Practical Bible Study Tips

This episode was made from the following programs:

"Don't Miss Jesus in Your Bible Reading Plan"

"Live It!"

"Receiving the Word with Meekness"

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Dannah Gresh: Do you ever open your Bible and feel a wave of paralysis wash over you? Maybe you’ve read that verse about rightly handling the Word of truth, but you’re not quite sure if you’re doing that. I mean, you just happened to open up to Leviticus today, and if you’re honest, you have no idea how that chapter on temple furnishings applies to your walk with Jesus. 

I’ve been there!

When I started studying God’s Word for myself I was, well, eight years old. That’s right! My mom got me started early. She handed me a simple daily devotional and said, “Dannah, Christians read and study their Bibles. You’re a Christian. Read and study the Bible.”

It was like she opened up a treasure trove of truth for me and told me, “It’s all yours!” I have loved my Bible since then, and being in my Bible seemed to help me feel God’s love. But, I went off to college at Cedarville University where I pursued a minor in Bible. I started hearing words like Christology, Sanctification, Orthodoxy, Common Grace, Exegetical, Inductive, Means of Grace, Covenant, and well, I honestly felt downright dumb at times!

Bible study isn’t always easy. But I’m here to tell you that you can do it. I leaned into the learning. Turning on my brain seemed to turn up the volume on God’s love for me, because I understood what I was reading even more! And, you can find a deeper, more intimate relationship with Jesus in it. I mean, don’t you love your friend, husband, children, more the more you get to know them? It's the same with God.

We’re going after practical Bible study tips today. Tips from women who’ve gone before you, women who’ve wrestled with the same questions and feelings of inadequacy. And let me tell you . . . we all have those. Every Bible-reading woman has started right where you are, but she’s come out on the other side. You will too! I’m your host, Dannah Gresh, and you’re listening to Revive Our Hearts Weekend.

To get us started with practical Bible study tip number one, our very own Portia Collins is chatting with Amy Gannett about the importance of exegesis. That’s quite a word, isn’t it? Amy is a seminary grad, and her passion is making exegetical Bible study accessible and available to anyone wanting to pursue it. Now, hang with me. Amy’s gonna start out by helping us understand what exegetical means. And I promise, it’s not as scary as it sounds.

Amy Gannett: Exegetical Bible study is I think at the heart of what all of us are really looking for when we approach God's Word. The word sounds really complicated, really overwhelming. It's a lot of syllables. But really, the meaning is incredibly simple and straightforward. Exegetical Bible study is the approach to Scripture that seeks to draw out the original meaning of the text. 

Think of a big excavator that is seeking to get to the bottom of the real thing. That is what exegetical Bible study seeks to do. 

So, the approach to Scripture really says, “God, I want to understand what Your Word is saying, not what I think it's saying, not what I want it to say when it rubs against my preferences, not just what this one Bible teacher or this Instagram or this Tik Tok-er tells me it says. I want to understand what Your Word says. I want to draw out that original meaning.” 

The opposite approach to exegetical Bible study is to read our own interpretation into Scripture, to start with our own preconceived notions and say, “You know, I think the Bible is really in favor of all of my preferences.” 

So, I'm gonna go pick and choose the verses that align with what I already think Scripture is saying. It's highlighting your Bible with a Sharpie. I don't know if you've ever heard that. You’re marking out the things that kind of make you uncomfortable. You're highlighting with a highlighter the things that already agree with you. That's the opposite. 

It's to approach God's Word and say, “What does it really say?” So, we want to excavate; we want to be the exegete of Scripture. We want to understand what it's really saying, get to the bottom of it.

Portia: Love it. Love it. Love it. Yeah, the opposite of what you're talking about is a little $10 term. I call all the big words, the fancy seminarian words, $10 terms. But eisegesis, and the reason why it stuck with me the first time is because I want to control what the Bible says. So, you are speaking my love language girl.

You are giving us the good stuff. I want to keep it going. So, tell us some tools. Let's say a woman all she's got is her Bible, and 20 minutes. Where does she start?

Amy: I think one of the best places to start, if you're less familiar with Scripture is to start with one of the gospel accounts. I love starting with Mark, because it's all about Jesus who came to be King. I mean, it's one of my favorite books in the Bible. 

So, pick a Gospel, start in the book of Mark. Then we want to take those three steps. We want to start by working verse by verse. It can be really tempting, especially in church culture today to make everything fit a theme. So, I'm going to study the book of Mark, but I'm only going to study the parables. 

Well, when we do that, we might get a really good understanding of parables. And there's a time and place for that. But we're not going to get the whole picture of what Mark is trying to communicate to us about the life, ministry, death, and resurrection of Jesus. 

