Bible Reading vs. Bible Study

 

I would hope that regardless of whether they do it or not that many Christians would agree that knowing the Bible is important to the overall health of the Christian walk.  If not, that is a whole other blog post.

I have seen and heard of a million different ways to read the Bible.  I have also heard it said by many people that the most important thing is just to get into the Bible, if even for a little bit each day.  And while I agree that something is better than nothing, it should only be the very start if you are not reading your Bible at all.

For me, there are essentially two ways to read your Bible regularly: Bible Reading verses Bible Study.  Both I think have a place in a Christian’s life each and every day and the two accomplish unique and essential roles.

Up first: Bible Reading.

To me, I define this as reading large sections, quickly. Or surface reading over depth of reading.  Some Bible reading plans would look like reading the Bible in a year or two.  They may be composed in different ways, but they essentially try to rush you through the Bible.  Some people might be able to devote several hours a day to actually dig deep into these reading plans, but most people will not.

Some of the great points about this type of reading are:

1. You read through sections or books that you might not read all that often or would not be able to read all that often with a slower reading pace.
2. Each read through, you might notice a new bit of story or knowledge that pokes out that you never realized before.
3. You might make some new connections with other areas of the Bible that you never made before.

The other foot of reading your Bible would be a Bible Study.  This is pretty much what the name implies: a depth of reading for knowledge in smaller sections verses a surface approach.  With this, you might read through a chapter in a few days or a week, essentially having a book of the Bible take a month or more.  You would go verse by verse to try to uncover everything that is meant by each verse and then how it fits in context.  Usually pared with this type of reading is a trusted commentary and concordance.  Not only that, but you would want to look more into church history, so that you can have a deeper knowledge of why it was written, when it was written, and who wrote it.  If you were reading Paul’s letter to Corinth, for example, you would want to learn more about Paul, more about Corinth at the time the letter was written, and what specific issues the church was dealing with at that time.  This would give you a deeper understanding of why he wrote specific things that he did.

I really believe that both of these types of reading have a crucial role in a Christian’s every day life of Bible reading.  The benefits from both allow you to ultimately get a deeper understanding of the Bible and will also help to keep Bible verses within context within the entire structure of the Bible.  To me, it’s kind of like the two feet of the Christian.  Could you get around on one foot?  Of course, but to be able to be sturdier you really need both feet.

I hope that you will consider making both a part of your day.  I know that life can be very busy, trust me.  The way that Mark and I have set it up is that we do our Bible Reading together, the whole Bible within two years.  We discuss or email only about 15 minutes worth of discussion on it each day.  And we only do it Monday through Friday.  Then for our Bible Study, we do that separately at times that work for us.  For this, you can set the amount of time to devote to study, but the key is to make sure that you have a quiet time that you can really focus and dig your teeth into learning.

The fear of the LORD is the beginning of knowledge; fools despise wisdom and instruction…  Blessed is the one who finds wisdom, and the one who gets understanding, for the gain from her is better than gain from silver and her profit better than gold. (Proverbs 1:7, 3:13-14)

through His grace alone!

Sarah