Words are all We See

One of the reasons I started this blog was to help people grow. To disciple from afar if you will. To look at scripture and give my take on it; to give my thoughts on it, and teach people about whatever God shows me that day or whatever I may be thinking about (usually both).

But the other reason is because I received a text from someone telling me that they aren’t learning anything at church or when they try to study themselves, meaning no one is teaching them how to study the Bible. This is not good. But oh well, what can I do?

Well I can do exactly what I am doing. And I’m sad to say I have been neglecting fixing the second reason. Well at least I can work on that now.

I’m sure everyone has heard the phrase that the Bible is “Basic Instructions Before Leaving Earth.”

Poppycock.

Yes the Bible has “basic instructions” but it is so much more than that. The Bible is truly anything but basic. Do you really want to call The Word of God given to us basic? Next person I hear call the Bible that I just might smack. Don’t insult my God and his message to us like that.

But I digress.

The Bible is full of all sorts of great stuff. There’s history, poetry, battles, bears attacking kids, violence, sex, fat guys getting killed, torture, advice, wisdom, instructions, and the most important thing: God.

Now how do you get all of this stuff out of the Bible? It’s so hard to read, I can’t follow what’s going on, it doesn’t make sense. There are a lot of problems that people have reading the Bible. Yes, even I have had a lot of these problems. And still do. I once tried to read the Bible in 115 days; that comes to about 11 chapters a day. I obviously didn’t finish and barely got anything out of it. I could turn my head afterwards and my brain would pour out along with everything I just read. This time I’m going for a year, and am actually doing pretty well. But this aint about me. It’s about God.

I have to take a few here to give a few pre-tips.

1) Yes, I expect you to read the Bible on your own every day. It’s a part of the conversations we have with God, but instead of us talking it’s us listening.

2) Always, always, always approach reading scripture with prayer. We are told to pray without ceasing, and prayer is no more than conversing with God. So when you go to read scripture, pray beforehand asking God for whatever: him to show you something new about him, something new about yourself, how to handle _____, how you should live your life, who you should care for, why you should do something.  (Examples will come later).

The first thing you must remember while reading the Bible: It’s all about God. Scripture tells us tons about God (I say tons because we will never fully know God this side of Heaven). So tip one of reading the Bible: Remember it’s all about God, and ask him to show himself to you through scripture.

Step two is just read it. REALLY read it. Don’t just look at the words and see what they are, instead look at what they mean. See a word you don’t know? Look it up. Take your time with this. It’s talking with God and it’s all about him, are you really gonna give him half your effort? Let’s see how far that faith gets you. Take an hour for a chapter, or a passage, or even a verse. There is so much you can unpack from these things. I wrote a 13 page paper on 11 verses, and I had to stop myself short so I wouldn’t make my professor mad. But take your time. Actually read the text. See what it is actually saying. Let it sink in. Enjoy it, it’s God speaking to you!

Step three would be see how it can apply to you. I’m not saying find out how you can use it in your everyday life, there’s not always something like that in there. But look to see how it can do something for you. I just read some genealogies in the OT and I saw that all families had problems, not just mine. Children, parents, siblings, they all can go crazy at any point, it wont be the first time it’s happened, we see it all through history. Yes, there is no one like you ever, but the stuff you go through isn’t the first time someone’s gone through that. Teachers are giving you problems? That’s happened before to someone else, probably someone you know. And they can help you through it. Scripture also does this. Don’t think it’s pointless.

Now some examples. I hate constantly talking about myself, but I really know myself the best and how these things have worked with me.

Whenever I read now I look for anything I can that will tell me more about God. Every time I read I start off with “Show me who you are. Let me see how this makes me into who I am and who you want me to be. And let me see something new about you so that I can take that to someone who doesn’t know you and say ‘This is the God you’re turning your back on.’” Simple, and to the point, and I see amazing things about God every time I read.

Another time while trying to decide what I’m doing next, I prayed about the decisions, and God led me to Matthew 28.19-20. That told me without a doubt what he wanted me to do. I talked with others about it and most confirmed what I thought God was telling me. Except one. And now I’m trying to play catch up for raising funds because of that. But this is beside the point.

So, all in all. Read the freaking Bible, learn from God. It’s your duty as a Christian. And when you read, take your time, and actually read it. Don’t gloss over, don’t just look at words, look at the message the words are telling you.

Now go crack open that Bible.