Click here to read Part 2 of this series – How to Study the Bible Part 2: Researching the Context
So Jesus said to the Jews who had believed him, “If you abide in my word, you are truly my disciples, and you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.” – John 8: 31-32
Abiding in God’s Word
Freedom. Isn’t that what we’re all after?
Freedom from struggle. Freedom from fear. Freedom from hard toil.
Freedom to enjoy life. Freedom to love others well. Freedom to rest our weary souls.
Freedom from sin.
That, my friend, is true freedom: freedom from sin, the freedom that makes all other freedoms possible. The freedom that allows us to truly know God and enjoy Him immensely. This is the kind of freedom that Jesus is talking about in John 8. In verse 34, Jesus tells his hearers that they are slaves to sin. Then in verse 36, he says “If the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed.”
We can experience this profound freedom in Christ, when we know and embrace the truth. And we will know the truth by abiding in God’s Word.
I love the word abide. Dictionary.com defines abide as:
to remain; continue; stay or to have one’s abode; dwell; reside
The use of the word abide in verse 31 paints for us a picture of living in God’s Word and making our dwelling there.
Charles Spurgeon once said, “Visit many good books, but live in the Bible.”
To live in the Bible is the third step to good Bible Study. To live with the text means to read and reread it until we know what it says, what it means, and how its truth should shape our lives.
Abiding Takes Time
Timothy Keller, in his book Hidden Christmas: The Surprising Truth Behind the Birth of Christ talks about a session he attended at a Christian conference on how to read the Bible. The speaker, Barbara Boyd, gave everyone in the session 30 minutes to write down 30 things they learned from one Bible verse: Mark 1:17. After the 30 minutes was up, they were asked to circle the most life-changing thing they had gotten out of the text. What Keller discovered was that the most life-changing truth he learned from the text wasn’t found after 5 minutes or 10 minutes or even 15 minutes. In fact, most people in the session didn’t discover life-changing truth until after 20 or 25 minutes had passed. Keller says, “This session changed my attitude toward the Bible and, indeed, my life.”
What Keller had discovered is this: to truly know the truth that sets us free we must spend time, a lot of time, in the Scriptures. Deep, heart-changing truth is rarely found with the first look-through. We must read and reread or, as Jesus commanded, abide in the text in order to discover life-giving truth.
Living with the Text
So, if you’ve been following this series on “How the Study the Bible”, then you’ve prepared with prayer and researched the context of your text. The third step is to live with the text. To truly live with or abide in the text you are studying you will need to read it, all of it, multiple times. During this third step, you are not necessarily taking notes or meditating on single verses. You are reading the entire text to get a feel for the flow of the text and the overarching themes throughout it.
There are two ways you can embark on this third step. If you are going to study a short book, like James, for example, I would recommend reading the entire book several times. If you are going to study a longer book, such as Genesis, I would recommend reading the entire book once or twice the whole way through and then breaking the book up into smaller sections to study. So for Genesis, you might read through the entire book once, then read chapters 1 through 3 four or five times. You would then follow the rest of the steps for Inductive Bible Study on chapters 1 through 3 before moving on to the next section.
Although the reading is repetitive, it doesn’t have to be tedious or boring! What follows are some suggestions for reading, rereading, and living with the text you have set out to study:
- Read the text silently to yourself in your favorite quiet spot
- Read it out loud to your kids, your pets, your roommate, or your spouse
- Listen to an audio version of the text in your car or while you exercise
- Read the book with someone, switching readers every paragraph or chapter
- Read one chapter at a time in between doing chores, during breaks at work, or before or after meals
- Hand-write several passages from the text in a journal or on note cards to carry with you
This third step, living with the text, can be fun and the whole family can get involved! This is a great way for parents to show their kids the importance of reading scripture and incorporating it into daily life.
Creating an Outline
Once you’ve lived with the text for several days or weeks and have a feel for its flow, Jen Wilkin in her book Women of the Word (not an affiliate link) suggests creating a working outline to help you keep track of the big picture of the book throughout your study. This is called a “working” outline because you can always come back and change or add things as your understanding of the book expands.
One easy way to create an outline is to use the sections already given in your Bible. Simply create your own title for each section and write down two or three major points to help you remember what that section was all about. For example, my simple, working outline for the book of Ruth looks something like this:
- Ruth 1: 1-5 – (My Title) Naomi Loses Everything
- Elimelech moves his wife and two sons to Moab because of a famine
- Elimelech dies while in Moab.
- Naomi’s sons marry Moabite women, Ruth and Orpah, and then they die leaving their wives and mother without anyone to care for them.
- Ruth 1: 6- 18 – (My Title) Ruth Shows Incredible Kindness to Naomi
- Naomi plans to return to Judah but instructs her daughters-in-law to stay behind with their families and their gods.
- Orpah leaves, but Ruth clings to Naomi and vows to go wherever she goes and make Naomi’s God her God.
When you get to the part of your Bible Study when you really dig into and dissect individual verses of the text, an outline like this can help you remember the major themes of the book and the overall big picture.
Free Tools for You!
My heart is for people like you who want to study the Bible. I am committed to bringing you tools and guidance to help you do just that. I’ve created two Inductive Bible Study Workbooks, one on Ruth and one on James ( another one on Genesis is in the works!), to help guide you through the process of studying the Bible on your own. If you’d like access to these free printable workbooks, enter your email here or in the gray box below!
My God bless you, convict you, encourage you, and change you as your endeavor to abide in His Word!
Click here to read the second part of this series – How to Study the Bible Part 2: Researching the Context
Click here to read the fourth part of this series – How to Study the Bible Part 4: Observation