How to study the Bible

Hey everyone! Its Elisha again. I hope you all had a wonderful summer. You are probably thinking about starting school or you might have already started school.

Today, I want to talk to you about how to study this book. How do you study the Bible? At first glance, the Bible is really big! If you do not know where to start, it can seem a little bit overwhelming. So that is what I want to talk to you about: how do you study the Bible. I encourage you, before you even start reading the Bible, ask the Lord to help you, through His Holy Spirit, to understand His truth.

In Psalm 119:18, the psalmist prayed. He said, to God, “Open my eyes that I may behold wonderful things from your Law.”

Ask God to open your eyes and your understanding so that you can behold the wonderful things in this Book.

Another verse, Jeremiah 19:13 God says to His people, “You will seek me and you will find me when you search for me with all your heart.”

He wants you to find Him. He wants you to search for Him with all your heart.

So where do you start? Like we already said, it is a big book! Every book in the Bible is a good book, so I do not think there is a wrong place to start. One good book is the book of John . It is one of the shorter gospels and it records Jesus’s life while He was here on earth. It records His words, His sermons and some of His miracles. It is a great place to read about your Savior- what He did while He was here and about what He has done for you.

Another good book is the book of Ephesians. It is a shorter letter that the apostle Paul wrote to one of the early churches. It reminds us of who we are in Christ and, as children of God, how we should live our life.

As God speaks to you and shows you things from His Word, I encourage you to write them down and put them on your mirror or maybe on your notebook and meditate on them day and night. Memorize those truths. Hide them in your heart. They are God’s little love letters to you. In fact the whole Bible is God’s love letter to you.

So now I have a question for you. Why do you think we should study the Bible? Why should we bother?

Jesus said while He was here on earth, in John 17:3, “This is eternal life, that they may know you, the only true God and Jesus Christ whom you have sent.

Eternal life? Yes, it means going to heaven when you die, but even more than that, it is getting to know the Lord every single day. That is eternal life, and it is an awesome journey. How do we know God? How do we get to know Him? We get to know Him through His Word.

Imagine that there was a man who was in love with a woman. One day he asked her to marry him. The whole time they were engaged, that girl went to the library and got books on how to cook, how to be a good wife, and how to raise godly children. She was always reading! Every time that man asked to spend time with her, she would say that she was too busy.
Then the wedding day came and they got married. All of a sudden that girl realized that she did not even know the man she was marrying!

It is a silly example, but often we do that with God. We read good books about God, we go to church and sing songs, but we never actually get to know the King of kings and Lord of lords. We can do that by being still and letting Him speak to us through His Word.

Pick a book. Read a chapter a day, or as much time as you can, and get into His Word. Ask God to show you His truth. He wants to spend time with you. Get to know your Savior by reading His words to you. He loves you so much and He wants to spend time with you. So I pray that you will spend time with Him.

Do I have to read the bible?

Hi Everyone!!
I’m Ruthann and we want you to know that we really miss all of you at the International School of Tomorrow! We are excited about these daily videos and we hope that you will watch them and leave us comments if you have any questions!

My topic for today is DO I HAVE TO READ THE BIBLE??

If the question is do I HAVE to read the Bible to be a Christian, then the answer is NO. We don’t HAVE to read the Bible in order to BE a Christian.
BUT if the question is SHOULD I read the Bible, then the answer is YES!
But why?
Why should we read the Bible? Let’s explore this question together:

The Bible is the WORD OF GOD. Let’s stop and think about that for a minute:
We often think of reading the Bible as something difficult or boring. Sometimes we also think “I just wish God would speak to me!” But what if we realized that God HAS spoken and DOES speak to us through His Word, the Bible.

Does that make reading it sound more interesting?

The Word of God will light your way,
It will help you make right choices,
It will heal your wounds and hurts,
It will strengthen you, protect you, and lead you.
It will make you wise.
It is the standard by which we determine right and wrong
It will show you what God is like and tell you about His promises, His commands, His love and His mercy.

The Bible also tells us the story of how from before time even began, God had a plan to rescue and save a broken world. ALL the stories in the Bible are pointing to Jesus and how HE is the answer to our brokenness and sin.

It tells the story of how Jesus came into this world, the perfect, SINLESS, Son of God and died to take the punishment you and I deserve as sinners.

It tells the story of how Jesus proved His victory over sin and death by His resurrection from the dead.

And it tells the story of how God invites you and I to be a part of His family.

Jesus said that He came to give life. He said “I am the way, the truth, and the life; no man comes to the Father EXCEPT THROUGH ME” (John 14:6)

Jesus also said “THE WORDS THAT I HAVE SPOKEN TO YOU ARE SPIRIT AND LIFE.” (John 6:63)

So we read the Bible because its words are more than just words on a page…It says in Hebrews that “the word of God is living and active”. (Hebrews 4:12)

Even as a Christian, I personally have struggled to read the Bible regularly. I’m busy, it’s hard to find the time to set aside just to pray and read my Bible, and if I’m honest, sometimes I just don’t even want to. I’m still learning and growing in this, but as I’ve been dealing with other things in my life, I have realized that what Jesus says in John 8:31-32 is true:

“If you abide in my word, you are truly my disciples,
and you will know the truth and the truth will set you free.”

I’ve realized that I can’t know what the truth is UNLESS I open up the Bible and read it. I can’t get to know the God who wrote this book and revealed Himself to us through it, unless I open up the Bible and read it.

Which leads me to the next question…

How often should I read the Bible?
I think actually a better question is “How much do you want to KNOW GOD?”
One of the amazing things about being a Christian is that our RELATIONSHIP with God
can grow and deepen as we know Him more.

He already knows us. But we get to know Him as we spend time with Him, and especially as we make it a priority to read His Word and listen to Him speak through it.
Setting aside time to read and spend time with Jesus doesn’t just happen. It takes making it a priority, deciding that it’s important, and then doing it!
You can be creative with this! Some people make a set time in the morning, some people make it at night. Maybe riding the metro or over your lunch break is the best time for you.
The important point is that you DO make an effort and begin to include it as a habit in your life. Like I said before, there is no way to KNOW this God and what He has said unless we open up the book for ourselves and read it!

How do I START reading the Bible?

This is a great question! The Bible is obviously a big book, and sometimes it can seem overwhelming.
First, pray. Ask God to open your eyes and give you understanding to what you read. In the Psalms, King David prays and says “Open my eyes to see the wonderful truths in your instructions.” (Psalm 119:18)
Then, here are a couple of ideas for how to start reading:
Proverbs is a great place to start. There are 31 chapters in the book of Proverbs. You can read one chapter a day.
The Psalms are also a good place to start. Many people find strength and comfort in the Psalms.
Also, I would highly recommend that you start with the first four books in the New Testament: Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. These books tell us the accounts of Jesus’ life here on earth, his teachings, and his death, burial and resurrection.

Don’t be intimidated by not knowing where to start. Feel free to ask any of us for more ideas!

Finally, if you have or can get a Bible of your own, WONDERFUL! But, if that is not possible, I wanted to tell you about a fabulous app that you can download to your smart phone:
It’s called YouVersion and I’m including a photo of what the app looks like in the blog post. This is my favorite Bible app and the cool thing is that it not only has the entire Bible in various English versions, it also has the Bible in hundreds of different languages. So if you feel more comfortable reading the Bible in your own language, this app probably has it available!

So, that’s all for now, but if any of you have questions or comments, please do leave them in the comment section below.