Bible Study - What Way?

The devil is a jerk, a manipulating jerk, so he knows how to mess with us. One of the things he does is start a little distracting spark and let us blow it into a forest fire. We will be arguing over the way to do something and, simply, it just needs to be done. 

So, I want to encourage you, there are many great ways to read the Bible and study its content but simply you just need to do it. I would encourage you to read it different ways. Maybe the first year just read it chapter by chapter and then the next year, start digging in and reading verse by verse with a commentary or some study tools. JUST READ IT! :-) 

Here are some excerpts from an article I read about this subject recently. I don't know Tim Challies, so I can't recommend him, but I will recommend this article he read. Click the links for the full ariticle. - Rejoicing

"We prefer what we prefer and to hold our preferences high above the alternatives. We sometimes find ourselves expressing our beliefs and preferences in off-handed little comments that seem so insignificant to us, but can hit another person with unexpected force.

Reading the Bible is something we all believe in. We know it is good and necessary to remain in God’s Word day-by-day. If we are to obey God, we must know who he is and what he commands, and if we are to know who he is and what he commands, we must hear him speak, and if we are to hear him speak, we must go to the one source where he has promised we can always hear from him. And so we develop that discipline of daily Bible reading.

When I consider Bible reading, I see two broad approaches: one that aims for familiarity and one that aims for intimacy. Both are good, both are beautiful, and both have their place.

A few months ago I was at an event where I heard a leader condemn Bible reading plans like the McCheyne plan that requires reading 4 or 5 chapters per day. His critique was that these plans do not allow for deep consideration or meditation. He did not frame this as a matter of preference, but as a matter of right and wrong. But then I don’t have to go far to find people advocating and celebrating the many-chapter-per-day kind of plan and speaking ill of Bible reading that moves too slowly, so the reader bogs down in a text and never looks up to see the wider landscape. Again, we prefer what we prefer, and often bring far too much force to our preferences.

I love to grow in Bible familiarity. I appreciate the McCheyne approach of reading the Old Testament once per year and the New Testament and Psalms twice (Or even the Dr. Horner plan of ten chapters per day). This is drinking from the firehose of Scripture, and it is a beautiful thing. There are few better ways to understand the overarching story of the Bible and to see all those connections between Old and New, between shadow and reality, than to read it in this manner.

I love to grow in Bible intimacy. I appreciate the two-verse per day approach to reading the Bible—just a verse or two slowly observed and applied. This treats the Bible like a lozenge soothing a sore throat—something to be slowly savored and not quickly crunched up. There are few better ways to fully understand and precisely apply the Bible than to look deep into its words, to ponder them, and to work them deep into our hearts and lives.

I happen to believe we do best when we have a mix of both. ...In so many ways I surround myself with the Bible, sometimes pursuing familiarity and sometimes pursuing intimacy.

... Intimacy or familiarity—we simply can’t go wrong."

So, my dear friends, get in the Word of God, whether you read the Bible with familiarity or intimacy. Read it, bathing it in prayer and desiring who God is and what He wants you to be. - Rejoicing in the Present