It's Okay That Leviticus Is Boring

At some point — usually somewhere in the middle of Leviticus, sometimes earlier, occasionally in the genealogies of Chronicles or the census records of Numbers — something happens that nobody warned you about.

You get bored.

And then, almost immediately, you feel guilty about it. Because shouldn’t you love this? Isn’t the Bible supposed to be life-giving? What does it say about you that you’re reading God’s word and fighting the urge to check your phone?

Here’s what it says: you’re a human being reading ancient legal code written for a specific priestly class in a specific historical moment, and you don’t have the context you need to find it meaningful yet. That’s all. That’s the whole story.

The boredom isn’t a spiritual verdict. It’s information.

The guilt spiral is worth naming.

Because it does real damage. It goes something like this: I’m bored, which means I don’t love God’s word, which means I don’t love God, which means something is wrong with my faith, which means I should probably just quit.

I've been there. Most serious Bible readers have been there more than once.

But the logic doesn’t hold. Being bored by Leviticus doesn’t say anything about your love for God. It says you picked up a document written three thousand years ago for a priestly audience in ancient Israel, without the context that would make it come alive, and found it difficult to connect with. That’s a navigation problem, not a faith problem. And navigation problems have solutions.

You don’t have to read it in order.

Here’s something nobody says out loud often enough: you don’t have to read the Bible cover to cover, front to back.

The Bible isn’t a novel. Nobody finishes a novel by skipping chapters — the plot requires you to go in sequence. But nobody reads an encyclopedia from front to back either. The Bible is a library, and libraries are navigated, not plowed through. You go to the section you need. You follow what draws you. You come back to other sections when you have more context and more reason to be there.

Reading through the entire Bible from Genesis to Revelation is a worthwhile goal — eventually, for some readers. But it is not the only legitimate way to engage Scripture, and for many people it actively gets in the way of the goal it’s meant to serve. You can love the Bible deeply and spend years reading it well without having made it through every chapter of Leviticus.

So what do you actually do?

Skip ahead. If you’ve stalled out in the middle of the Old Testament, move to the Psalms — some of the most honest, human writing in the entire Bible — and then to the Gospels. Come back to the legal and priestly sections later, when you have more foundation and more reason to care about them.

Get context before you read. A book like Leviticus is almost incomprehensible without knowing what it’s for, who it was written to, and what function it served in ancient Israelite life. A five-minute introduction from a study Bible or a short Bible Project video changes the experience significantly. You’re not cheating by getting oriented before you read. That’s what context is for.

Use a reading plan. There are hundreds of them, many free, through apps like YouVersion. A good plan curates the content — pairing Old Testament passages with New Testament ones, moving through narrative and poetry in a sequence that builds rather than grinds.

Distinguish between reading the Bible and reading through the Bible. One is a practice of formation — showing up, engaging, being changed over time. The other is a completionist goal. The first is what matters. The second is a strategy, not a requirement.

The parts that feel boring right now are waiting for you.

Not to make you feel guilty. Not to test whether you love God enough. They’re waiting for the version of you who has more context, more history, more reason to find them alive. That version of you is being built by everything you’re reading now.

You don’t have to earn access to that version of yourself by grinding through what doesn’t yet make sense. You just have to keep showing up.

The Bible has been opening for thousands of years. It will still be there when you’re ready for the next section.

If you want help finding your footing, the Wannabe Disciples blog and video library are good places to start — including resources on where to begin, how to study a passage, and what the different kinds of biblical writing are actually doing.

And if you’re ready for something more structured — a real foundation for reading Scripture well, from how the Bible came to us through what it means for the Gospel — Built on the Word is a 10-course program opening this fall. It’s designed for exactly the person who wants to stop guessing and start understanding. You don’t have to navigate this alone.

You don’t have to know everything. You just have to begin.