Study With Me: 4 Reasons Why to Study the Bible


I've known all my life that I should read the Bible. My parents gave me my first Bible when I was five years old; a cute, red, King James Version that I still have to this day. 

If you went to Sunday School as a child like I did, then you've probably heard the running joke that the best answer to every Sunday School question is "read the Bible and pray." There's even a song that I remember from my childhood that still goes through my head sometimes that was written and performed by my great-aunt Patsy Prescott, the yodeling Christian cowgirl: "Read your Bible and pray, read it every day. Read your Bible and pray, 'twill drive the devil away."

I agree completely that Bible reading is important, but even more so is studying the Bible. Over the years I have learned how to study the Bible for myself, and I want to share what I've learned and what I'm learning, because I have come to realize that it is so important for all Christians to learn to study the Bible for themselves! .

This article will be the first in a bible study series where I will share with you what study methods work for me, the resources I use and where you can find them, the translations I prefer and why, how I take notes as I study, and anything else I can think of that might be helpful for you as you study. My goal is to show you that you don't have to be a pastor, seminary student, or some kind of scholar in order to study the Bible. If I can do it, anyone can. 

So let's start with some reasons why we should study the Bible.

1. God speaks to us through the Bible.
This may seem obvious, but the Bible is one of the best ways that God speaks to us. In these times we live in, we literally have God's word at our fingertips, available on our phones, tablets, and laptops. If you are reading this post, you have access to a Bible in some form. Most of us have at least one Bible of our own. Some of us have bookshelves full of different translations of the Bible. Yet how often do we actually pick up a Bible and read it? Study it? Meditate on it? The whole thing? Beginning to end?

When we don't study God's Word we miss out on so much! The Bible is God's revelation to us; His revealing of Himself to us. He tells us and shows us who He is throughout the whole Bible. When we study the Bible we get to know Him better. We learn of His love and compassion, and of His plan of redemption and restoration that was put into place from the beginning. And we learn to recognize His voice when He speaks to us in other ways.

2. The Bible teaches us to recognize truth.
When we can recognize truth, we can recognize error. When we learn what is right, we also learn what is wrong. We can use the Bible as the standard of truth to test everything. Every belief we have, every doctrine we have learned, every thought we think can be evaluated. We can begin to see what is right and wrong in our lives, and we can steer away from error and toward the truth. When this is put into practice in our lives, when we turn away from sin and toward God, it is called repentance.

3. The Bible shows us how to love God and love others.
Yeshua (Jesus) taught that the greatest commandments were to love God with all of your heart, soul, mind and strength, and to love your neighbor as yourself. The Ten Commandments expand on this, and the rest of the Bible expands on it further. We are told how God wants us to love Him and how best to love others, and we are shown this over and over through parables, stories, examples, and ultimately through Yeshua, who lived it out perfectly. 

4. Studying the Bible will revive and transform your life. 
The Bible is God-breathed. It is life-giving! When we study it, it takes root in us and we grow. Do you want to be revived? Do you want wisdom and understanding? Do you want peace and happiness? Do you want to know God's will and how you can help accomplish it? Studying the Bible will do all of that and more. And from personal experience I can tell you that the more I study, the more I want to study. There is so much to learn! Have you heard the phrase "hunger and thirst for righteousness"? This is what studying God's word awakens in us!

All of this is summed up pretty perfectly in 2 Timothy 3:15-17: "...and how from infancy you have known the Holy Scriptures, which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus. All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, so that the servant of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work." 

I hope that you can see the importance of digging deep and studying scripture. It's time for us all to stop depending on our pastors and teachers to tell us what the Bible says and means. It's time for us to learn to wholeheartedly seek after God on our own. It's time for us to study our Bibles and put what we learn into practice. Let's study in order to learn, and let's learn in order to do!

I hope you will study with me.

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