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020 | Bible Study 101 | Understanding the Canon
505 Plays5 years ago
Where do you begin with bible study? What if you've never studied it for yourself? This episode breaks down some starter tips, hacks, and processes for getting the most out of your study time!
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Transcript
Introduction to Verity Podcast
00:00:00
Speaker
Welcome to Verity. I'm your host, Felicia Masonheimer, an author, speaker, and Bible teacher. This podcast will help you embrace the history and depth of the Christian faith, ask questions, seek answers, and devote yourself to becoming a disciple of Jesus Christ. You don't have to settle for watered-down Christian teaching. And if you're ready to go deeper, God is just as ready to take you there. This is Verity, where every woman is a theologian.
00:00:30
Speaker
Welcome back to Verity podcast, you guys. Can you believe that we are wrapping up the canon series? We have one more week after this episode and then we're going to take a break as I decide what direction we're going to go for the next season. But I have to say just the feedback from this whole series and the enjoyment that I personally have received from studying this topic in depth has been so encouraging. And I hope that you've loved it as much as I have and that you have
00:01:00
Speaker
left this season with a renewed love for the Word of God.
Inductive Bible Study Explained
00:01:06
Speaker
So without further ado, let's talk about getting the most out of your Bible study. When you think Bible study, the first thing that might come to your mind is one of those journals or prompted studies that you might get from LifeWay, something like that. Priscilla Shire has some, Beth Moore, Jenny Allen, lots of women who teach the Bible, produce these Bible studies that you can then use to look up passages and write your answers.
00:01:36
Speaker
And that's normally what we think when we think of a Bible study or maybe doing a group setting where you all have the same book and you work through it together. But today what I'm going to be teaching you is something called inductive Bible study, basically letting the Bible speak for itself without the help of a prompted journal or a prompted Bible study structure.
00:02:00
Speaker
This might seem intimidating if you are super new to studying the Bible on its own. Maybe you've only ever utilized those kinds of studies. You've never read the book of John, for example, without any assistance. And while it may be intimidating, it's something I really want to encourage you to do. If you've come this far in our Canon series,
00:02:20
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you know that the word of God is living and active. It's been preserved over the course of history with utmost care.
Accessibility Challenges for the Deaf Community
00:02:28
Speaker
And we have the privilege of reading and studying it for ourselves in our own language, which some people in the world today still can't do. In fact, I was talking to one of my followers who is involved in the Deaf community. And she said, the Deaf, they are everywhere among us, every nation around the world.
00:02:49
Speaker
the Deaf still don't have a full Bible in their American Sign Language or in Sign Language in other languages. Is that not crazy? So there are a lot of people still today who don't have the Bible in a language that they understand. And so we can really appreciate it more by studying it for ourselves. And
00:03:13
Speaker
just deeply being thankful for the privilege of reading the Bible in our own language. So how do we get the most out of our Bible study? Well, it really starts with a heart attitude that we bring to it. The Holy Spirit declares truth to us.
00:03:31
Speaker
In 1 Corinthians 2, Paul writes that the Spirit searches all things, even the deep things of God. Who knows a person's thoughts except their own spirit within them? In the same way, no one knows the thoughts of God except the Spirit of God. And when we read the Word of God, the Spirit of God helps us understand the thoughts of God that He has for us through His Word.
00:03:55
Speaker
We also know that the Word of God, the Bible, is inspired. It has the power to transform our lives, but we are only transformed by it to the degree we are exposed to it. If you never study the Word, you can't be transformed by the Word. You have to actually take part in this process of sanctification. You have to submit to it. You have to let the Lord do this work in you.
00:04:21
Speaker
Now, as we're approaching the Bible, there's a couple character traits or I would say attitudes of the heart that we need to bring. These are being intentional, being thoughtful, and being disciplined.
00:04:35
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An intentional Bible student doesn't expect the Bible to speak to her just by randomly flipping to a page. She chooses a place to start. She learns how to break down the passages, where to look when she has questions. She knows she's going to have to take time to dig deep into this. It's not going to be automatic or easy. A thoughtful Bible student will be asking questions of the text. Who is this talking about? Where else in the Bible is this mentioned? Why did the author say this?
00:05:02
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Asking questions of the text is so important for processing the information and really retaining it. Discipline Bible students don't wait to feel like studying before they go to the Word of God as a priority.
00:05:15
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They know that their emotions may come and go and they may change or shift, but we are changed by coming to the word regardless of our feelings. Feelings follow action. So it's much easier to be consistent in Bible study if we have these heart attitudes in place. And while you can't force those attitudes by the strength of your will, you can ask the Lord to give them to you.
