A different way of reading the Bible

I’ve recently been reading a free ebook by Sue Rumsley called Christian Homeschooling Minus the Stress (who could resist that title?). She spends the first part of the book talking about the importance of being “spiritually prepared” for home educating, and sets out an interesting way of reading the Bible that I wanted to share.

1. Write the date in your notebook, then pray and ask God to teach you through His
Word today.
2. Read carefully through today’s scripture portion. This will be a section of approximately 10 verses following on from the previous day’s reading.
3. Think of a suitable title for the portion and write it down. For example “God commands Noah to build an ark.” (Many Bibles have their own headings, but I prefer to think one up.)
4. Pick out a Key Verse, and write it out. There is no right or wrong answer to this, just choose the verse you feel is the most important, or which seems to stand out.)
5. Reading through again, write down about four Key Facts revealed in this portion. These just tell, in a nutshell, the order of events or a series of statements from the verses. There might be a fact you never noticed before, or you might deduce something obvious from the facts. You don’t have to make ‘interpretations’ of meaning, but you can if you feel led by the Spirit.
6. Finally, thinking prayerfully about the portion, write down something from it that can be applied to your own life. Perhaps, for example, you can benefit from considering how Noah unquestioningly followed God’s pattern for the ark… With these thoughts you might apply the principle of unquestioning obedience to your life. If you let the Spirit speak to your mind, there will be dozens of applications from which you could choose.

By taking only ten verses or so at a time upon which to meditate, hidden nuggets seem to come to light in a way that doesn’t happen when reading straight through. These steps help me really think about what I’ve read… by concentrating on just a few verses at a time, we will uncover spiritual treasures which could otherwise be missed. For me, Bible study used to be just interesting. Now it has become delicious.

Sue Rumsley, “Christian Homeschooling Minus the Stress” p33.

I’ve been using this method for a couple of weeks now (as well as a daily reading Bible), and I have enjoyed my Bible study time immensely. I would highly recommend giving this a try (and such a good excuse to buy yet another gorgeous new notebook! ).

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