And so, we want to start reading verse by verse. Start in Mark chapter one, and read verse one, and then read verse two, then read verse three. It doesn't get much simpler than that. 

I like to suggest that when people only have about 20 minutes, what about five minutes of your time be reading, just reading, see how far you get Scripture. And our English Bibles is naturally divided into—here's another $10 word—pericopes They're naturally divided into these sections. 

And so, some of them are narrative. This chapter has three stories, and you see little headers in between each story. So maybe just read one story within a chapter. Maybe it's just 10 verses, maybe it's only a couple of verses. Read that verse by verse. Then after we've read verse by verse, we want to ask good questions. We start by saying, what is this passage saying? 

So, if somebody has a notebook, we want to look for things like just bullet points:

What story is being told in Mark? 

Who are the main characters? 

Are there things I don't understand?

I was recently in my own quiet time in the book of Mark, because I love it so much. I was recently reading the story of the woman who was bleeding, who touches the hem of Jesus’ garment. The next thing we want to do after we've read it and said, "Who are the main characters?" 

We want to say, "Is there anything that I don't understand that seems cultural?"

"Is there anything in the way that the original reader of the book of Mark would have understood that I don't understand in my day and age?" 

So we're talking about a woman with a medical condition where she's hemorrhaging. But the author of Mark writes in such a way that they're like, obviously there was a woman with blood. And so clearly, she hadn't left her house. That's not obvious to me, so that clues, "I don't understand something about their original context."

So, we want to ask those good questions and then dig a little deeper. 

Portia: Yeah. 

Amy: And then the last thing we want to do is apply it rightly to our lives. So, once we've asked the questions about what am I missing? What is the cultural context? What is Mark as an author trying to do in this passage to tell us about the person of Jesus? He is trying to show us, like he does all the time in the stories of people who interact with Jesus, that Jesus came for the outcast and the outsiders. 

He is telling us a story of a woman who had a medical condition that made her an outsider to worship and an outsider to society. As Jesus is on His way to heal a little girl of an official, somebody super important in town, somebody with a lot of influence. As He is on His way, He sees it fit to heal this woman. 

So, what I want to see is that once again, Jesus brought in the outsider. He's showing all the faithful, devout Jewish worshipers that are around Him expecting their King to come in one way. His kingdom is a different kind of kingdom. He came for the oddballs. He came for the outcasts. He came for the outsiders. He didn't just come for the religious elite. 

So now that we get to application. I can ask myself hard questions. Now that I've understood this story in its original context. Now that I've executed the passage, we've read verse by verse, we've asked our good questions. Now I can apply this to my life by saying, who are the outsiders? Well, the gospel tells us time and again, it's me, which means Jesus came for me. I get to emulate the Spirit of Jesus and say, who are the outsiders in my community? Jesus came for them. And we get to welcome them into our church. 

So, I can apply that in my life by saying, we have had a homeless mother and their child visit our church several times. I don't know if anyone has gone and talked to them. In my book as a ministry leader in the local church, that's an emergency. So I can say, I'm applying this verse about the woman who was an outcast in my life by saying, “Lord, would you open an opportunity for me to minister to them and connect with them and draw them into the family of faith this Sunday?” 

So, what we've done is we've read a short passage, verse by verse, asked good questions, gotten to the heart of it, and then applied it in a way that maybe we wouldn't have expected to apply in our daily lives. But it's because we did the hard work of exegetical Bible study.

Dannah: That‘s Amy Gannett taking us to the Bible Study Schoolhouse. She’s actually founded a ministry by that name, and when you visit Study.AmyGannett.com, you’ll find some awesome resources, including a free online course for those who want to practice exegesis with Amy even more. We’ll link to that course in the transcript of today’s episode.

Well, up next, we’re gonna hear from Bible study legend, Kay Arthur. I don’t use that title lightly. Ever heard of Precept Ministries? Kay founded this international Bible study organization in 1970 and, through her leadership, Precept has published an inductive study on every single book of the Bible. Just this past May, our dear, beloved Kay went home to be with the Lord. And you know, I imagine this homegoing was just beautiful because she’d spent so much time with her heavenly Father here on earth. 

If you’ve ever wanted to look over the shoulder of a seasoned Bible studier, now’s your chance. In 2022, Kay sat down with long-time radio host, my friend Bob Lepine, and she described what the pages of her Bible look like. I think we’d be wise to take some notes . . . and maybe grab a box of colored pencils, too. You’ll see why in a moment. Let’s listen.

Bob Lepine: You've been in the Word so much over the last fifty years personally—time in the Word every day. 