00:05:38
Speaker
And then, in faith, you show up. You pick that spot in your Bible to study, you get a little journal and a pen, and you sit down faithfully each day to make time to meet the Lord there. God shows up and meets us through His word. But if we never show up to meet Him, we can't expect that to be automatic.
00:05:57
Speaker
So some practical next steps. Say you're like, okay, I'm ready. I have what I need. I have an English Bible. I have my journal. I have my pen. I'm ready to go. The next thing I suggest is creating a space for study.
Creating a Space for Bible Study
00:06:10
Speaker
And this isn't so that you have that perfect quiet time. And you can go back to the first season of the podcast where we talk about the Instagram quiet time and how we've kind of created this need to have the Instagram perfect armchair and coffee and music in order to meet God.
00:06:27
Speaker
When that's not true, we can meet God anywhere, anytime. However, I do still think that if you have the option of having a place to study the word, having a consistent place is really helpful, especially when you're starting out. And this is just basic goal-setting discipline practice here. So choose a spot to study that's easily accessible and it's usable, but it's not too comfortable. And what I mean by this is,
00:06:52
Speaker
If you tend to fall back asleep every time you do Bible study in your bed, then you probably shouldn't do Bible study in your bed. I like to do my Bible study after I do my workout. Then I'm more awake. I have my coffee or I have my water and I'm able to pay closer attention. Sometimes that means that my kids are awake and around me, but I've talked about this before. I often have my kids around me when I'm doing Bible study and I've taught them that
00:07:20
Speaker
that's what I'm doing and it's important that mama spends time in the word before we get started for the day and now my daughters who are four and a half and two and a half mimic me and get their highlighters out and their little kids bibles and do bible study on their own also so don't be afraid to do that if you are a mom you're setting an example for your kids you're teaching them patience you're teaching them to wait
00:07:43
Speaker
And those are all great things that lay a foundation for the future. Okay, so choose that spot for your study, kitchen table, armchair, bedroom, whatever, but just make sure it's not so comfortable that you're falling back asleep every time you use it. The second thing is make a basket of materials. You're much more likely to make a habit of something if you have it all available. You make it convenient for yourself.
00:08:06
Speaker
If you have to gather everything up every time you sit down, you'll probably lose time. You might get distracted. You might not study at all. So on my table, I have my highlighters, my pens, my journal, my Bible, and sometimes a commentary or extra study materials on hand. When Adeline was a baby, I would come downstairs because our bedrooms were upstairs and the kitchen was downstairs.
00:08:29
Speaker
I would come downstairs to feed her at the dining room table and I would have a basket in the middle of the table with all of these items and I would do my note taking on my reading plan while I nursed her. So you can be super creative in how you do this. Maybe you have a crazy work schedule and it changes every day. So keep everything in a bag in your car and do it on your lunch break. Just have it right there available, whatever's most convenient to you.
00:08:54
Speaker
And then third, for making this happen, whether it's morning or evening or lunch, connect to your routines. So this is called the strategy of pairing, which comes from one of my favorite secular authors, Gretchen Rubin, that if you want to keep a habit, connect it to an existing habit. So if you drink coffee every morning, it's your thing and you love it.
00:09:18
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Make a habit of only drinking coffee when you do your study time. So you can't make your coffee until you have set out your study materials and you're ready to go.
00:09:27
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By connecting that existing habit with a new one, you're more likely to be consistent. So in my own morning routine, it looks something like getting up around 6 a.m., sometimes a little later because, let's be real, I'm getting kind of tired. I'm in the third trimester now. Then going to do my Pilates workout or going for a three-mile walk. I do one of those things around 6.30.
00:09:50
Speaker
Then when I get back, I grab water and coffee and I sit down to study. It usually takes me around 40 minutes and when it's done, then I get up and make breakfast for everybody and we go on with the day. So by sandwiching my devotional time between my existing habits of a workout and breakfast, I have this set time where it works for me to do my Bible study.
Techniques and Tips for Effective Study
00:10:14
Speaker
Okay, so you know your place, you've got a plan, you kind of know what we're going to do next. Now let's get into the nitty gritty of inductive study itself. You're in your cozy chair with your Bible and your notebook. You decaf coffee if you're me. And now what do you do? Well, some people believe that studying the Bible is just reading it, but that's not what I'm talking about here. If you were to use the word study in any other context, it's never just reading. It's also note taking.
00:10:43
Speaker
It's reformulating the information, being able to communicate it back, whether on a quiz or verbally via narration, something like that in any other context. And so with the Bible, when we're studying it, we want to be able to communicate back the truths we're learning. This does not mean that every single day that you read the Bible, you'll find a personal application about yourself and your life.
