Why is it so tough to read the Bible?

Here are three big reasons:

• The Bible is big. In fact, it’s huge! It’s more like a library than a book. It is a library of books: sixty-six of them. That’s a lot of books! Some of you may not even own sixty-six books. The Bible I was using when I was writing this has some study notes at the bottom of the page, so it’s a bit longer than many Bibles—just over two thousand pages! Even the average pew Bible has more than one thousand pages. The Bible is probably one of the longest books in your house. No wonder it’s hard to read! It’s long.
• The Bible has a lot of parts that are hard to understand. In fact, the apostle Peter admitted that he found some of what Paul wrote difficult to understand. So you’re not the only one who’s often left wondering what something in the Bible means.
• The Bible often seems irrelevant. Have you ever tried to read the first half of Isaiah, only to find pages and pages of curses against people with unpronounceable names who died thousands of years ago? What does that have to do with anything today? If the Bible is the biggest book you own and one of the most difficult books you’ve ever read, you need a good reason to go to all the work of trying to get through the whole book. If it seems irrelevant, you’re unlikely to read it from cover to cover.

Excerpt From
How Should Teens Read the Bible?
Joel R. Beeke