Reading for Depth Over Distance

My wife and I joined a small Bible study group, and because of that I’m doing a deep study of the scriptures for the first time in far too long. I’d forgotten just how much I enjoy it and how much you can get out of it. But it takes a lot of time. I can read Colossians in 15 minutes. I can easily spend an hour studying one paragraph. What if there were a way to split the difference? What if we just spent that 15 minutes applying some of the basic principles of Bible study to that paragraph?

I’ve been trying that. The result is seeing more than I’d ever see on a quick read through the passage. It doesn’t deliver the full benefits of a deep study, but it’s so much better than just a surface read. It’s like sitting down to a hot lunch versus a quick vending machine snack.

After some experimentation, I’ve ironed out a method. Now I’m ready to share it, to show you how you can get more out of the Bible in the amount of time you already spend in it.

The idea is to apply just a few of the basic concepts of inductive Bible study to your time in the scriptures. Let's call this inductive reading.

Is this going to help you read the Bible in a year? No. At this pace, it’ll probably take at least three years. But you’ll get so much more out of it.

Materials
To do this well you’re going to need a Bible that is made to be written in. Yes, you could probably make do with any Bible, but a single-column journaling or wide margin Bible will work better. You can find a journaling Bible for every major translation. Get something you’re willing to mark up. The end result is going to be very colorful.

You also need a study Bible and a Bible in a different translation than that writing Bible. Seems simpler to use a study Bible in a different translation, but that’s not necessary. Online tools will work for this, too. (Next time I’ll make some suggestions.)

You need some pens that are good for writing in a Bible. Most aren’t. You can find “Bible marking kits” at the Christian bookstore, or you could just get a set of Pigma Micron pens.^∫ You’re going to want a pretty fine tip to mark up your Bible; I prefer 0.2mm tips. You’ll also want a pencil.

Method
How much you read on a given day is going to vary. Rather than worry about chapters, I suggest you look at pericopes [puh-rik-uh-pees], those divisions the editors of our translations add to break the text up into thought blocks. Some pericopes are longer, some are shorter, and they vary from translation to translation. If the pericope is very short, as some are in the gospels, you may go over more than one in a sitting. If it is long you may decide to break it up. If you read an entire chapter, fine; if you don’t; fine. We’re going for depth over distance.

Start in one of Paul’s short epistles — Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians, or 1Thessalonians are good places to start.

The process is to observe the text, then interpret the text, and then apply the text. There’s only one hard rule: Do not look at the notes in your study Bible until the proper time.

Day 1: Actually, the first day, don’t read the Bible text at all. Read the Introduction to the book you’re reading in your study Bible. You want to know what kind of literature this book is, who wrote it, to whom it was written, and why. Some will give you concepts or topics to watch for. Try to keep all this in mind while reading the book. Look over the outline of the book. You may want to refer back to it as you read.

Day 2: If it’s a short book, read the whole thing. If it’s longer, read the first 3-4 chapters. You just want to get a feel for how the book flows. For longer books, you’ll stop and do this again before moving on to a section you haven’t read.

Day 3 (and on):
Observation:
1. Pray. You’re going to need help on this.

2. Pick up your pen. Read the passage in your writing Bible. (Henceforth, go back and start reading from the last paragraph you read the day before. This will help you pick up on continuing ideas or connected stories.)

3. The first time through,

• In epistles, mark grammar. For example: What is the subject and object of the sentence? What tense are the verbs? Are they active or passive? What do the pronouns refer to?
• In narratives, mark narrative details. For example: Who’s speaking, time, locations.
• Mark connectors — words or phrases like “therefore,” “in the same way,” “in those days,” “after these things.”

I always use green for this step, but just pick a color and stick with it, at least for this book. I underline present tense verbs; a backward or forward arrow underlines past tense or future tense. I put a ! after imperative verbs and a p by passive verbs. I write the antecedents of pronouns over the word and circle prepositions. Things like that.

In narratives, you can circle every mention of one person, draw a box around another person, and underline a third person. Perhaps double underline locations and draw a little clock (just a circle with hands) by time references. Whatever will stand out to you.

4. Read the passage again, this time with a different pen. Mark any words that seem really important to the meaning of the passage. Also mark any word that you don’t know what it means. Mark any purpose statements (eg, in order that, so that). Number any lists you see.

Do you see the word “for”? In context, could it mean “because”? (Often it can.) If so, write “because” or “b/c” by it. Do you see the word “if”? If it’s part of a rhetorical question, you can probably think of it as “since.” Write that by it.

I like blue for this step. I put a wavy underline under words that seem key. I put a ? by words I don’t know or things I don’t understand. (These are things I’ll look up in a moment.)