00:11:07
Speaker
Remember, when we come to scripture, we're looking to learn about God first, then we look to learn about ourselves and what the personal application is. So keep that in mind when you are studying scripture. So the first thing I suggest doing is sitting down to read the passage. Read it slowly. Take in the big picture.
00:11:27
Speaker
In places like Psalms or Proverbs, each chapter or verse can contain independent thoughts, and in those kind of contexts with poetry and wisdom literature, you often don't need to read the chapter before to have context of what's going on. But in a lot of the Old Testament books that are historical narrative, so if you're reading in 1 Kings, it helps to go back a little bit into the first chapter before the one you're reading, just to find out what preceded the story that you're reading now.
00:11:58
Speaker
So when I read the Bible chronologically, the way each book happened in history, I like to go to the day before his reading plan and read a little bit of that section before I move into the one I'm reading that day. So read through the passage, just big picture real quick.
00:12:14
Speaker
A second step, and I don't always do this, but I do recommend it, is to read the passage aloud. Especially if you're a momma with kids, this is such a great practice both for you and for them, because you get to hear it a different way than in your head and they get to hear it.
00:12:29
Speaker
So as you're reading the passage aloud, it's cementing the thoughts in your mind and hearing them through your ears can help you catch some of the nuance of the passage. Another trick with this, especially if you're reading poetry like Psalms again, you can stress a different word each time you read the verse. So for instance, the verse, I will rejoice in the Lord my God.
00:12:51
Speaker
The first time you read it, you could say, I will rejoice in the Lord my God. The next time you read it, you say, I will rejoice in the Lord my God. And the third time you say, I will rejoice in the Lord my God. By changing the emphasis of the verse, you're pulling out some really significant meanings. In the first instance, you can notice that it's a choice to rejoice in the Lord. In the second instance, you notice that having joy
00:13:20
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again, is intentional. I will rejoice. I will have joy in my God. I can be happy in my God. And the third time, we notice that rejoicing in the Lord, that He is the King of our lives, that it's not just, you know, this haphazard faith that's sort of mushy watery, but I rejoice in the Lord. He is my King. So you see how saying it out loud and emphasizing different words can actually change
00:13:48
Speaker
how you hear the passage and help you understand some of the principles. I love this practice. Again, I don't do it every time but it's definitely something to keep in your toolkit for Bible study.
00:14:00
Speaker
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00:14:20
Speaker
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00:14:40
Speaker
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00:15:10
Speaker
So you've read through it, maybe you've read it aloud. Now you can sit down and really start to pull out some of the concepts that are in the chapter. And this is when you highlight keywords and phrases. Kay Arthur of Precept Ministries has a whole bunch of different books on this. She has courses on it. And you can take that if you really want to get in depth.
00:15:29
Speaker
But if you really just want to stay high level, look for key words, phrases, and themes that stand out. So if an author is repeating certain words, that gives you a hint at the theme. If we're reading 1 John, for example, it talks a lot about love, for God and for others.
00:15:46
Speaker
I use the color blue for keywords, so I highlighted every mention of the word love in 1 John. And when I hold the Bible back and look at it, wow, that's a lot of usage of the term love. That must be a significant theme, either of this chapter or maybe the whole book. And you can go back through your Bible and you can look at the markings to see, okay, here's a theme here. Maybe it's covenant, maybe it's faithfulness, whatever it is.
00:16:14
Speaker
I also highlight or mark repetitive phrases. So if the same phrase is mentioned multiple times in Romans one, you'll see the word pairing given over to a depraved mind multiple times in Romans one, three, I believe. So there's a pattern there that Paul is trying to express and that's something to circle or highlight so that you can notice what he's trying to say.
00:16:38
Speaker
You can also look for parallels between verses, comparisons, if-then statements. Anytime you see the word therefore, you have to find out what it's there for. It's talking about something the author just said. Because of all this, therefore, and then he makes a statement.
00:16:57
Speaker
So look for these things as you're reading. Highlight them, mark them, circle them. If you have a note taker's Bible, write down your notes in the margin. All of this is so important to really pulling out the principles that we're going to use to understand the Lord. The next step is to write your notes. And you might already be doing this at the stage where you're marking and highlighting, I'm writing notes constantly as I'm studying the Bible. But your notes will help refine, define, and cement the truths that you're taking from Scripture.
00:17:26
Speaker
Plus note taking is proven to improve retention. I used to be a college guidance counselor and this was a huge thing that I told my students take notes. In fact, in studies that were done by psychological science, they noticed that students who took notes by hand were much more likely
00:17:48
Speaker
to remember the information than those who took it by computer. Because the slower you can take notes, writing is slower than typing, the more you have to filter through the information and decide what's the most important, and you retain it more. So what do you take notes on? Well, this is where I suggest using the five Ws and an H. These are who, what, where, when, why, and how.
