What If I Don’t Understand What I’m Reading?

Question 1124.

Understanding Scripture is not always straightforward, and if you have ever hit a passage that made no sense at all, read it twice, maybe three times, and remained thoroughly confused, you are in very good company. This is a common experience, and it should not discourage you the way it often does. The Bible is a deep book, written across thousands of years in cultures very different from our own, and some confusion along the way is simply inevitable.

There are, however, good and honest ways to work through the confusion rather than around it, and that is what I want to walk through here.

Don’t Let Confusion Discourage You

First, do not let a lack of understanding discourage you from reading at all. Even the apostle Peter admitted that some of Paul’s writings were “hard to understand” (2 Peter 3:16). If Peter struggled with Paul’s letters, you are in excellent company. The Ethiopian official in Acts 8, reading Isaiah on his chariot, confessed plainly, “How can I, unless someone guides me?” (Acts 8:31). Needing help is not a failure of faith. It is normal.

Understanding Scripture does not require a seminary degree for the truths that matter most. The main message of the gospel, the character of God, and the way of salvation are proclaimed clearly and repeatedly throughout the whole Bible. You do not need advanced training to grasp that God loves you, that Jesus died for your sins, and that you are called to follow him. Those central truths are accessible to anyone reading with an open heart.

Some Parts Are Genuinely Harder

At the same time, there are real depths in Scripture that scholars have debated for centuries, and pretending otherwise does nobody any favours. Prophecy, apocalyptic imagery, ancient legal codes, ceremonial regulations, ancient genealogies: these require more background knowledge and more patient work than a straightforward gospel narrative does. Don’t be discouraged when you meet them. Set them aside for further study later if you need to, and keep reading the parts that are clear.

Understanding Scripture grows over time, layer by layer, the way any deep relationship grows. You are not expected to master everything on a first pass, and neither was any believer who has ever picked up a Bible before you.

Read the Context Before the Verse

Confusion often clears up once you widen the lens. Who wrote this book, and to whom, and why? What happens immediately before and after the confusing verse? A single sentence lifted out of its paragraph can mean almost anything; the same sentence read inside its paragraph, chapter, and book usually settles down considerably. This is basic to literal interpretation: reading each passage the way the original author intended it to be read by its original audience.

A good study Bible with brief introductory notes for each book can do a great deal of the heavy lifting here, giving you the historical and literary setting in a paragraph or two before you dive into the text itself.

Let Scripture Interpret Scripture

One of the most reliable tools for understanding Scripture is comparing a difficult passage with clearer passages on the same subject elsewhere in the Bible. If a verse about salvation seems to say something strange, check it against Romans, Ephesians, and John, where the doctrine of salvation is laid out with unusual clarity. The obscure should be read in light of the clear, not the other way round.

This is not a trick or a shortcut. It reflects the conviction that Scripture is a unified whole, written by different human authors across many centuries yet carrying one consistent message under the inspiration of the Spirit (pneuma). A passage rarely stands entirely alone.

Ask for Help Without Embarrassment

Understanding Scripture was never meant to be a solitary project. Ask a pastor, a mature believer, or a trusted study group when you are stuck. Read a good, careful commentary. Listen to sound teaching on the passage. This is exactly the pattern of Acts 8, where the Ethiopian official welcomed Philip’s guidance rather than pretending he had already worked it out alone.

There is no shame here whatsoever, only wisdom. God gave the Church teachers for a reason (Ephesians 4:11-12), and using that gift is not a failure of personal Bible study. It is how personal Bible study is supposed to work within a healthy church family.

Avoid Two Opposite Errors

Two temptations sit on either side of this struggle. One is giving up on a passage entirely and never returning to it, letting confusion win by default. The other is manufacturing a confident interpretation just to feel settled, forcing a meaning onto the text that is not really there. Both avoid the harder, better path, which is patient, humble, ongoing engagement that tolerates not having every answer immediately.

Understanding Scripture is a lifelong project, not a weekend course. Some passages that baffled me twenty years ago have opened up gradually, not all at once, through years of continued reading, teaching, and simply living with the Bible as a companion rather than a puzzle to be solved once and shelved.

Tools That Aid Understanding Scripture

A handful of ordinary tools go a long way towards understanding Scripture without requiring years of formal training. A reliable study Bible, a concordance for tracing how a word is used elsewhere, and a couple of trustworthy one-volume commentaries will answer the majority of questions a careful reader runs into. None of this is expensive or exotic; it is simply a matter of having the right basic kit within reach.

Original language tools help further still, even for readers with no Greek or Hebrew training. Looking up a key word at somewhere like Blue Letter Bible and seeing how the same underlying word is translated elsewhere in Scripture can unlock a verse that felt opaque in English alone. You do not need fluency. You need curiosity and a willingness to look a little closer than the English translation alone allows.

Understanding Scripture also grows simply through exposure over time. The more of the Bible you have read, the more each new passage has something to connect to, and confusing sections gradually become less confusing simply because you now have more of the whole picture in view than you did on your first read through.

Understanding Scripture Grows Best in Community

It bears repeating that understanding Scripture was never designed to be a purely private pursuit, however much our culture prizes individual effort. The early church devoted itself to the apostles’ teaching and to fellowship together (Acts 2:42), receiving understanding as a shared, communal gift rather than a solitary achievement each believer had to reach alone in a locked room.

Joining a small group, a Sunday school class, or simply a regular conversation with a mature believer will do more for your understanding of Scripture over a year than an equivalent number of hours spent reading commentaries alone. Iron sharpens iron, and confusion shared out loud has a way of resolving itself faster than confusion carried silently.

Patience Is Part of Understanding Scripture

One of the hardest lessons in understanding Scripture is simply learning to wait. Not every question resolves in one sitting, one sermon, or even one year of study. Some passages have generated genuine, careful disagreement among faithful scholars for centuries, and expecting yourself to settle every difficulty on a Tuesday evening after work sets an unrealistic bar that Scripture itself never asks you to clear.

I keep a small running list of passages I have not yet worked through to my own satisfaction, revisited every so often as I encounter new teaching, new commentaries, or simply a fresh season of life that sheds unexpected light on an old question. Understanding Scripture, held this way, becomes less an anxious hunt for certainty on every verse and more a patient, lifelong conversation with a book that has more to say to you than any single reading can exhaust.

So, now what?

So, now what? The next time you hit a passage that leaves you baffled, resist both the urge to quit and the urge to fake certainty. Widen the context, compare Scripture with Scripture, ask someone wiser than yourself, and give it time. Understanding Scripture is a gift the Spirit grows in us gradually, not a switch he flips all at once, and every confusing passage you work through patiently makes you a little more equipped for the next one.

For more on how to approach the text well, have a look at what I have written on the dangers of eisegesis versus exegesis, which covers some of the same ground from the angle of avoiding the interpretive traps we all fall into.

And take heart: every generation of the Church has produced believers who once felt exactly as confused as you might feel today, and many of them went on to become the very teachers whose writings now help the rest of us. Confusion faced honestly is very often the beginning of real growth rather than a sign that growth has stalled.

“So Philip ran to him and heard him reading Isaiah the prophet and asked, “Do you understand what you are reading?” And he said, “How can I, unless someone guides me?” And he invited Philip to come up and sit with him.”

Acts 8:30-31 (ESV)