Kay Arthur: Not necessarily every day, but hopefully every day!

Bob: Is that still a regular discipline in your life? Are you still getting new insight?

Kay: Oh, yes. As a matter of fact, my ambition was before I die to have every book of the Bible in a Precept course—where you observe the text, you study it, and you know what it says. Scripture interprets Scripture. It was to have every book of the Bible done in a Precept course, and we have it done! We completed it this year. You know who completed it? I didn't teach the book. Normally I teach the book, also. It was our son, David.

When I got pregnant with him, I wanted him to be a girl. He turned out to be a boy. We named him David because we wanted a man after God's own heart. And he did it. He's not riding on his mother's laurels. He is a man of God—a tender heart, but all man. He has just had a grandson. He said, "I never thought I would feel this way." To this grandson, he's passing on the Word of God—one generation to another. God will keep that going. We have to be willing to be out on the frontlines.

Bob: What does your time in the Word look like? When you sit down and open the Bible, what do you do?

Kay: When I sit down and open the Bible, usually I'm going through the Bible book by book, verse by verse, so I'm in context all the time. When I open the Word, I have my colored pencils. I had a senator. He was a believer, and he got colored pencils. He said, "I can't believe I'm carrying colored pencils around in my shirt pocket." When we went to Wimbledon, I showed him color is also masculine. As we walked through the bowels of Wimbledon and went from one court to the other court, I stopped the guys that were with us and said, "What color is that?

"Yellow."

"Good. What color is that?"

"Red."

I said, "See, they color code." So coloring is not a woman's profession or just a womanly thing. It's a wise thing because then we can see if it is yellow it is this.

So I color every reference to God in yellow because He is the light of the world and He created light. Those who follow Him don't walk in darkness. They walk in light as He is the light of life. So I have my pencils. I'm doing this not for anybody else's benefit, but I'm doing it so I have a record of it.

For instance, I just opened up to Psalm 116. It says, "I love the Lord because he hears my voice and supplications" (v. 1). Next to this, I have this written in pencil in the margin. "In my early days of Christianity, this psalm gripped my heart. It was my testimony." Now it is shared worldwide, and in the presence of all His people. God laid this psalm on my heart this morning as I was seeking Him, His direction on IMB. IMB is, some people are looking at it for a TV series. We don't know if that will happen. But anyway, it's called Israel My Beloved. It's the story of Israel in novel form according to the Word of God.

But this is it. That was 3.25.18. I have 7.16 on my mother's birthday. It's not just academics, it's life. There's another psalm in here that God gave to me. It just described what happened to me. Isn't that just neat? So it's like a diary, so to speak. It's a place of refuge. It's something you've woven or knit together so you stronger because of it. It can be a comfort to you. Also, you share it with other people. "Guess what I saw today!?" or "I'm so sorry, but you know what? I was just reading this psalm. The Psalms are there for when we are hurting and need counsel and need to be affirmed." So then we take them there.

Dannah: That was Kay Arthur on spending time in the pages of Scripture, colored pencils in hand. Now let me tell you, as someone who’s spent time around Kay and listened to her speak, she lived and breathed God’s Word. It was the make-up of her heart, and so it was what poured out. Do you want that to be your legacy, too? It can be!

You can start today by doing a little mindset shift. Instead of viewing time in God’s Word as a box to check, you can view it as a refuge, a comfort, a diary of God’s faithfulness to you. Like Kay said, “It’s not just academics; it’s life.” So don’t be afraid to mark up your Bible. Dig in. Make those pages beautiful with color-coding, underlining, notes, and prayers; let your open Bible become the most familiar place on earth to you. 

Well, we’ve talked about exegesis and we’ve talked about marking up our Bible copies, but these practical tools for Bible study won’t transform us unless we approach Scripture with the right heart. That’s why we’re wrapping up today with a word from Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth. She invites us to approach God’s Word with meekness. That’s not a word we use very often, but it’s an important one. Let’s listen.

Nancy: James 1 tells us that we are to "receive with meekness the implanted word which is able to save your souls" (v. 21). See this book? This is the Word of God, and it’s able to give us eternal salvation. It’s able to sanctify us. It’s able to cleanse us, to renew us, to transform our lives.

But it does none of that if we don’t receive it, if we resist what it says, if we don’t have a teachable and humble and open spirit to the Word of God. And we maybe haven’t willfully said, “I won’t do that.” But we’re just passing over those things. We neglect those areas of truth. We don’t receive them.

Sometimes we see something or we hear something preached from God’s Word and we think, No way. I can’t do that. That’s too hard, or I don’t want to do that. If we resist the Word of God, it doesn’t save our souls. It doesn’t change us. It doesn’t sanctify us. So we have to receive with a meek spirit the implanted Word which is able to save our souls.