00:18:15
Speaker
Who would be key figures, genealogies, family lineage, things like that? What would be events, actions, things occurring in the passage? What is going on? What is being said?
00:18:29
Speaker
where? These would be locations or connections to other locations in Scripture. Especially in the Old Testament, if you see a mention of a certain city, it can be really helpful to look up that city in your Bible dictionary or on a site like Bible Hub or Blue Letter Bible to find out more about that city. What happened there? Why might it be significant that they are having this battle at this place?
00:18:55
Speaker
when, this is the time of writing, and also the time of the event's occurrence, which will give you more context for what was going on. Why? What might be the motivations of the characters, their reasoning, or their past promises? Why did Nicodemus come to Jesus at night? Well, because he was one of the Sanhedrin, or one of the Pharisees, and as such, he was
00:19:21
Speaker
very nervous about being seen with Jesus. Most of his people were opposing Jesus, but Nicodemus was curious and so he came at night. So asking these questions is really going to help you delve into what scripture is saying and have a jumping off point for digging deeper. Another thing to do is to follow cross references.
00:19:44
Speaker
The cross references are those little references either in between the two columns in your Bible, sometimes they're at the bottom, if there's not enough room. Some Bibles don't have cross references at all, and if your Bible doesn't, you can go on a site like Bible Gateway to find the cross references for the passage. You version might actually have them too.
00:20:04
Speaker
And what you do is say you're reading Psalm 46.1. You can look at the cross reference for Psalm 46.1, it will say in bold, and it will list other verses similar that say similar concepts in your Bible. And you can follow those to get some more context. I love following cross references. It never fails to bring something new to light.
00:20:29
Speaker
Now, as you're writing your notes, you might be wondering, do I write them in a journal? Do I write them in a note takers Bible? One of the questions I get a lot is how do you utilize your note takers Bible and your journal? Because I have room for notes on the sides in the top of my biblical text.
00:20:45
Speaker
Well, the Bible itself doesn't have enough room for long form notes. And since I've had my Bible for seven years and I like to read through the Bible every year, it has notes from across all of those years in the margins. And I want to leave room to use that Bible until I've had it for 10 years. I have this plan to keep each of my Bibles for 10 years and then give one of my Bibles to each of my kids.
00:21:10
Speaker
This is kind of a thing that I think would be really special maybe for their wedding or graduation or something like that where they can see what life was like for me and my walk with God and maybe be something special to them someday. So I like to make sure there's room in my Bible to continue taking notes for years to come.
00:21:29
Speaker
I use my journals for my long form notes. You don't need a fancy journal. I do use the give me Jesus journal by well-watered women or well-watered co. You can also use the quiet time journal or quiet time companion from wholehearted quiet time. They're both awesome options, but you could just go to the dollar store and get a composition notebook and that would work just fine as well. The point is that you're taking longer form notes in a place where you don't feel limited by the space of your note taking Bible if you have one.
00:22:00
Speaker
Okay, what's the next step? You have read the passage, read it aloud, found the keywords, asked the questions, taken the notes. Now you're getting towards the end. What do we do? This is when we ask, what did I learn about God in this passage? What has God said about himself? Start there. Don't start with, how do I feel about this? Or how does this apply to my life today? Start with, what did I learn about God?
00:22:28
Speaker
We often read our Bibles asking, what does this say about me? How should I act? Who am I? But if the Bible's a book about God, we're here to understand who He is and therefore understand who we are. Knowing who God is changes who we are. So we start with Him.
00:22:45
Speaker
The last step is to pray. Ask God to open your eyes to His word, how to live in light of it each day. I suggest doing this at the beginning, but it's also good to do it at the end. And this is when I often transition into my own prayer time where I like to pray through my Valmarie paper prayer journal that has a great way of breaking down prayer requests so I can keep track of them really well and follow up with people as I feel led and want to check in on them and their requests.
00:23:16
Speaker
So now we're going to talk about some extra resources you can use during your Bible study.
Recommended Resources for Bible Study
00:23:21
Speaker
These are such things as Bible dictionaries, commentaries, and other references that can help you in your study.
00:23:31
Speaker
Jen Wilkin, who is an amazing Bible teacher, suggests not going straight to a commentary when you're studying the Bible. First, ask the questions, read it for yourself, and then you can move to looking at those resources. You just don't want the resources to color your view straight away.
