We live surrounded by entertainments that are designed to use up our time. At first, they appear harmless. Watching a few short videos may feel like only a few minutes of leisure, but before long, hours disappear without notice. Television had already created this pattern in earlier generations, when families could sit through shows without realizing the evening was gone. Today the cycle has multiplied, and our attention is constantly pulled from one distraction to the next.
It is not only video or television. Junk magazines, online games, endless chatting on social platforms, and even scrolling through news feeds can consume whole days. There is something strangely human about this. We seem to be very creative in inventing ways to waste our time. Instead of being short of diversions, we are drowning in them. The more services appear, the more quickly our hours seem to vanish.
Work also plays a part in this cycle. Many of us spend long hours at work, driven by the pressure to earn and produce. Yet we do not always know why we must work in such ways beyond the obvious need for money. And when money is earned, we often use it to fuel the very entertainments that drain our energy. Work and play, in their distorted forms, can both serve the same purpose: to keep us busy without giving us peace. A cynical voice might say that life is nothing more than the act of wasting time between birth and death.
Slaves to Entertainment and Busyness
There is a deeper irony in this situation. We often feel bored and restless, yet also too busy to find real rest. We sense that our time is being wasted, but we also cling to the very things that waste it. This is the strange slavery of modern life. We serve distractions, and in a curious way, we even love them.
Because these distractions are everywhere, we hardly notice how much control they exert over us. They feel like the natural air of our age. Platforms are designed to catch our attention and keep it, not to release us into freedom. The result is that we often live in a haze of activity without depth, surrounded by noise but rarely touched by silence.
It is easy to blame technology alone, but the truth is that human beings have always had this weakness. The difference now is the scale and sophistication. Our devices have amplified the tendency, turning our restless hearts into steady customers. The tragedy is not simply the loss of hours but the quiet erosion of meaning in the way we spend time.
A Different Way of Spending Time
Against this backdrop, reading the Bible stands out as something entirely different. Unlike scrolling through videos or channels, opening Scripture never leaves you with the same emptiness. Even when it is difficult or puzzling, the time feels full rather than wasted.
The Bible is not a light or short book. For Protestants it contains sixty-six books, and with the Apocrypha or other traditions, there are even more. Reading the entire Bible aloud takes around seventy to eighty hours. No one does this in a single stretch. Even when approached several hours a day, it requires commitment. Yet the challenge is part of the meaning. Time given to Scripture becomes time that changes the reader.
Another paradox of Bible reading is that it can never be finished in the same way one finishes a magazine or novel. Even those raised in Christian families, who grow up memorizing verses and hearing stories, never come to the end of understanding. Every return to the text brings new insight, as if the well only grows deeper the more it is drawn. What looks like repetition from the outside becomes renewal on the inside.
Reading as Being, Not Having
The German thinker Erich Fromm once made a distinction between living in the mode of having and living in the mode of being. Much of our modern consumption fits into the first category. We want to own, collect, and store experiences. We treat even knowledge as a possession, something to gather and display.
Bible reading belongs to another world. Its aim is not to own information but to shape life. Reading Scripture is reading for being, not for having. The words do not serve us as trophies or badges of knowledge, they become food for the spirit. The more we return to them, the more they return us to ourselves.
This quality is not unique to Christianity. Other religious traditions also understand sacred reading as a form of being. Muslims recite the Quran not only to know its content but to let it become part of their breath and memory. Buddhists chant sutras, not to accumulate points of knowledge but to align the heart with truth. Hindus repeat mantras for the shaping of consciousness, and Jews study Torah as a living conversation across generations. In all these practices, the goal is transformation rather than possession.
Technology and the Word Today
Modern technology, for all its dangers, has also opened doors to Scripture in new ways. Digital Bibles are available at any moment, and in English alone there are countless translations. Readers can choose between the majesty of the King James Version, the clarity of the New International Version, the precision of the English Standard Version, or others according to their need.
Audio Bibles add another dimension. Listening is one of the oldest ways of receiving the Word. Romans 10:17 says, “So then faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of God.” When read with voice and rhythm, the text becomes more than information, it becomes sound that carries presence. Many have discovered that listening to dramatized versions of Scripture, even in the older language of the King James, can bring a joy that silent reading does not.
One of the best practices is to listen while walking outside. To move through woods, fields, or along a seashore while the words of Scripture accompany you is to reclaim time in a new way. Technology can serve this rhythm instead of enslaving it. Rather than being mastered by devices, we can let them deliver us back into the ancient pattern of hearing and remembering.
The Measure of a Life in Reading
There is a personal question that arises from all this. In the years I have left, how many more times will I be able to read through the Bible? The number is limited, and that awareness gives each return to the text a sense of value. It becomes not only a practice for today but a measure of life itself.
It is not hard to imagine the peace of a person who reaches their deathbed with Scripture as a lifelong companion. The distractions of entertainment will mean little at that moment, but the words that shaped the soul will remain as a steady light. To live with the Bible is to prepare for such a moment, when wasted hours no longer matter but lived hours still speak.
Compared to the endless diversions of modern services, the Bible feels like a deep well and an infinite library. It never exhausts, never leaves you empty, and always gives more than you expected. It is not a denial of enjoyment in life but a reordering of it. Time with the Word reminds us what time is for.
A Universal Invitation
Bible reading is a Christian discipline, but the wisdom it represents is universal. Every faith has recognized the need to anchor life in sacred words. Whether it is prayer, recitation, chanting, or study, the human heart finds freedom when it is lifted beyond distraction into meaning.
This is why the value of Bible reading should not be taken for granted. It is not only about gaining knowledge or fulfilling duty. It is about finding a way to spend time that is not wasted but transformed. It is about entering into being rather than drifting in having.
So when boredom tempts you, or when the cycle of distractions pulls you into restless busyness, remember that there is another way. Open the Scriptures. Listen to them while walking. Read them in silence. Let them shape your being. The same can be said of sacred words in other traditions, but for those who know the Bible, its call is always present. The choice is simple. We can waste time in endless diversions, or we can live time with words that endure.
Image: A photo captured by the author
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