5. Read the passage again, with yet another pen. Mark anything that seems emphasized. Are any words repeated? Do you see any contrasts (eg, “but now”, “not”)? Mark that. Mark questions and answers or causes and effects. Is that “if” part of a conditional statement? Mark that.

I like red for this. I mark repeated words or ideas (it’s not always the same word) with circles or boxes or underlines. I put a Q by questions, A by the answer. I use the crossed circle (like no smoking signs) for contrasts.

6. Ask questions of the passage. Use the “5 W’s” — who, what, where, when, why, and how? Get creative. Interrogate the passage. What would you like to ask the author?

Ask questions like “who is this referring to?”, “how does this work?”, “why did he say this and not that”? I write these in pencil.

The point here is to slow down as you read. As author Mark Ward says, "Exegesis is often about slowing down enough to recognize what the author is doing."

Here ends the observation part. The more you do here, the better your interpretation will be. The more you do it, the more you’ll learn to see and the faster you’ll see it. But doing it in 10-15 minutes is a short-cut. You can spend an hour doing this step. In fact, as you get better at it, you might. You can also stay in this passage all week, observing for 15 minutes a day until you feel like you’re ready to move on. Don’t feel like you have to stick to a schedule.

Interpretation:
7. Pray. This is where you actually figure out what the scriptures mean. You’ll want to ask for help.

8. Any verses with statements or words you marked that you didn’t understand, look at them in your other translation. It might be clearer there, or comparing the two may help you see what the author means.

9. Any words or statements you still don’t understand, look in your study Bible but only at the cross references. Your study Bible will have little superscript letters that let you know they’ve suggested another passage in the Bible that might shed some light on this passage. Read any cross references. Add any that are helpful to the margin of your writing Bible.

10. Look at your 5 W’s questions. Are there any that the text answers (now that you’ve gotten a better understanding in the last two steps)? If so, write the answer by it.

11. At this point you can look at the notes in your study Bible. Look at the notes for verses you still have questions about. We’re not going to the study notes for “what does this passage mean” but “what does this word mean” or “what does this sentence mean”.

If your study Bible doesn’t answer your questions, you have to decide: Does the meaning of this passage hinge on the answers to my remaining question? If so, it’s probably time to look up words in a Bible dictionary or even read a commentary. (Again, suggestions next time.) If not, you can just move on.

Write:
12. Determine what you think the main idea of this passage is. What point is the author trying to make? If it’s making an argument, what? If it’s a narrative, what is the most important point to take away from the story? Write this at the top of the pericope in your writing Bible.

Ask some more questions of the passage:
    How does this passage fit into the main idea of the book (that you read in the introduction)?
    What does this passage teach me about God/Jesus?
    What does this passage say about people?
    How does this passage fit into the overall story of the Bible?

If you find one of those (or some other) questions resonates on this passage, write out the answer.

12.5. Highlights: A lot of people like highlighting in their Bibles. They highlight verses about hope or prayer or Jesus. More power to them. If you do that in this Bible, I suggest you pick one color and reserve it for this: Highlight the verse you think best conveys the main idea of the passage.

Application:
13. Here’s where the rubber meets the road. What should I do about what I’ve read here?

Is there ...
    a command to obey?
    an example to follow?
    a warning to heed?
    a promise to claim?
    a doctrine I need to make sure I know?

If there’s a change you need to make, be specific about what you need to do, how you’re going to do it, and when you’re going to do it. “I need to love my neighbor more” is too vague to be meaningful. “I will check on old Mrs. Smith every Saturday” is nicely specific. The text is here to make us more like Jesus. Let it. Make it.

So decide what you need to do. Write it down. And then pray.

Next steps
Lather, rinse, repeat. Doing this every day, it’ll probably take you a week or two to get through one of Paul’s shorter epistles. When you finish one, move on to the next. If you miss a day or three, just pick up where you left off. There’s no schedule to keep up with. Just get back into the scriptures.

When you finish Paul’s shorter epistles, move on to the other short letters — James’, Peter’s, John’s, and Jude’s. Then try something new. Mark would be a good place to start narratives. After that, decide: Do you want to move to John or Genesis or try a longer epistle?

I would suggest saving Revelation for last. Very last. After you’ve studied the other 65 books last. Revelation is the final exam, and it will reveal how well you studied the Old Testament.

Conclusion
Does this seem like a lot of work? It’s work. But I think you’ll find that it’s really not that much when you get into it. And I think you’ll find that you get the text into you more when you do this. And when the text gets into us, it tends to make us more like Jesus. And that is worth the effort.


Image is an reproduction of a recent Bible study.
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