To have a meek response to the Word of God, to receive God’s Word with meekness, means to have a listening ear. I love that verse in 1 Samuel 3 where Eli the priest spoke to the young man Samuel. And he said, “If he calls you,” speaking of God, “you shall say, ‘Speak Lord for your servant hears’” (v. 9).

That would be a good model for all of us to live by. It's not if He calls you, it is when He calls you. When God speaks to you through His Word . . . And every time you open this book it is God speaking, every time you open it say, "Speak, Lord, for your servant hears." Every time you hear a message at church, "Speak, Lord, for your servant hears." Every time a friend speaks from God's Word or you are in a small group Bible study or you are in your personal devotional time, "Speak, Lord, for your servant hears."

Receiving the Word with meekness means listening. We see the opposite of that repeatedly in the Old Testament where God sent prophets to warn His people, but the Scripture said they would not listen, but were stubborn.

It’s not just in the Old Testament, ladies. There are a lot of stubborn people sitting in our churches today. How often are we sitting there not listening?

Now, we may be listening with our physical ears, but we’re not listening with our hearts. This is why when I go to church on my way to church (I can’t say I do this every week, but I try to make a habit when I know I’m going to be hearing the Word of God), I try to prepare my heart by saying, “Lord, give me ears to hear.”

In that sense, it doesn’t really matter whether the pastor or the preacher or the teacher is some spectacular communicator. If they’re opening the Word of God and speaking the truth, there’s something for me to listen to. They shouldn’t have to be some great orator for me to get something out of it. It’s the Word of God that’s powerful.

Listen. Listen. Listen. That’s receiving the Word with meekness.

To receive the Word with meekness means not only to have a listening heart; it means to have a humble heart, a teachable spirit. Over the years many, many times in my own quiet time, I’ve started my quiet time by praying that prayer from Psalm 25: “Show me your ways, O LORD, teach me your paths; guide me in your truth and teach me” (v. 4 NIV). 

That’s a heart that’s saying, “Lord, show me. I need to learn. I’m coming as a student." That's why it is so important to me as a Bible teacher to come to church each Sunday and be under the preaching of the Word and letting God speak to me. When I'm preparing to teach, that I come to God's Word not as the teacher but as the student, to listen, to learn, to be taught.

To have a meek spirit is to have a responsive spirit to the Word of God, asking questions like:

How does this apply to me? (Not, who do I know that needs this message? Or, I hope the person sitting next to me or my mate or my teenager, I hope they are really paying attention.) I'm saying, "Lord, let this change me." I’m willing to make the necessary adjustments in my life to obey whatever God says from His Word.

Do you listen to the reproofs that God sends your way?

Do you listen to the Word of God?

What is your response when He sends correction through His Word, when He sends instruction?

Do you stiffen your neck in pride?

Do you just let it go like water off a duck’s back?

Or do you respond intentionally, in humility, meekness, and repentance wherever it’s needed?

Receiving the Word of God with meekness means we don’t debate. He is God. We don’t debate with God. Now we may discuss, “What does this mean?” We may wrestle with, grapple with understanding it. But once we know what it says, we don’t debate with God. He says it. He’s God. He’s Lord, and His Word reigns in our lives.

Dannah: Amen. He is God, and his Word reigns. What a wonderful closing reminder. 

As you apply today’s practical Bible study tips, would you approach the Word with meekness? Like Nancy, would you ask God for ears to hear? Opening God’s Word with a heart like this is sure to lead to transformation. 

In a world so filled with chaos, it’s challenging to make space for time with the Lord. But we just heard from several women who are doing it anyway. They’re opening their Bibles and finding rest there. Friend, so can you! This month, we’re offering a resource designed to help you. It’s the very first book Nancy ever wrote—A Place of Quiet Rest.

With a heartfelt new introduction from Nancy and a foreword by Joni Eareckson Tada, this beloved classic will inspire you to pursue Him with fresh intensity. Request your copy when you give a gift of any amount to Revive Our Hearts. You can do that by visiting ReviveOurHearts.com.

Next weekend, we’re engaging in a little spiritual warfare together as we talk about countering threats to intimacy with God. We won’t let the enemy steal the joy of fellowship with our Father! I hope you’ll come back for that conversation.

Thanks for listening today. I’m Dannah Gresh. We’ll see you next time for Revive Our Hearts Weekend.

This program is a listener-supported production of Revive Our Hearts in Niles, Michigan, calling women to freedom, fullness, and fruitfulness in Christ.
 

*Offers available only during the broadcast of the podcast season.