Bible Study: Will you do it?

BIBLE STUDY: Will you do it? 

We have been thinking together about Bible study. We have been learning about how to observe what’s in the text, how to interpret what the text means, and how to apply it to our lives. Now the time has come to do it. It’s like learning how to swim. To learn how to swim you have to get in the water. Likewise, to learn how to study the Bible you have to study the Bible.

To study the Bible you must make time to do it. While the sheer size of the Bible can intimidate you, by devoting no more than 15 minutes a day you can read through it in less than a year. It only takes about 70-75 hours to read through the entire Bible. Of course to study it requires more time, but you should find it very encouraging that you can read through the Bible in the amount of time it takes to live only three days. How much TV do you watch each day? Can you not find 15 minutes for God’s word?

To study the Bible you must work at it. R. C. Sproul says: “We fail in our duty to study God’s Word not so much because it is difficult to understand, not so much because it is dull and boring, but because it is work. Our problem is not a lack of intelligence or a lack of passion. Our problem is that we are lazy.”[1]

I find encouragement from the life of Jesus. He spent the first 30 years of his life preparing for 3 years of ministry. The way he used Scripture during his 3 years of ministry reveals that he must have spent time learning it during his first 30 years. He knew it testified about him (Luke 24:27; John 5:39). He also knew the true intention of it (Matthew 5:21-22, 27-28, 31-32, 33-34, 38-39, 43-44).

Remember that the goal of Bible study is not to know a bunch of facts about people and history. The goal of Bible study is to know God and Jesus because that is eternal life (John 17:3). God gave us the Bible so we could know him. What matters more than that? William Klein says, “We all face the same question: ‘Is my relationship with God worth cultivating?’” He continues:  “If you answer yes, then you need to decide how you’ll connect with the God who made you, loves you, created the world for you to live in, and sent his Son, Jesus, to rescue you from sin and death.”[2]There’s no better way to connect with God than through his word.