A Beginner’s Guide to Studying the Bible

Intro

One of the most meaningful possessions I own is not a car, house, or motorcycle. It’s something that was given to me in 1977 as a three-year-old little boy by my grandma and grandpa.

They gave me this small New Testament with Psalms and Proverbs and in the front cover is written this message. (Show Picture)

You see, my grandparents knew that the most important thing they could ever do for me was to help instill a love for the Word of God. in me. My parents had that desire, and now Jennifer and I have that same desire to get our kids into the Bible!

As your pastor, I can honestly say that my greatest desire for your life is that you come to have a love for the Word of God. That you spend time in the Word, and that you would apply and be completely obedient to the Word of God! Why? Because

There is no greater way to get to know God, His character, His nature, His goodness, and the life that He has for you than reading his living word.

Yet many people don't do it, right? People everywhere say "Well, I don't really believe it," And so because they don't believe it, they don't do it.

Christians might say, "Well, I tried to read the Bible and it was boring to me," or, "it didn't apply to my life."

How many of us are guilty of excuses?

The crazy thing is that people have access to God's Word like no other time in history yet either they don't take time to do it or when they try, they don't really understand it.

Listen, If you want to know the living Word (Jesus) you have to be in the written Word. (The Bible) You cannot know Jesus Christ apart from the Bible.

If you want a realistic picture of what your relationship with Jesus looks like…then take a look at what your relationship is with the Word of God.

I would argue that especially for Christians, that the biggest reason that so many Christians don't faithfully study the Bible besides the devil trying to talk them out of it, is that they don't know how to to do it and they are unaware of the heart, mind, and life transformation that will occur in their life if they actually get into the Word of God.

While studying for this series I began to see an incredible correlation between reading the Bible and having a sound mind. I came across incredible stats about what regularly reading the Bible can do not just spiritually, but physically, mentally, and emotionally. Check this short video and see how the Bible literally changes the chemistry of the brain.

PLAY VIDEO

Isn’t that incredible! There is no other book that does what the Bible does. This week I had met with another friend of mine who is a Gideon and he showed me testimony stories of individuals how found a copy of the Bible, read, submitted to it, and then were completely changed from the inside out. Only the Word of God can do that. But why? How? What sets it apart from the every other religion’s so called Holy Books? The answer is found in 2 Timothy 3 and looked briefly at this passage as we walked through our last series on Biblical Change, but I want us to show honor to the reading of God’s Word so I want to invite you to stand to your feet if you’re able and let’s read together out loud.

2 Timothy 3:16–17 (CSB)

16 All Scripture is inspired by God and is profitable for teaching, for rebuking, for correcting, for training in righteousness, 17 so that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work.

Great job, you can be seated.

We have just read and seen that we need to be daily in the Bible. Most of us would agree that we need to be in the Bible, but I believe there are two main things that keep us from getting into scripture.

I would argue that the biggest reason that so many Christians don't faithfully study the Bible (besides the devil trying to talk them out of it), is that

They don't know how to do it.

Because where do you start if you want to study the Bible and how do you study the Bible?

So what a lot of people do is they typically do one of two different things. They'll say "Okay, I need to read the Bible." And so they start at the very beginning. They start in Genesis and it's relatively interesting and exciting, and they read Exodus and it's pretty interesting and kind of exciting. Then they get to the book of Leviticus and they die Leviticus.

And, hey I totally get it! Jennifer and I are reading the Bible through together and all of last week we reading through Leviticus. And guys, there’s a lot of stuff its easy to get lost in, there are lot of weird things about laws of being clean and unclean and bodily functions and Levitical laws and its easy to want to stop. And if you’re laughing you’ve read Leviticus. But some people just try to read it front to back and give then give up.

PICK A VERSE ILLUSTRATION

Then second way that people try to read the Bible, and don’t tell me you’ve never done this but you’ll open up your Bible and point just randomly point to a verse… “And Judas went out and hung himself” …Oh I don’t like that one…let me pick another one… “And Jesus said Go and you doest likewise”

Alright …third times a charm.

Ezekiel 4:12 (ESV)

12 And you shall eat it as a barley cake, baking it in their sight on human dung.”

What!! Ok that’s enough Bible reading for me today!!

And so we think that it’s too hard, it’s not for me, it’s not applicable to my life. And so what we are going to do over the next couple weeks is take a very practical look at how you study the Bible.

And here’s what I’m going to ask you to do. I want you to make a commitment to be here next week as well. I know…asking for two weeks in a row is a stretch for some of you, but I believe that if you learn to study the word of God, it can be one of the most important things you ever do in your journey with God. Here's what we're gonna do.

We're gonna talk about How to study the Bible…how to do it, and then we're going to apply it by studying a short book in the New Testament. And We're going to study the book of Philemon.

This morning we are getting super practical. And as we dive in we are going to look at five thoughts ove the next two weeks, and we are just going to hit the surface today and then we're actually going to apply it next week by teaching you how to study a passage. So next week we will walk through what studying the Bible looks like and we are going to do it with the Book of Philemon.

The first thing you want to do when committing to be in your Bible is , number one, Choose a translation that you understand. The second thing you're gonna want to do is you're gonna want to choose a time, a place, and a plan to study the Bible.

The third thing that we're gonna talk about is that we're going to seek to understand the context. We don’t just want to read a verse out of context, but we want to understand the context.

The fourth thing we want to do when reading the Bible is to read slowly and ask questions of the text and to God as we read. Then number five, we're we want to pray for God to speak to you and we're gonna apply what he shows you. We're gonna do these five things.

Choose a translation, a time, a place, understand the context, read slowly and ask questions, and then ask God to speak to us and apply what he shows us.

