How to Study the Bible

         Above and beyond all else, this website exists to inspire people to study the Bible. The primary duty of a Christian is to be obedient to Christ, and the only way this can be done is by knowing His Word to us, the Bible. Therefore, it can be said that a Christian’s ability to obey Christ is predicated on his or her knowledge of and obedience to the Scriptures.

            But how can I study the Bible?

            There are probably as many answers to this as there are Christians, hence the reason why innumerable books have been written and oceans of ink spilled on the topic! Many find themselves frustrated by their inability to study the Bible in any meaningful way, despite their best efforts. Resolutions to read through the Bible, memorize Scripture, or study and understand the Bible, even when kept, often still lead to frustration as it seems whatever is read or studied is quickly forgotten, and resolutions to read through the Bible founder sometime around Leviticus or Numbers!

            I’ve been through it too. I have tried just about everything to study the Bible effectively. I tried reading through the Bible, starting in Genesis. I tried reading in the morning, but usually by lunchtime was doing well to remember what passage I had read, let alone what it said. I tried reading in the evening, which worked better for me since I am a night owl, but usually ended up with the same problem: I couldn’t remember anything I had read.

            I heard from one well-known preacher that I could select a book or small set of chapters to read, and simply read it for thirty days before moving onto the next one. That didn’t seem to help either.

Then I tried taking notes in church during the sermons. This led to the idea: why not take notes as I study the Bible for myself? This was the breakthrough that would not only open up the Bible to me and help me remember it but would also lead to the accumulation of material that I am now sharing through this website.

Studying the Bible in this manner forces a person to think about the text and relate it to other texts with which he or she is familiar, making the Bible “fit” together in a way that is simply impossible by simply reading or memorizing texts of Scripture. It may seem at first that one has nothing worthwhile to write down about the Scripture he or she is examining, but don’t worry about that. Some of my notes from 15 years ago (and even 15 minutes ago) aren’t worth much either, as you will certainly see in some of my blog posts. But the Author of the Book will bless your efforts to know Him and His Book. After all, the Bible is the only Book that one can ask the Author what He meant when He wrote something.

One quick caveat about this: everyone is different, and everyone learns differently. While this has worked for me, it may or may not work in exactly the same way for you. Some may learn the Bible best by reading plans, or by memorization, or reading the same passage over many days, or many other variations or combinations of these, including Bible studies and curriculum, of which many high-quality ones exist. However, I believe that it is universally true that any method that forces you to engage with the text rather than simply read over it provides the best way to gain insight into God’s Word, the foundation of our faith.