Digging Deep in the Word | Bible Study Methods

Happy Saturday Y'all! I hope you had a great July Fourth Weekend. We spent the weekend with some faraway friends and family and hosted our first July Fourth picnic. Despite the rain in the afternoon we had a great time, wet woods walk, and some of us braved the water and swam in the creek too.
Because of recovering after company and parties plus getting ready for my Vacation Bible School class that starts next, I am a few days late with my Digging Deep post. After some quick pdf editing I have a helpful Bible Study Method printable for you today. You can slip it in your Bible or stash it wherever you do your devotions as a reference for different ideas to spice up your quiet time.
This printable was originally from a lesson I taught it at a teen girl's Tea Party, so I tweeked it a little and I'll explain the lesson printable since it's just a rough outline because I taught the outline.

Digging Deep | Bible Study Methods Lesson Download

Bible Study Ideas Download

We have talked about how important spending daily time in the Word of God is to your life and a little of what I do during my devotions. So in this lessons I taught I talked about the importance of not just reading the Word of God but Studying it. Taking time to Dig Deep, to scrutinize, to investigate the Word of God. I don't always do this every day, because frankly life gets crazy. I oversleep, I have a lot of running to do, we have company, it's Saturday (I never get much time to do my routine on Saturday).

The verse in Matthew talks about hungering and thirsting for righteousness, and though my flesh doesn't really desire this, my mind and my spirit do. I want to hunger for more of Him. Philippians 3:10 is on of my favorite verses and truly what I want. I want to know Him, better and better each day. Knowing Him helps us be absolutely sure of who we serve, who He is, what He does for us.

Another purpose of taking time to dig and study the Word of God is to be assured of your teaching. When you go to church and hear the Bible preached, you are to rightly divide the Word, scrutinize whether what you've been told what the Bible says or what someone made up. I'm not proposing that you don't trust what your preacher says, but if something he says seems a little off-kilter, go home, research, study the Word. Our pastor tells us to do that, to take what he says and go to the Word of God and be sure it's true, because the preacher's words aren't what is important.

My suggestion is try to pencil in some time to do some Scripture study at least once a week. I've tried to list some practical suggestions, for what you may need or want during your study.

• Space

Designate a place where you are going to spend your time with the Lord. My mom always sits at the table, my husband reads some with his breakfast and then some in the recliner or in bed in the evenings. I personally love the chair in our spare room, it has a footstool, and a small table and lamp. Sometimes it is fun to change it up, sometimes I crawl back in bed, or go to the basement.

Keep distractions to a minimum in your space, it's so easy to be distracted. If you don't have it near you're less likely to be distracted. If you have younger sibling or children that are already up and noisy play some calm, quiet instrumental music, just loud enough to drown out the noise. And if you are like me everything comes to your mind when you are trying to read your Bible, so I try to keep sticky notes or a tablet to write those thoughts down so I can move on.

• Supplies

Have yourself a good King James Version Bible. I personally love my wide margin Cambridge Bible. I have a notebook I keep with my Bible to jot things that I learn in my devotion and then a separate small binder to do studies in.  Learn how to use a concordance. Also be selective in your use of Bible commentaries, sometimes false doctrine is given but it's so subtle you may start to believe it.

• Strategy

Have a game plan. Set an amount of time you can use to study. Use a variety of different study methods. The second download I've given you is a list of Bible study method ideas. Variety is the spice of a great devotional time. Change it up often.

Hopefully these ideas will get you excited to study the Word. According to 2 Timothy 2:15 our time of study gains God's approval, it make us acceptable and pleasing to Him. Just make a effort to spend time studying the Scriptures

What are some of your favorite ways to study Scripture?

Have you tried any of the ones I've listed?