2 Ways to Make Bible Study Better
There are a few things that I think Christians need to be reminded of. Firstly, the Gospel. It doesn’t matter if you’ve been saved for one hour or three years or half a lifetime, we need to be reminded of the Gospel and the truth it holds. The second thing and the thing we’ll be talking about today is personal study. Daily reading (or as close to daily as you can get) is important for the Christian walk. How else are you going to know what God says unless you’re reading his word?
It isn’t easy to build the habit though. I set a goal in 2020 to read the Bible every day and even now, five years later, I still have days where I don’t read my Bible. Now, those days are few and far between than when I first started. Five years into this discipline and I rarely skip a day, but it does happen. I’ll probably never hit all three hundred and sixty-five days in a year but the purpose of the goal was to build the discipline, not to get it perfect. I’ve talked more about personal study and its importance here.
Today, I’m sharing the two things that really changed how I approached my Bible study and helped me get into making this a discipline and a habit instead of something that I put on my to-do list and then ignore it or forget about it.
#1 Get on a plan
The biggest hurdle that comes when you’re trying to read your Bible more consistently is figuring out where to start. I know there are people who say they just pray and then open their Bible up randomly. I tried that method and it never worked for me. I always felt like I was missing something, missing context, when I tried that method. It wasn’t until I started a yearly chronological plan that I was really able to focus on my Bible reading.
You don’t have to do a yearly plan or a chronological plan. For me, I wanted to see the Bible as a story. I like beginnings, middles, and ends. Things make sense to me when told in order. There are so many plans that you can find online, monthly reading plans, individual book reading plans. Most Bibles even come with a reading plan in the back somewhere that has you going through the Old Testament and New Testament side by side. Hit the search in Pinterest, use Google, or check out Blue Letter Bible and find a reading plan.
After you have a plan picked out, all you have to do is start. When one plan is done, you start another one, and then another one.
#2 Understand Genre
I still don’t know if someone ever really explained to me that each book of the Bible has a different genre. In case you’re in the same boat as I was, let me be the first to tell you. The Bible is made up of sixty-six books. Each book has an author, a time period, a genre, and an audience that the book was intended for.
This might be because I’m a huge literary nerd and I love analyzing words but learning about genres in the Bible completely changed the way I understood what I was reading. It made me wish it was something I learned earlier, that’s for sure. I spent years in High School doing debates and analyzing literature to then go on and do it in college, not realizing I had the tools and ability to understand my own Bible better.
Seriously, I thought understanding Shakespeare was easier than the Bible before.
Why does knowing genre matter? For the same reason why it matters in books. We know what to expect from historical fiction books. There are industry standards for rom-com books and even YA books. There is a status quo for dystopians, as in, there is always a rebellion or a fight against the status quo of the world. Understanding the genre of each book is the first step in better understanding the Bible and how it all connects with each other.
I made a handy dandy genre sheet that I glued in my Bible and I’m sharing it with you today!
Bonus Tip—#3 Pray!
While my tips are helpful and important, the most important thing to do when you’re reading your Bible is to pray first. Pray for understanding, pray for guidance and wisdom, pray to know God better.
Start your Bible reading with prayer, it’s the bonus tip, but it’s really the most important tip.
There you have it, three ways to improve your Bible reading and Bible study right now.