01.02. Chapter 2. Putting In The Effort.
Chapter 2. Putting In The Effort.
Well, hopefully you have decided to spend 15 minutes a day on reading the Bible. But if you want to benefit from it you must put in some effort.
Firstly we would suggest that you pray to God each time before you read and ask Him to help you to understand it and speak to you through it. And with regard to this we find it a good idea to then read prayerfully and actually talk to God aloud about what you find there as you read it. (This requires a place of privacy for you should not annoy other people). You will be surprised how real and personal this makes it. The next thing we would suggest is that you make sure that you have a pen and paper with you. Now write down any lesson that you have learned. This is important. It helps to concentrate the mind and means that you have to think about it in order to write something down.
There are certain questions you might ask yourself. For example:
1). What does this passage teach me about God?
2). What does this passage teach me about Jesus Christ?
3). What does this passage teach me about how I should live my life?
4). What does this passage teach me about my attitude to other people?
5). How does this passage fit in with what I have previously read?
6). Is there a particular emphasis in this passage on some particular truth?
7). What is there in the passage for which I should praise and thank God?
Well by now more than fifteen minutes has passed. You see how little time it is really? And now you can follow up question 7 by giving the praise and thanks to God concerning what you have written down. And remember. The benefit you obtain from reading the Bible will not be limited to what you think you have learned from it. Subconsciously much more of it will be at work in your life. Your fifteen minutes is NEVER wasted. You see the Bible was written in such a way that it is its whole message that comes over to you, not just the bit you concentrate on. The niceties may be of importance for being specific about particular doctrines, but it is the whole message that is most important. For what the Bible does is make you aware of God. But you may say, ‘I am finding it difficult to understand the Bible because the language is so difficult.’ OK. Then get an easier translation (but remember that in order to make it easy it is not quite so accurate). One we can especially recommend is TEV (Today’s English Version). Or J B Phillips. Or even The Bible In Basic English for those whose English is not so good. Then as you advance you could get the NIV (New International Version), and so on. And sometimes comparing one translation with another may help in something particularly difficult to understand.
It has been well said that in order to benefit the most from the Bible we should ‘read, mark, learn and inwardly digest’. First we read the passage. Then we mark things that of importance. Then we consider them in more detail and learn from them. And then we let our minds meditate on them, thinking about them over again and again. That way we make them a part of us.