How We Should Read the Bible
INTRODUCTION
When you read your Bible, always have a marking pencil (or pen) in hand, and paper (or notebook) on a table or desk next to your Bible. This is the best setup for a Bible reading experience.
The valuable help of your pencil cannot be overstated. Professor Louis Agassiz of Harvard was once approached by a student concerning the study of a special area of zoology. Agassiz gave him a pickled specimen of a fish, a haemulon, which was to be the sole object of his scrutiny for days to come.
Dr. Agassiz’s advice to the student was very practical and to the point: (1) He was to “look, look, look,” for how else could he master the subject? (2) He was to draw on paper what he saw, for “the pencil is one of the best eyes.” (3) He was to see the parts of the fish in their orderly arrangement and in relation to one another because, in the professor’s blunt words, “facts are stupid things until brought into connection with some general law.”
For three whole days the student kept following the advice of his teacher, and in doing so he learned just about all there was to know about the haemulon. In fact, so absorbed was he in the learning process and so indelible was the impression of the haemulon that years later he testified, “To this day, if I attempt to draw a fish, I can draw nothing but haemulons.”
I am convinced that a pencil in hand is the best mechanical aid that you can use in a reading project.
I. Devotional Reading
Devotional reading is your personal devotional time
Devotional reading is seeking to hear from heaven
Every time I open the Bible to study, it is with the fresh confession that it is ‘God’s Word.’ Therefore, I accept it as inerrant (truthful) and infallible (trustworthy). It thus becomes my teacher and also my absolute authority for both belief and behaviour.
II. Analytical Reading
The Bible is a book to be read that way, in an analysis that is thorough and complete, not limited by time, and not for mere information or for entertainment.
Analytical reading is the range of study that covers the whole unit (a segment or paragraph) to the individual words that make up that unit
Spurgeon quotes from a writer of his day: ‘Most read their Bibles like cows that stand in thick grass, and trample under their feet the finest flowers and herbs.’ Observe with the idea of discovering the detailed beauty that God has put into His Word. Take your time and concentrate.
Analytical reading uses questions such as: who, what, when, where, and why
Martin Luther studied the Bible as one who gathered apples. ‘First I shake the whole tree, that the ripest may fall. Then I climb the tree and shake each limb, and then each branch and then each twig, and then I look under each leaf.’
Look at it with the realization you are reading a message from the heavenly Father to you His spiritual child. It’s like a letter from home while you are far away.