How do you read the Bible?

A Short Saturday Question

How do you read the Bible?

It’s massive and despite its awesomeness, sometimes, its hard to find a way into it. I thought it might be cool to share the different ways we’re all engaging with the big black book today.

I’ll go first. Right now I’m reading through the whole thing. I’m using the book “Your Daily Walk” as a loose framework. It walks you through the whole Bible in a year, but to be honest with you, I’m on January 18th so I’m a little behind. Part of the problem with trying to read the Bible in a year is that you speed by so many layers of ideas when you go quickly. So I go slow.

And one of the things I’m doing right now is highlighting areas where I feel like God is showing His love for us. For most of my life I thought that He at best tolerated me and was an angry, loved to punish kind of God. So now, whenever I come across something that seems loving I underline it and write “God is love” beside it.

For instance, in Genesis 6 when God gives Noah the detailed directions for building the ark I wrote “God is love” next to that because I realized you only really give detailed directions to people you love. If some stranger pulls over on the side of the road and asks me how to get to the highway, I go high level and say, “Yeah, it’s two miles ahead. Look for the gas station on the left. You can’t miss it.” If my wife or sister needed directions somewhere though I would draw a map. I would be detailed and careful and deliberate, because I love them. And that’s what God did with Noah, giving him detailed directions on how to build the ark.

This is silly, but when I do find an example of God being loving, I don’t write out the word “love,” I draw a red heart so that I can find it again when flipping pages. I know that’s a very Hello Kitty thing of me to do but there it is. I want to flip my Bible open in a few years after I’m done with this exercise and see it explode with red. I’m a dork. Noted.

But how are you reading the Bible?

Any tricks or tips or ideas you’ve found helpful?

Let’s talk.