If you're anything like me you read the bible either as preparation for a specific bible study or you use the 'drop and flop' method. Drop and flop is a phenomenon where you read what you first flip to (a very technical and advanced concept).
Drop and flop is great because it can spawn sentences such as 'God pointed me to this scripture today'. It's also great because it's an incredibly easy and non-committal method of reading the bible. BUT - I think it's only suited for certain people, and I've recently come to find out that I'm not in this category.
I suffer from what some call terrible reading comprehension. To make matters even worse my lack of ability to retain words is most magnified when reading scripture. All this said I probably should have attended the speed reading class my mom signed me up for in high school. Turns out I was way more interested in going to the beach and wakeboarding than sitting in a classroom learning about 'reading in blocks'.
A few months ago we talked about how to read scripture in bible study. At first I was a little taken aback by this topic. Why would a group of people who work for a Christian ministry need to learn how to read the bible? It's like mandatory defensive driving classes for NASCAR drivers. Turns out our discussion that night would drastically change the way I read the bible.
The first discipline we discussed was taking notes while studying God's word. I've found that even if I don't go back and look at my notes, the act of writing down my thoughts and certain verses helped the concepts stick.
Secondly, we talked about doing historical research on the particular book we were studying. I think this was the biggest help for me, as it adds so much more context and relevancy when actually reading the scripture.
Some other tips were to ask/answer the questions 'What was the author trying to convey in this passage?' and 'What does this passage mean specifically to me?'. Again, writing down the responses/answers.
I've also started to answer the following questions when reading a book of the Bible (this may also cover the first principle)...
Who wrote the book?
Where was it written?
Who was it written to?
When was it written?
What was going on historically in the geographic proximity of the story?
Why was the book written?
The first book I tried this out on was Galatians. I think Galatians is a great book to use this for, as it has so much background and storyline that we don't really get from solely reading the scriptures (my opinion).
If drop and flop works great for you - that's awesome. However, you should probably go to the beach and do some wakeboarding to make up for the lost time you spent in speed reading class. But if you find yourself trying to remember what the heck you just read - maybe give the above a shot. It might help.
Thank you Jesus for the Cross. I need to meet You there daily.
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