appreciation for scripture has taken on a new depth, and I want to share what changed.

It’s this: imagine how ancient these stories are. Thousands of years old. And yet—what could they possibly offer us today?

Everything.

That’s exactly the point. The stories we find in the Bible are stories of humanity itself. From the first account of temptation and its consequences, to the earliest example of sibling rivalry and its tragic outcome, we see not only the beginnings of religious faith but the unfolding of humanity’s moral, ethical, and spiritual journey.

When we read the stories of the Old Testament with this in mind, the appearance of Jesus Christ—God in human form—becomes not only understandable, but inevitable. The teachings of Christ in the Gospels reveal a different kind of relationship between humanity and God—one that mirrors our spiritual growth and maturity.

So when we read the Bible, we are reading the story of us. Our human family. We begin to see how far we’ve come—and how much we still wrestle with the same core emotions: love and hate, peace and war, faith and fear.

That’s why the Bible—both Old and New Testaments—remains essential. Not just as a religious text, but as a living record of who we are, where we’ve been, and who we are still becoming.

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