Tips for studying the bible

HOW AND WHEN TO/NOT TO MARK YOUR BIBLE: Decide on a system for marking in your bible. Use a specific pattern for underlining and marking in your bible using several different color highlighters and several different color writing pens. Whenever you underline something in your bible according to your color pattern, be sure that the purpose is basically unchanging. If you use purple to underline something mentioned in a sermon and use blue to highlight something you found during a private study, eventually you will end up using both colors on the same verse and then you have a mess. Instead, use the colors to designate things like "prophecy (green)/prophecy fulfilled (blue)" or "different names for God (pink)". These items are absolutes and won't change no matter how many times you study the same passage over.

Use the pens in the same way. Decide what color will indicate what. Perhaps you'll want to use the blue pen to make notes in the margin concerning something the pastor said. Use green for notes that you have studied on your own. By using the different color pens, you will be able to remember where the information came from should you ever find a discrepancy in your notes. You can then trace the source and study the situation further to determine why there was a discrepancy.

Use your red pen to cross reference other scripture. Most bibles have a few references, but you generally find more references when studying. You may also want to reference things that other people don't consider worthy of referencing.

Whatever "markings" you decide to do, do it BEFORE you begin marking in your bible. You may even want to consider getting a new bible in order to begin using your new system. Make notes of which colors represent which things. Over time, you will remember, but at first you may be a little confused, and the notes will come in handy.

WHICH TOOLS ARE AVAILABLE: There are MANY tools available for studying your bible. You can find concordances, Biblical dictionaries, commentaries and study guides just to name a few. If you do not have these items, and you do not want to purchase them, try asking a friend if they have one you could borrow. You can also find most of these items at your local library as well as MANY wonderful resources available free of charge on the Internet. Take advantage of the knowledge of the people that took the time to put these items together.

STARTING SMALL: Although it is estimated to take 13 hours to read through the New Testament, it's highly unlikely that you would retain anything from it if you read it that quickly. For this reason, you need to start small.

One book: If you want to begin by 'dissecting' a whole book in the bible, that's okay, but start with a small book. It is much easier to climb a mountain, by looking at each ridge individually. You can focus on the next ridge when you reach the top of the first one.

One chapter: The same goes for chapters. Sometimes it's easier to start with a chapter instead of a whole book. It's easier to start in the first chapter of a book, but it's okay if you feel led to start with a middle or even final chapter of a book.

One verse: One of the most enjoyable studies you may ever do is to pick out one of your favorite verses and then look at it word by word, reference by reference. You will be pleasantly surprise to realize that there is more to your favorite verse than face value.

KEEPING IT SIMPLE: Don't be disappointed if you don't discover some phenomenal new insight within every bible study. Sometimes we are looking for things that are complicated and profound, when God is actually speaking to us through simple and easy to understand words. You can become very discouraged if your entire focus is on the desperate need to discover something no one else has ever noticed.

GO SLOW: You may discover that 10 verses a day is too much for you or you may discover that you need more than 10 verses some days. Be aware of how much or how little is enough for you. If you are trying to accomplish too much, you will become overwhelmed and discouraged. On the other hand, if you are not challenging yourself to your full potential, you will become bored and discouraged.

STUDYING DOESN'T NECESSARILY MEAN MEMORIZING: I think many people stay away from bible study, because they equate studying with memorizing. While that may be true in many classroom environments where it is nearly essential to memorize everything you read, it's not necessarily what God may want out of you during every one of your bible studies.

Memorizing scripture is important, but it is entirely separate from bible study. Studying involves learning what the scripture means and how to apply it to your life. A lot of times, if you study a verse long enough or often enough, you may discover that you have memorized it in the process, but it's not a primary focus of studying your bible.

PAYING ATTENTION: Have you ever been going somewhere and when you arrive, you don't remember how you got there? As an adult you can probably apply this to your daily commute to or from work. If you are a youth you can probably apply it to your transition between classrooms or perhaps even the walk home. But undoubtedly, all of us at some time or another have experienced this feeling. The same thing happens when we rush through our bible study, focusing only on attempting to pronounce the name of a town or person. We get to the end of what we were reading and we don't have any idea what it was about. You have to slow down and read at a pace that you can understand it. You also have to STUDY at a pace that you can understand it.

Unlike school, there's not a test at the end of the semester to see how much you learned. It's okay if you work slower or faster than someone else. It's not a competition to see who can finish first. It's much more important to be able to say "I read one verse today and I gained new knowledge from it" than to say "I read 17 chapters today..... and no, I don't remember which chapters or what they were about."

TAKING USEFUL NOTES: It's important to take notes, but after years of taking notes, you may wonder if they actually have any value. First of all, even if you wrote it down and then threw it away, it would still have value. For some reason, we retain more if we write it down. It forces our minds to actually process the information rather than just scan it. So if for no other reason, taking notes is important because it helps you to focus on what is being discussed.

So what do you do with all these notes? If you take notes at every sermon and every Sunday School class, eventually you will have a mountain of notes to sort through. This can be very discouraging especially if you are looking for a particular set of notes and don't know which notebook they're in. Eventually, you might even quit taking notes because they seem so useless.

So even though the obvious answer might be to simply through away your notes, it's not the only answer. Whenever you take separate notes, whether during your personal bible study or during a church service, take your pencil and draw a line beside the scripture that is the "meat" of your notes. It may or may not be the basis of the message, but the scripture you want to mark in your bible will be the scripture your notes are about. Draw the line to indicate that at some point in your studies, this passage was discussed and you found something worthy enough to make additional notes. Then beside the line, write a reference code. Write 1-1, which will indicate spiral one, lesson 1. At the same time, label your spiral "1" and label the top of your notes "1" to coincide with the reference in your bible. Then at some later date, should you want to see what it was that you gained from this scripture, you have quick and easy access to the notes you took earlier. Be sure to always date your notes as well as put the reference from where the notes came. If the notes are from a personal study time, label them that way. If it's from a sermon, list the name of the person delivering the message and also mention whether this was a service you attended, whether it was a taped message or if you perhaps heard it over the radio. If the message is a taped message, document where the tape is from. Did you borrow the tape, if so from where and what was the title of the tape? Do you own the tape? If so, cross reference the sermon date and message title into your notes as well.

Over time, you may have several references beside a scripture. You may want to create an alternative referencing system such as jotting down future reference numbers within the actual notes of the first reference. For example, the first time you cross reference a scripture to your notes, write the reference in your bible. After that, begin cross referencing your notes to each other.

While all of this may seem a little "too much", there are many occasions where you will find it very useful to know the exact source of your notes. Should you ever hear a message that contradicts something you've learned in the past, you will want to know exactly what the source of information was. It's also very useful if you are explaining something to someone and they are interested in hearing it for themselves, you can direct them to the exact source you used previously without searching through your notes and then re-searching in order to discover where the notes were from.

NOTICING THE UNOBVIOUS: Have you ever been amazed when someone points out something that you had never seen even though you have read the scripture over and over and over. This can happen in your personal bible study as well. Remember, just because you have studied a certain verse before, doesn't mean that you have all the knowledge there is available concerning that verse. Generally, every time you study a verse or chapter, it will have a different reflection on your life, partly because situations in your life are different, which tends to cause you to look at things different.

ABOVE ALL: Remember, anytime you study, you are doing so to gain knowledge. You don't study because you already have all the answers. So don't feel like you are not smart enough to study the bible. Take your time, develop a system that works for you. The most important thing is that you just do it!