Reading Your Bible

You can understand the Bible!

Success or failure in the Christian life depends on how much of the Bible you get into your mind on a regular basis and how obedient you are to it. True, you can go to heaven knowing little more than John 3:16 and Romans 10:9-10, because God’s marvelous gift of salvation is free, and all you have to do to get it is to receive it by faith (John 1:12). But if you are ever going to be a happy, successful Christian it will be by regularly feeding on the Word of God, and that takes work. The more you work at it the faster and better you will grow, and this growth is well worth the price it requires.

Jesus Christ gave the formula for success when He said, “If you know these things, blessed [happy] are you if you do them” (John 13:17). Happiness is the result of knowing and doing the will of God as He has revealed it in the Bible. The problem with so many Christians today is that they don’t spend much time learning the principles of the Bible, so they don’t even know what is expected of them. No wonder they don’t enjoy all the blessings of the Christian life!

What exactly is the bible?

We talk about the Bible like it’s one big book, but it’s actually a collection of 66 books written by 40 authors in three different languages on three different continents over a time period of 1600 years! The Bible is inspired by God and is inerrant—without error in everything it addresses.

The 66 different books of the Bible are written in different styles and are in different genres. Contained in the Bible, you’ll find: narrative, law, poetry, wisdom, prophecy, epistles (letters), and the Gospels. As you crack open your Bible, you may have found that the books can be read with varying levels of difficulty. This will come into play when deciding where to start and what to read first.

Which Bible should I get?

We recommend a New Living Translation (NLT) Study Bible. You can find these on amazon.com or at your local bookstore. The prices range from $20 to $100+. The New Living Translation is perfect for new Christians or those who have a difficult time with Bible reading, because it is written in such clear, simple language.

Helpful Tools In Your bible

how to read your bible : six tips

1. Read Daily

Daily Bible reading is to your spiritual life what daily eating is to your physical life. We are all familiar with the necessity of regular mealtimes. If we skip meals or rush them, their primary values are lost. Just as the body needs a regular feeding time to maintain its energy level, so the spiritual man must regularly be fed the Word of God.

Most people find that the morning is the best time to read the Word. If you are a morning person – someone who wakes up bright and alert – then you should read in the morning. It will get your day off to a good start, and you will have all day to meditate on and reflect on what you learned and apply it to your life. If, however, you are a night person and your brain isn’t alert early in the morning, do your reading after dinner or before going to bed. The biggest challenge with setting your daily Bible reading at night is that, if you forget it or a change of schedule necessitates that you miss the regular time, it is difficult to work it in later. Early in the morning provides ample substitute scheduling, if the regular time is skipped.

Whatever time, give God your best time. If you don’t set a specific time, your good intentions will never be realized and you will only occasionally read your Bible.

2. Set a regular reading time

“How much time should I devote to reading the Bible each day?” It’s a common question. It depends on the seriousness and discipline of the individual. But a good place to start is 15 minutes daily. When you think about it, that isn’t too much. Most people spend that long reading the newspaper, browsing Facebook, or watching TV.

3. Set A Regular place

It will help your concentration and consistency if you set a regular place to do your 15 minutes or more of daily reading. All speed-reading experts recommend that reading be done in a sitting position or at a desk/table, as it aids in concentration. Eliminate other visual distractions. The less you have on your desk besides your Bible while reading, the better. Coming regularly to this “quiet place” helps establish the right mood.

4. Read With a pencil in hand

The biggest danger to Bible reading is in letting your eyes run across the words and assuming you have read the material. Many Christians spend the 15 minutes each day, follow their reading with prayer, and assume they have had a good quiet time. But if you asked them one hour later what they had read, they wouldn’t have the foggiest idea. Their eyes read the words, but their brain wasn’t turned on.

Pick up a pencil, and be ready to receive a message from God. The very act makes you more alert and expectant that God will communicate something to you today what you need to know. Underline, highlight, and make note of things that stick out to you. Don’t be afraid to mark up your Bible. In the future, it will be fun to look back and see what God was illuminating to you in your prior reading times.

5. Read devotionally

The Bible is a living book written by a loving God to His children, and it is “profitable” (practical). More than just a message, however, the Bible is true soul food. The best way to read the Word of God devotionally is to prayerfully ask God to reveal something to you each day. Pray Psalm 119:18: Open my eyes that I may see wonderful things in your law. Many times He will give you a thought that answers the hunger of your heart.

6. Journal

The best single tool to get the greatest blessing out of devotional reading is to establish the habit of journaling daily. Even if you’re not a journal-keeping type, you’ll find that as you write down your thoughts from God from your daily reading, you will get so much more out of your reading experience and you’ll be more readily prepared to apply God’s truth to your life.

Pastor Kent believes that this is so important that he created a journal, called the “My Walk With God” journal with a simple journaling method that will help you to get the most out of your time in God’s Word. The method he developed back in 1997 is easy: B.I.B.L.E.

Bible verse—“What verse did the Holy Spirit call to my attention?
Interpretation—“What does it mean?”
Big Idea—“The breakthrough or the big ah-ha!”
Life application—“What adjustments is the Holy Spirit asking me to make?”
Entreaty—“My prayer today is…”

What Should I Read?

You should definitely have a plan. You want to have daily direction, so you don’t just haphazardly read the Bible. If you choose to use the “My Walk With God” journal, you will find several different daily reading plans enclosed. However, for new Christians or new readers, we recommend the following three-year plan:

Bible Reading Plan

The following suggested reading schedule is designed to help streamline the learning process for a young Christian, so that he may concentrate on those books that have the answers to his greatest need. If you follow the schedule below, you will read the most important books for you to know several times the first year, the New Testament through twice, and the entire Bible by the end of the third year.