Tuesday, March 31, 2015

Getting Started

4 Things To Do That Will Get You Reading Your Bible Again by Jack Wellman:
Discipline Yourself to Schedule a Time
This sounds easy enough but when you have a set time to read your Bible and a special place to do it, then it might become a habit. I try to start my day off with prayer first and then I read some out of the New and then the Old Testament every single day…even if I don’t feel like it. It is so important that I must discipline myself to do it. We might not like taking medicine, brushing our teeth or getting proper exercise but we usually find time to do these things and as important as these things are, the Bible is the most important part of your day, along with prayer. Set a time and then determine to make that your prescribed daily Bible reading time and then take the time to do it. During the times you don’t feel like reading the Bible are exactly the times you need it the most.
Get a New Translation
I have several different translations. I love the King James but the New King James and the ESV is a bit easier to read. If you are reading in a translation that is easier to read you might read it more. Sometimes a new Bible can give you a renewed sense of the Word of God. I try to avoid paraphrased versions of the Bible because they’re too liberal, in my opinion, in rewording the original Scriptures.
Get a Study Bible
For me, I have two study Bibles that I really love; The MacArthur Study Bible and the Reformation Study Bible. These Bible’s editors have outstanding commentaries and they give me a little bit more background about the particular book I am reading. For me, my King James has margins that give me some of the original Greek and Hebrew words so that some words have much more meaning than those which were translated into English. The commentary is not inspired but they are insightful and often give me more information on verses that are more difficult to understand.
Get a Bible Dictionary or Encyclopedia
I have a Bible dictionary and a Bible encyclopedia and in these books you can look at the different books in the Bible to see where and when a particular book was written. You can find out where the author was at the time like in the Prison Epistles where Paul was imprisoned at the time. You can also find out more about the cities or churches to which some of these books were written. For example, if you read about Ephesus you’ll find out that this city was a city that worshipped Artemis, a goddess of the ancient world, a “mother earth” deity and when Paul tried to teach about the One, True God, this caused a riot because it was cutting into the business of the local merchants who sold little idols (Acts 19:23).
Conclusion
Maybe you have better ideas than these and if so, please add them in the comment section below. Reading the Bible can keep you out of sin but also sin can keep you out of the Bible but when we neglect reading the Bible we lose a valuable resource for knowing more about the mind of God and tapping into the Word as a source of power for living the Christian faith.

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