00:23:49
Speaker
But especially when you're starting out and you just don't know the historical context, these can be super, super helpful. Zondervan's Illustrated Bible Dictionary is one of my favorite resources. It's super big, it's heavy, but it's only $30 on Amazon. And it's full of pictures, it has summaries about the cities and the kings and the culture. I love it. It's a great resource.
00:24:12
Speaker
Another one is IVP's Bible Background Commentary. They have an Old Testament one and a New Testament one. And while it won't give you direct commentary on doctrine, it will tell you, hey, here's why Samson might have used a donkey jawbone to kill a bunch of people. And so if you have questions like that, those resources would be a good start.
00:24:34
Speaker
Now, if you are looking for literary context, you might try using Strong's Concordance. Strong's Concordance is like a massive reference book full of cross references. So you can look up a certain verse that has a certain word in it and you're like, I want to know
00:24:53
Speaker
where else in the Bible the word for love occurs and it will tell you everywhere else in the Bible that the word love occurs. There's no way your own Bible, your study Bible could contain all that information so Strong's Concordance does that for you and you can access it online for free or you can own one yourself if you want to have a hard copy.
00:25:14
Speaker
Now what about commentaries? What is a commentary? Well, a commentary is exactly what it sounds like. It's a book that comments on scripture. So a pastor or a theologian does an entire commentary on the book of Romans, for example. In fact, I have one sitting here on my desk right now from Douglas Mu. And in this NIV application commentary, Doug Mu goes through the entire book of Romans and explains perspectives on
00:25:44
Speaker
that particular book, Passage by Passage. This can be extremely helpful for us when we are trying to understand what's going on in a passage doctrinally. The only thing to know about commentaries, though, is that the commentators, they're human and they have theological biases.
00:26:04
Speaker
So it's helpful to read more than one commentary, or if you can't do that, remember that there may be varied perspectives on what you're reading. Especially in books like Romans, if you're reading a Calvinistic commentary versus an Arminian commentary, there's going to be two very different takes on some of the passages in that book.
00:26:25
Speaker
So just be aware that one theologian's commentary may be disagreed with by another theologian's commentary. It's still very helpful. It's still awesome to read and utilize, but we want to make sure that we're looking at multiple perspectives if we can within conservative Christianity.
Handling Interruptions in Study
00:26:44
Speaker
Alright, as we're wrapping up, what is the next step? What about if I'm like, I've been reading, I've been studying, it's all great, I'm super excited that I've been consistent, and then oops, I go on vacation, and it's been a week, and it's really hard to get back to it. What do you do when you go off track? Here's the thing to remember. This is not about a perfect streak of reading. Bible reading may be a goal, but don't treat it like you treat your other goals.
00:27:13
Speaker
The point of seeking God in his word is to know God. It's not just to be like, yes, I read through the whole Bible in a year. It's to know God personally. It's about the person. So don't stress when you get off the plan. Just start up again with the day's reading. Personally, I don't catch up when I get behind. I just leave it and keep going. I know I'm probably gonna read through the Bible again next year, or maybe I'll do a deep dive into that book in the future. I just keep going.
00:27:42
Speaker
So if you're in First Kings and you start again after a week and the story isn't making sense, back up a chapter to get some context and then continue reading. But don't stress about the fact that you didn't meet this 30-day checklist with your Bible. God is the one showing up to meet you there.
Connecting with Felicia and Further Resources
00:28:03
Speaker
So I hope this gave you kind of a foundation for studying the Bible. If you want more resources and help with this, I have a couple things for you. I have a free Bible study email course on my blog. You can go to free resources on FeliciaMasonHimer.com.
00:28:19
Speaker
Click the Bible study email course. It's also on our homepage. You can sign right up and you'll get an email a day with a lot of this exact information if you need something that's right in front of you, reminding you for the first seven days of your journey. You'll also get some PDFs that you can download that talk about the five W's and an H and give you something you could print out, keep in your Bible to remind you and keep you on track.
00:28:43
Speaker
Another resource I have is an entire class on Bible study 101 on my Facebook page, completely free. It's pinned at the top of my Facebook page. So if you're a visual person and you want to see this written out and talk more about genres of literature and historical and literary context, you can check out that class at facebook.com slash Felicia Delta.
00:29:06
Speaker
Thanks for joining me you guys. And next week is our final episode in the Canon series. We will be talking about all of your questions surrounding the Canon, the Bible, history, all the good stuff. I can't wait to see you there. Thank you for joining us for today's episode of Verity. You can connect with fellow listeners by following me on Instagram at Felicia Masonheimer or on our Facebook page by the same name. Also visit FeliciaMasonheimer.com for links to each episode and the show notes.