How to Study the Bible

How to Study the Bible

When it comes to studying the Bible, there is no one way to do it. But you would feel you are not smashing this ‘Bible study thing’ if your Bible study standard is that of someone else.

Okay, let me explain.

You hear this minister you admire a lot talk about how he/she studies the bible and you are like “Wow! I will study the Bible like that.”

You do that for a while and it doesn’t work for you. You feel bad and you are back to the starting point.

Or maybe you are challenged when you hear someone say, “I finished the Bible in a week.” Then you proceed to do the same but that doesn’t work either.

You begin to feel you are the problem.
No, you are not.

You need to understand you are different from someone else. Someone might be a fast reader and you might be a slow reader. Someone deciding to start from the book of Matthew doesn’t mean you should either.

You both have different personalities, and schedules and are coming from different standpoints, and backgrounds.

You have to constantly remind yourself that studying the Bible isn’t a competition. Finishing it isn’t meant to massage your ego either.

How far or fast you have gone in studying the Bible doesn’t matter. Your heart posture while studying determines how much you gain.

I am not here to give you a step-by-step detailed outline of you should study your Bible but here are three things you should consider while drafting your Bible study plan:

•Your daily schedule
This determines the feasible number of chapters you can read or study in a day. Knowing this will help you not to compare yourself with someone finishing the Bible in a week. Be honest with yourself and know the number of chapters you can be consistent with every day.

•Timing
One of the best pieces of advice you would ever get while in school is, “Know the time you assimilate the most and study during that period.” This can also be applied to studying the Bible.

While some people love reading the Bible in the morning, some love studying during the day and others prefer the night.

A married woman, a student, or a person staying with a couple of friends all have different time zones suitable to have their quiet times. Discern your current season, and location, and map out the best time to study God’s Word.

•Creating systems
Do you just want to read through the entire Bible first before studying? You would love to do in-depth studying instead? Either way, you have to create a system that would fit in the time you had allocated to studying the Bible each day. Also, create a chart of how you want to finish the Bible.

Your plan might be to read one chapter in the morning before starting your day but because verse 3 stuck out to you, you kept drawing out so many lessons from it till you ran out of time and this would make you not eventually finish that chapter that day. This is why creating systems is necessary.

In situations like this, I recommend you highlight the parts that stuck out to you as you read and continue reading till the end. When you are done, you can go back to the highlighted parts and digest every bit like you would love to.

If you are doing an in-depth study, you can check out the several methods online you can apply and modify them as you please to suit you.

I hope this helps.

I would love to know the current book you are reading in the Bible and one lesson that stuck out to you from it. Waiting for your response in the comment section.