Every year, in the days following Christmas, I make promises to myself. Weary of traveling for most of the holidays, sleeping little and eating one Christmas dinner after another, I spend the last days of December mapping out a healthier life plan for the new year that includes more vegetables, earlier bedtimes, and less screen time.
The coming of January 1st has this way of making us feel like we’re stepping into a blank page of potential better versions of ourselves. We read everything we can about new beginnings, and we love thinking about how this year will be different. So we pledge to right both our physical and spiritual laxity by pledging to read our Bibles more, to eat less, to move our bodies more, and to be all around more disciplined. We try really hard. Meanwhile, March rolls around with Leviticus and an endless rotation of salads, and we wonder what we were thinking with all this regimented living. Sometimes it’s not so much the lack of a plan that’s the problem as much as it is how intentional we are with the plan.While there are lots of ways to build discipline into your life, I want to help you do one thing differently when it comes to your resolution to read your Bible, and to read it more intentionally, in 2022.
When it comes to Bible reading, there are a lot of ways you can go. One-year plans. Chronological plans. Six-month plans. They all have their place and can help you stick with a plan for a specific amount of time. You can use those plans to build the habit of daily Bible reading. And even if you’re just reading really quickly every morning before work, you’re absorbing the whole counsel of God in a year, and that’s a good thing. But if you’ve ever wanted dig a little deeper without getting overwhelmed, one of the best ways to grow in your Bible reading is to question the text.
For nearly a decade, I’ve been asking myself four questions of whatever biblical text I’m reading, and this process never fails to help me walk away from my time in the Word with a deeper understanding of what I’ve read. I work my way through entire books of the Bible, and depending on the genre, I read about a half a chapter a day (I take much smaller chunks of text throughout the epistles). I ask the following four questions of every section of Scripture.
1) What does this teach me about God?
It’s so important to begin with God. This is His book, these are His words, and He is the main character of this big story. John Calvin said that “man never attains to a true self-knowledge until he has previously contemplated the face of God, and come down after such contemplation to look into himself.” We cannot view ourselves or our circumstances rightly until we have first looked at them through the lens of who God is and what He has done. If you can only make time for one of these questions, start here. Read the text and ask yourself—what did I learn about God? Write it down. And then tomorrow, do the same thing. Over time, what you learn about God’s faithfulness, holiness, kindness, sovereignty—it will change you. He will change you. When you can, move on to the next question.
2) What does this teach me about man?
Sometimes this is a dismal question. What we learn about humanity in the Bible through the sins of man, through the flawed heroes of the smaller narratives, and through the commands we’re given for holiness reveals just how deeply broken we are. Sin permeates every pore of our skin and every page of our stories. With this question, we see ourselves rightly before a holy God, and that perspective works to help us see His kindness to us in providing Jesus to pay for our sins. These first two questions help to identify the ways we are prideful and wipe out any basis for such pride.
3) What does this teach me about Christ (or, for Old Testament passages, how does this point to Christ)?
Jesus didn’t just arrive suddenly on the first page of the New Testament. You can see the coming of Christ throughout all of the Old Testament as God’s plan was always one that involved sending Jesus. We can look for Jesus as early as Genesis. Even if you read a passage that doesn’t have direct prophecies about the coming of Jesus, think about the gospel as you read. How does this text reveal our need for a Savior? How do the smaller narratives point us to the bigger gospel narrative of Scripture? Always look for the gospel in what you’re reading.
4) How can I apply this to my life?
We want to walk away from our Bible reading with some kind of application point. Often, we start with application by opening our Bibles and asking, “What’s in it for me?” It’s not wrong to ask what we can take away from the text, but we shouldn’t jump to that step until we’ve thought through what we learn about God and how we see Christ. Looking at the character of God and the redemptive work He accomplished through Christ helps us to arrive at application safely. The Holy Spirit helps us to understand what we’ve read and to obey it. Application is best understood once we’ve studied the face of God. We’ll learn to love what He loves and to treasure Him to the most.
The Point
Asking yourself these four questions can enrich your Bible reading and give you a way to articulate what you’ve studied. You can share what you’ve learned with other believers or with your unbelieving friends because you’ve thought through the passages carefully. This process doesn’t have to take hours (though it can!). Just ask yourself each question after reading the text a few times and jot down a few sentences in response. Stretch the process out and answer one question a day for a week. Or do it all in one day. Go at a sustainable pace and remember that the Spirit is with you as you read.
You don’t have to be a perfectly regimented and disciplined person to be a good student of the Bible, but you do have to prioritize regular Bible intake. Thinking through the text by asking questions can help you grow in understanding of not just the words on the page but the Person you are getting to know and learning to love. His Word is a priceless gift to us because it is the way He has chosen to reveal Himself to us. Know Him with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength.
Thinking through the text by asking questions can help you grow in understanding of not just the words on the page but the Person you are getting to know and learning to love. Share on X
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More resources:
For a more in-depth explanation of these steps, watch this video or check out this post. You can even download my study steps for free, which includes some additional steps for establishing historical context, genre, etc. My book, Everyday Faithfulness, includes an entire chapter devoted to the ins and outs of this study method.
Photo by Joel Muniz on Unsplash
Glenna Marshall is married to her pastor, William, and lives in rural Southeast Missouri where she tries and fails to keep up with her two energetic sons. She is the author of The Promise is His Presence (P&R) and Everyday Faithfulness (Crossway), and Memorizing Scripture (Moody). Connect with her on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter.