A good way to study the Bible

I'm so excited that 100 people from our church are already taking the 90-Day New Testament Challenge! If you'd like to sign up for it and haven't already, then just let me know. It will be so cool to have so many people doing this together. We'll have to celebrate at the end of July when we've completed it!

There's definitely a difference between reading the Bible and studying the Bible. We'll be reading it every day for the next 3 months, but I want to encourage everyone to take time to study it at least once a week. There are a lot of good ways to study the Bible, but here's one that works well for me. It's my adaptation of the "devotional method" that Rick Warren put together. Here are the steps:
1. Prayer – Pray for insight on how to apply what you’re about to read. Ask God to help you understand the Scripture and to show you specifically what He wants you to do. We don't want to read the Bible just to become smarter: we want to hear from God and apply what we learn.
2. Read – Read whatever Scripture passage you’re decided to study.
3. Reflection – Take a moment to process and digest what you’ve read. There are several practical ways you can do this, depending on the passage that you’re studying. You could:

• Visualize the scene of the narrative in your mind
• Emphasize certain words in the passage & consider how that affects the meaning
• Write a paraphrase of the big idea of the passage
• Say parts of the passage back to God as a prayer

4. Application – Write out a specific application. Make it personal and practical. Think through the SPACEPETS (it’s an acronym) questions as you consider what God is saying to you. Is there any…

• Sin to confess?
• Promise to claim?
• Attitude to change?
• Command to obey?
• Example to follow?
• Prayer to pray?
• Error to avoid?
• Truth to believe?
• Something to praise God for?

5. Memorization – Memorize a verse that connects directly with the application you have written. When you pick a verse that is really meaningful to you, it becomes a lot easier to remember.