"How readest thou?" (Luke 10:26)
Did you read a story or did you meet a person?
This world is chock full of stories: novels, biographies, tales, myths and legends (urban and non). Some are true, some are believed as true but cannot be substantiated and others aren't factual but shed light on an aspect of human nature as viewed through the eyes of the writer, whomever they may be. In other words, you really have to pick your battles. God help you.
"For we have not followed cunningly devised fables, when we made known unto you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but were eyewitnesses of His majesty." (2 Peter 1:16)
And then there's the Bible. The Bible is the most popular book in the world. The most purchased and also the most stolen (go figure). You can pick one up for a buck or you can go all out and order a $500 custom-bound goatskin covered one that says the same thing as (most) all the others. But it's really about what's inside, right?
The Bible is like a portal to another world, one in which God lives. Here, in our dead society, you can pick it up with an expectant heart and meet Him. It's like God on paper! His thoughts, His deeds, His opinions (Does He have opinions or is it just the way things are?). What some Christians fail to realize though, is that the words on the pages, the collection of sixty-six books written and culled over thousands of years is all intended to introduce us to our Creator: the Lord, Jesus Christ. Did you just read His story or have you met Him? We're not asked to believe the story of Noah's Ark (though I do, there's even archaeological corroboration), we're asked—commanded even—to believe on Jesus. And there's the struggle:
"Jesus answered and said unto them, This is the work of God, that ye believe on Him whom He hath sent." (John 6:29, emphasis mine)
So, the next time you pick up your Bible, ask God to make Himself known to you through His word, as the Living Word.
"And the Word was made flesh and dwelt among us, (and we beheld His glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father,) full of grace and truth." (John 1:14)