Tuesday
Jun092009
9 Worst Bible Study Habits
Tuesday, June 9, 2009 at 07:11AM We can call ourselves Christians all we want, but without good Bible study habits, we never will be effective in the kingdom. The word "Christian" means "follower of Christ": we are to do the things that Jesus did and make the decisions He made. We can't be Christ-followers without as deep an understanding as we can get of who Christ is and why He is and what our God expects from our lives.
Before we get to good Bible study habits, let's look at 9 of the worst Bible study habits:
- Just reading or memorizing without critical thinking. Reading and memorizing the Bible are good habits, but they don't constitute study. Study is looking at what is behind the words on the page, why those words were chosen, what they mean. In my next post, I will list several aids for this.
- Reading without a plan. Just skipping around from one Bible book to another, a verse here, one there, will not provide a satisfying study experience. Later this week, I will do a post on suggested study plans.
- Getting only one viewpoint or commentary. Your pastor may be brilliant; you may have found a wonderful online study resource or a great Bible commentary book, but getting only one viewpoint--no matter how brilliant or well-intentioned--can easily lead to error. We need well-rounded study.
- Knocking God. If you are studying the Bible to find out what God did wrong, instead of what you need to do right, you might as well skip it. You'd be better off ignorant than disrespectful of your Creator.
- Thinking you have to "get it" the first time. I doubt that even the writers of the Bible thoroughly understood why the Holy Spirit was giving them the words they wrote down. Don't be so hard on yourself. Did you understand everything about biology or trigonometry the first time your teacher introduced it to you?
- Procrastination or not studying at all. This will get you nowhere.
- Confusing study with devotional time. We each need quiet time (preferably at the same time each day) with God--time to pray and to read His word, just to be with Him. This is necessary and helps to smooth the wrinkles in our lives. But quiet time is not study time. Study is very active.
- Having no specific time. Work, kids, television, the internet, church, friends--all of these (especially TV) will pull you away from time you should be studying God's word. If you don't schedule it, you won't do it.
- Not applying what you learn. This will be the subject of a later post, but let it suffice for now to say, if you're not planning to use it, what is the reason for learning what God has to say?
Reader Comments (5)
Great post as always, Diane! You've made some excellent points. Do you mind if I add one more? If we have a closed heart from bitterness, anger, unforgiveness, or whatever, we will receive nothing from God's Word until we confess those things and receive God's Word with an open heart. Thanks for these great reminders! Be blessed...Lynn
Thank you for this wonderful post--I find that "not studying" at all is the top of the list--we can find every excuse in the world and it is habit forming.
Thank you again!
Wow, Lynn! Thank you for bad habit #10. Keeping unforgiveness in our hearts is a HUGE mistake. How odd that I left that out since I am starting work on a talk about the "Unsightliness of Unforgiveness". You are a blessing to me always, Lynn.
Chaplain Andrews,
Thank you for visiting and I appreciate your comment. I am especially glad that you left your comment, because without it I wouldn't have had a trail to follow back to your blog. I so enjoyed your post about updating ourselves, and I shared the link on Twitter.
Great article. Your observation on bible study habits are really true. Thanks for sharing.