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How can we study the Bible and pray daily to know God more?

October 27, 2013 cm-admin Inspire 0

27 Oct 2013-

HOW TO STUDY THE BIBLE

1. The Commentary Approach

A commentary is a book written by an Old Testament or New Testament scholar explaining a Bible book verse by verse.

A) You can pick a book of the Bible such as Ephesians or a part of a book such as Gen 12-25:11 (the life of Abraham) and find a commentary that talks about that Bible book or Bible passages.

Read through a few verses or a section of the book at a time. Open up the Scriptures to see the verses that are mentioned. Go through as much as is comfortable each day, every other day or the like.

How much you get out of it is more important than how much you actually read at a time.

Quantity is not the goal; quality is.

Examples:

John MacArthur’s commentary on Ephesians
Henry Morris’ commentary
The Genesis Record

B) Pick a topic and find a book about it or just find a book you are interested in reading.

Read through a section or a chapter at a time. Open up the Scriptures to see the verses that are mentioned. Go through as much as is comfortable each day, every other day or the like. How much you get out of it is more important than how much you actually read at a time.

Quantity is not the goal; quality is.

Examples:

Knowing God by J.I. Packer
What’s So Amazing About Grace? Philip Yancey
The Jesus I Never Knew Philip Yancey

2. The Reading Approach

Pick a short book of the Bible or a section of a book of the Bible and read it over and over for a period of time such as two weeks or a month. Each time you read it you will notice something you didn’t notice before. You will become very familiar with it.

Examples:

Matthew 5-7 Sermon on the mount
Matthew 8-10 Jesus’ ministry among the people
Jn.14-17 Jesus’ upper room discourse
Rom.6-8
Eph.1-3 or 4-6

3. The Hearing Approach

Do either 1. or 2. above, but listen to audio tapes of sermons or Christian books.

Listen to the tape, opening up the Bible to the passages that are mentioned.

How to make your Bible study a personal spiritual experience:

1. Ask yourself as you study the following questions:

What is God my father telling me his son/daughter about himself in this passage?
What is God my father telling me about our relationship in this passage?
What is God my father telling me his son/daughter about what he desires for me in this passage?

2. Think about the truths (your answers to the above questions) during the day. We call this meditating on the word.

3. Apply the truths (your answers to the above questions) to your life.