So we're gonna do that right now in the book of Philemon and we're going to start in verses seven and eight and I want to illustrate the importance of translations. What I'd love for you to do is read these two verses aloud together, are you ready? If you're ready, say, I'm ready

Philemon 7–8 (KJV 1900)

7 For we have great joy and consolation in thy love, because the bowels of the saints are refreshed by thee, brother. 8 Wherefore, though I might be much bold in Christ to enjoin thee that which is convenient,

Wow, that was meaningful wasn’t it. For most of us that didn't make much sense at all. Why did that not make any sense? Well that was the King James translation.

And before you get in a tissy I am not saying don’t read the KJV. It’s what I grew up on and older generations grew up on and it’s beautiful and poetic.

The point is that you need to

Choose a translation you understand.

Some of you might even ask “why in the world are there different translations and or what is a translation?"

Let's try to understand this.

The Bible is actually a book written in three original languages.

It's written in Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek.

And so there are Bible scholars who translate a word in Hebrew and the word could mean this or it kind of means this. And so they'll choose the best and most accurate words.

How many of you noticed that language changes over time? When do you think the King James translation was translated? Anybody know the answer? The year is 1611. Do you think the English language has changed any since the year 1611? Absolutely. I haven’t heard any of you walking around speaking the Kings English.

Language changes over time. If you go back to 1611, and you look at this text, it says, "Because the bowels of the saints are refreshed by thee."

What in the world does that mean? Well back at that time, people thought that humans felt emotions in their bowels. Can you imagine giving a valentine back then? Baby, I love you with all my bowels. Or “honey, you have my bowels” Don’t go breaking my bowels…” Today, people would say, the heart is the seat of the emotions

So a modern translation would take the original word and would translate it into a language today based on the original intent.

On the youversion App alone there are over 300 translations of the Bible to choose from

So how in the world do you choose one? What I’m not going to do is say which one you should read. But I do want to give you my advice and give you my top Five. Again…today…we’re being super practical.

There are a lot of different opinions and that’s okay. You're gonna read some stuff that says, "These are bad, these are bad," and yes…some are better than others but here are the Five that I would recommend to you to read.

CSB - It stands for the Christian Standard Bible. (It’s what I use most of the time to preach out of),

The NIV or new international version

The NLT (New living translation)

The ESV (English standard Version)

And the NKJV (New King James Version)

And again, these are the translations that I like to read and I like to study..You may like another one…and that’s okay! I don’t want to get too deep but do not use a catholic Bible. They have added the apocrypha and other literature that was widely rejected as being the inspired Word of God. They contain historical facts and stories but they are not the Word of God and thus not included in the Bible.

PUT CHART PICTURE UP

But I do want to show you a Bible Translation Chart that simply compares the different Bible Translations. And when it comes to picking a translation that you want to read there are Two Main Approaches when it comes to translating the Bible.

One would a be Word for Word translation where they adhere to the words and structure of the original language without sacrificing clarity.

The other would be Thought for thought approach and they translate based on the clarity and the meaning of the original accuracy.

And I use a range of them because they each bring accuracy but through a little different lens. Both are Biblically accurate.

So number one…chose a translation you understand.

Then

2. Choose a time, a place, and a plan to study.

Here's what I really recommend, that you have a consistent time and place. It doesn't really matter when or where, but I would recommend that it's consistent.

And here’s why: Odds are that if you don't have a consistent time and a place, then you're not likely to do it. If you ask my opinion, I would recommend when possible, to do the morning. And the reason I like the morning is because you're starting your day with God's Word that will align your heart, renew your mind, and direct your steps.

For me before I started my keto diet about three weeks ago it was always at Caribou coffee. I’m both sad and proud to say that I haven’t been to Caribou for the past three weeks. But maybe for you it’s at the kitchen table after you take the kids to school, or on the couch. And the only thing that I would say as far as the place is concerned is to make sure that it’s a place where you can be alone or at least can have your airpods in and can have space to read and write. Some of you prefer a real Bible…I know thats the case for me when In study because I like to highlight, make notes be able to write on the page.

I also love to do youversion reading plans. There are now over 32,000 Bible reading plans that you can do on the Youversion App. You can invite friends to do them with you. And here’s the great thing about the Youversion App. It will read it to you. There is no such thing as being too busy to do reading plans and Bible studies. It literally will read it to you! But have a plan that you follow when reading your Bible!

But whatever works for you…just do it! The important thing is that you begin to prioritize your time in the Word of God and you do it consistently!

I don’t care if you start with a small goal of reading five verses a day or one chapter a day…just start somewhere and do it consistently.

I have been tracking all my runs and my average time and I looked at my average minute mile and notice that every time I run…I shave a little bit more off. The more I do it…the easier it is, the faster it is.

Reading and studying the Bible is much like running or lifting weights. As you do it more your Building your spiritual muscles and becoming more and more like Jesus!

Ruth Bell Graham was the wife of the most famous evangelist of our time Billy Graham. And in her book entitled “My Turn” she wrote and gave some incredible practical advice about having a consistent place to ready and study the Bible. She actually advises everyone to have a desk and Here’s what she said.

“Even if it’s a piece of plywood stretched across two saw horses you need a special place for Bible study that doesn’t have to be shared with sowing or letter writing, or paying bills” She said “For years mine was just an old wooden table between an upright chest of drawers and a taller desk. But on this desk I have a collection of good translations of the Bible, I have Bible concordances, and Bible dictionaries. And there I keep notebooks and a mug full of pens. When we were in school we always kept notebooks handy to take notes from our professors lecture…How much more is it to take notes on what God is teaching us.”