Chapter 1. Fifteen Minutes A Day!

As you are asking this question we will assume that you do not have much knowledge about the Bible. There are many different ways of studying the Bible and we can only offer one or two that people have found helpful. What matters is that you stick at it. Do not try to read too much at a time. It is not how much you read, but what you get from it, that matters. On the other hand do not judge its success by how much you think you have learned. A person’s brain is a wonderful thing. It takes in information and works on it even when we are not aware of it. We may think we have learned nothing but the brain will have taken something from it and even while we are not aware of it will be fitting it in to all the previous information we have learned.

I remember vividly when I was first studying Hebrew. Every time I began the next stage I found it almost hopeless. It was just too difficult. I knew that I was never going to be able to understand it. I was almost in despair. Then I would look back to the lesson three weeks before. Now that was not difficult, that was fairly easy. I was surprised how easy and elementary it was. If only the present lesson were as easy. Three weeks later it was! But by then I was in despair about a further section. (Of course there came a time when the basis was there and things became more complicated. But by then the confidence was there as well, so it did not matter quite so much). This is true of most study. It is true of the Bible. We gradually build up knowledge by reading and thinking about it, and by our subconscious turning it over and over, and while at the time it may seem difficult, our brain gradually works it out. But it will not do this if we do not read and think about it. So one important lesson is to keep at it!

I am not of course suggesting that you go on reading something that you do not understand at all. You must use your commonsense. When I first became a Christian I had no one to help me in my study. So I sat down and began to read the Gospels. I would read a section through and then go back and go through it bit by bit and think about each verse, skipping the bits I did not understand. I would talk to God about them. I got on fine. There were, of course, bits I found more difficult than others but on the whole I understood it fairly easily and it was a great blessing. Then I moved on to Acts. That was a blessing too. Then I moved on to Romans. A day or so later I was back with the Gospels. (Do not misunderstand me. Romans is a pearl among books. But to me at that time it was pearls before swine).

The thing about the Bible is that it is a book which lasts a lifetime. Some parts are more difficult than others. For some we need more help than others. For some we need more background knowledge. So we need to start with the bits we can understand. But we must not stop there. We must gradually build up to reading the more difficult bits until we have read it all. It may take many years, but the important thing is to be persistent.

So what you must do is select a method that you think you will find helpful and stick at it. (You do not, of course, only have to use one method, but the important thing is to stick at something and not to get too complicated, otherwise you will give up). Gradually as you begin to store in your mind what you learn you will begin to build up an understanding which will help you with the harder parts.

One way to go about it is to select a book and study that book. If you are a young Christian we would recommend beginning with the Gospels. There is nothing more important for us than to have a good grasp of the life and teaching of Jesus. And it is readable. Do not be afraid, to begin with, to skip over parts you are finding too difficult. But you must also determine that one day you will go back and try to understand them by using a good commentary. You can find such commentaries for example by going to http://www.oocities.org/petepartington/. What matters is that you read, think about it and take in what you can understand (and trust the old brain to do the rest).

If you are serious about this you must decide to set apart a time each day in which to read the Bible. You must plan to do it. Good intentions will soon fail. You must say to yourself, I will spend at least fifteen minutes each day reading the Bible (this should later get longer. Reading the Bible is important. And you might then begin having fifteen minutes in the morning, and fifteen minutes in the evening on a different book). And then stick to it. Count your day as a failure if you have not done it. Not everyone can say ‘I will get up at 7.00 am and read the Bible for fifteen minutes.’ But everyone can say at the start of the day, ‘when can I find my fifteen minutes every day for reading the Bible?’ Plan for it and make sure you do it. Different times will suit different people. But make it a principle never to go through a day without spending fifteen minutes reading the Bible. And if you miss one. Well, carry on the next day and determine not to miss one again. If you cannot find fifteen minutes each day for God, then God help you!

People find different approaches to this helpful, partly depending on how they find things, but our final aim must be to read the whole Bible. If after ten years you are still only reading selected bits there is something wrong. On the other hand we do not want it to become too great a burden to us or we will give up.

