How to Study the Bible
God tells us to STUDY the Bible, not to just READ it.
2 Timothy 2:15 Study to shew thyself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth.
You certainly can understand a lot by just reading the Bible and you should certainly read it but you need to do more. You can set a time to just read the Bible every day. Some people have a plan to read through the entire Bible over a period of time starting at the beginning and going straight through. Some people's plan is to read some in the Old Testament and some in the New Testament everyday and so if they read somewhat equal amounts in both, they will read through the New Testament several times by the time they read through the Old Testament because the New Testament is much shorter. The New Testament is more relevant to us today so that can be a good idea. But you still need a time to STUDY your Bible.
There are many ways to study the Bible. Here are a few:
- Topical Studies: You can do topical studies such as studying just about salvation, or just about the end time prophesies or about the early church, and so on.
- Character Studies: You can study about the life of Paul, or Daniel, or David, or many other characters.
- Word Study: You can study all that the Bible has to say about certain words such as salvation, resurrection, sin, etc.
- Book Study: You can take a book of the Bible, read through it, take notes, lookup words, read commentaries, use maps, a dictionary, and so on.
Memorization: You should also make it a habit to memorize key scriptures that you run across or that are suggested in study material you might be using.
There are a great number of study aids and books to help you understand the Bible. Learning the Bible is a lifetime endeavor.
More to come.