themselves. Jesus Himself often went off by Himself to pray and commune with God (Mark 1:35, Luke 5:16, 6:12).

When we read the Bible we need to remember that the goal is not to “get through” a certain number of pages, but to understand more about God and how to serve Him. So it’s important to read carefully and not be absent-minded.

Studying

Acts 17:11 says, “Now the Bereans were of more noble character than the Thessalonians, for they received the message with great eagerness and examined the Scriptures every day to see if what Paul said was true.” Studying goes deeper than simply reading. It is examining the Scriptures with a purpose. It could be studying a specific topic like prayer. Or it could be trying to find an answer to a specific question like “what is God’s will for me in marriage?”

The goal is not rote recitation of facts and figures like we may prepare for exams in school. But one day we will face a heavenly “exam” to see how well we understand the Scripture and most importantly how well we followed it (2 Corinthians 5:10). The benefit is not only in the end result of learning about God or God would have just given us a list of what He wants us to know. But there is great benefit in the process of studying God’s Word (Proverbs 25:2).

Memorizing

Psalms 119:9,11 says, “How can a young man keep his way pure? By living according to Your word. I have hidden Your word in my heart, that I may not sin against You.” Memorizing God’s Word is a very important way to overcome temptation. Even Jesus Himself dealt with temptation by reciting God’s Word (Matthew 4:4-10).

There will be many times when we will face temptations or need to make quick decisions, but won’t have a Bible nearby. And even if we have a Bible it is sometimes hard to know where to look for an answer. It is really helpful to memorize verses on a wide variety of topics so that we can have them in our mind and know what God wants us to do in whatever situation we face.

Meditating

Psalms 1:1-3 says, “Blessed is the man who does not walk in the counsel of the wicked or stand in the path of sinners or sit in the seat of mockers. But his delight is in the law of the Lord, and on his law he meditates day and night. He is like a tree planted by streams of water, which yields its fruit in season and whose leaf does not whither. Whatever he does prospers.” (Joshua 1:8).  Meditation is the key to all of the other methods. It is similar to an artist admiring a painting or even a guy thinking about how wonderful his girl-friend is. It is when we think over God’s Word to try

to find out what it really means and how we can apply it in our lives. We should make it a habit to meditate on the Scriptures we have learned not only while reading or hearing, but even throughout the day as we go about our daily business.

Interpreting the Bible

2 Timothy 2:15 says, “Be diligent to present yourself approved to God as a workman who does not need to be ashamed, accurately handling the word of truth.” The Bible is a very precious gift to us and we need to handle it as a treasure. God didn’t inspire the Bible to mean whatever we want it to. Every passage in the Bible has one and only one meaning. We should strive our very best to find out the meaning that God intended and not put our own idea onto the text. He is the final authority, not us. There are several helpful things to remember as we do that.

We must always interpret our own experience in light of the Bible and not to interpret the Bible in light of our own experience.

Normally the obvious meaning is the correct one. The Bible is generally written in plain, literal language. It is said, “When the common sense makes sense, seek no other sense. To do so is nonsense.”

All Scripture has context, both a historical context and the natural flow of the author’s thoughts. For example, in John 2:4 Jesus uses the title “woman” to address his mother. This sounds impolite to us, but at that time it was a respectful form of address. Also, we have to be careful not to simply pick verses out at random. To understand a verse completely you need to read the verses right before and right after the verse you are studying and understand them in the context of the individual book and the whole Bible.

The Bible also has many different genre/styles. The New Testament contains parables (Luke 15), historical narrative (Acts), teaching (most of the epistles, Romans-Jude), and prophecy (Matthew 24, Revelation). It is very important to take note of the style you are reading. For example, in John 18:25-27 John records Peter’s denial of Christ. John is simply narrating what happened and doesn’t draw any conclusions as to whether this was right or wrong. The principle is to interpret the narrative passages in light of the teaching passages. The Old Testament has the same styles as the New Testament in addition to the wisdom literature (Job, Psalms, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, Song of Solomon), which includes songs, poems, and personal prayers.

Application

The goal of studying God’s word is not personal knowledge, but life change. James 1:22 says, “Do not merely listen to the word and so deceive yourselves. Do what it says.” (James 1:22-25) Although there is only one meaning to the text there are countless applications. God wants us to take to heart what we learn in the Bible and change our lives based on what we learn.

If we become anexpert on the Bible, but live without God’s principles in our life we have wastedour time. It’s important to make specific applications so that we can track theprogress we are making. Be a doer! (Matthew 7:24-27)

Just Do it:

1.    How to Have a QuietTime. See pages 20-23 of MyDiscipleship Notebook.

2.    Determine a minimumamount of time to spend in quiet time each day.

3.    Determine a specific timeto begin you quiet time each day.

4.    Choose a suitable placewith few distractions to have your quiet time.

5.    Decide which book of theNew Testament to begin reading first.

Bible Study Lesson 3:  HAND of THE WORD

1.   In what way do many church-goers listen to a sermon? (Ezekiel 33:31,32)

2.   How should we hear God’s Word? (Ezekiel 3:10)

3.   What is the real test of responding correctly to a sermon? (James 1:22)

4.   Should we read the Bible as rapidly as possible?  How then should we read the Word? (Nehemiah 8:8)

5.   Do you have a plan for regular Bible reading?  If so what?

6.   Match the Scriptures on the left to the genre/style on the right.

John 19:1-22                                   Prophecy

1 Thessalonians 4:13-18                  Teaching

Ephesians 6:10-17                           Parable

Luke 6:46-49                                   Historical Narrative

7.   What attitude should we have towards God’s words? (Deuteronomy 6:6-7)

8.   What does it mean that God’s word is a “lamp” and a “light”? (Psalms 119:105)

9.   Write down an application to do this week from what you have learned in this lesson.