Methods to Consider (more than one can be used but choose one as the basic method that you will definitely use every day).

1). Take a book and read it through section by section until you have got through it. Sometimes it may be a small section because there is a lot to think about. At other times it might be a longer section because there is much you cannot understand and have to skip. But don’t worry. Think about what you do understand, while reading the whole section. Then you will feel blessed by what you have understood and you brain will be working on the rest as well. (You can skip lists of names to begin with if you want to. Later they may become interesting).

Books to choose to begin with. Mark, Luke, Matthew, John, Acts, Genesis, Exodus, Numbers, Joshua, Judges, 1 Samuel, 2 Samuel. If you can manage it have two sessions a day and read a Gospel, say, in the morning, and an Old Testament book in the evening. But the principle must be ‘AT LEAST FIFTEEN MINUTES A DAY’.

2). Study by subject. Thus you could get a concordance (a book which lists the verses in the Bible for particular words) and go through all the verses which contain the word ‘love’ and so on. Write down the ones which specially speak to you. Also see our site at Bible Help for some elementary basic studies under ‘what the Bible teaches’.

3). Obtain a systematic Bible study course. These are produced for example by Scripture Union, which provide helpful devotional study and a lesson for every day with comment. Make sure that the people you obtain it from believe the Apostles’ Creed.

4). As people advance they sometime find it helpful to split the Bible into 5 or 7 parts (e.g. Genesis to Deuteronomy; Joshua to Esther; Job to Songs of Solomon; Isaiah to Daniel; Hosea to Malachi; The Gospels and Acts; Romans to Revelation - or combine Joshua to Songs of Solomon; Isaiah to Malachi) and read a chapter through from each part every day. The idea is not to study it in depth but to read it through once and leave it to sink into the mind. This is a good idea as long as it is used on top of more detailed study at least once a day. This is not to replace your ‘fifteen minutes’.

As you read the Bible you may find some things puzzling. You have to use your commonsense. Not everything can be taken literally, because it was not meant to be taken like that. When Jesus told men that if they sinned with their hand they should cut it off and cast it from them (a personal act, later misinterpreted by Islam), He did not mean it literally. What He meant was that you should treat the sin seriously and make a great effort to ensure that you do not sin in that way again. That you should take firm action against sin. Jesus regularly taught by exaggeration so as to make the lesson vivid. What we must do is ask ourselves what He means.

A good practise to begin with is to take the words literally unless it is clear that they are not intended to be taken literally. Remember from this point of view that the Bible does not contradict itself. Gradually, as you understand the Bible more, things will begin to fit together. But we can only take one step at a time. So do not let difficulties upset you. You can always leave them to be solved later. Remember that there are people who have studied the Bible in depth for fifty years and more (and yet they are still learning), and they are satisfied that there are no ‘contradictions’ that cannot be explained once we have all the facts. So keep at it and recognise that all will become clear eventually.

Chapter 2. Putting In The Effort.

Well, hopefully you have decided to spend 15 minutes a day on reading the Bible. But if you want to benefit from it you must put in some effort.

Firstly we would suggest that you pray to God each time before you read and ask Him to help you to understand it and speak to you through it. And with regard to this we find it a good idea to then read prayerfully and actually talk to God aloud about what you find there as you read it. (This requires a place of privacy for you should not annoy other people). You will be surprised how real and personal this makes it.

The next thing we would suggest is that you make sure that you have a pen and paper with you. Now write down any lesson that you have learned. This is important. It helps to concentrate the mind and means that you have to think about it in order to write something down.

There are certain questions you might ask yourself. For example:

• 1). What does this passage teach me about God?
• 2). What does this passage teach me about Jesus Christ?
• 3). What does this passage teach me about how I should live my life?
• 4). What does this passage teach me about my attitude to other people?
• 5). How does this passage fit in with what I have previously read?
• 6). Is there a particular emphasis in this passage on some particular truth?
• 7). What is there in the passage for which I should praise and thank God?