Imagine that at your Grandfather’s funeral you are given ten four page letters that he wrote you with advice on life. How would you go about reading the letters to really understand what your Grandpa was getting at? Would you:

1. Read one sentence per week spending two hours going over the sentence structure and debating with yourself and friends what this sentence truly means.

2. Scan all the letters looking for words that you like, money for example. Compile a list of sentences that have the word “money” in them. Spend several months debating what your Grandfather meant by what he said in those sentences, while leaving the surrounding letters largely unread.

3. Read a paragraph per night before you go to bed.

4. Carefully read through each letter over and over again until you feel you grasp what your Grandfather was trying to tell you.

I’m betting most of you would choose option d. And yet when it comes to Bible study that is the last option that is taken. For personal Bible study, option c is probably recommended the most; someone will recommend that you should read so many chapters a day for example. For group Bible study, option a or b are the most often used methods. In an option a bible study the longer it takes to go through a sentence or paragraph the more mature and deep the members are seen. In an option b bible study the more abstract the topic being discussed and the slower the pace the more mature and deep the members are seen.

But why choose a completely different method to study God’s letters to us than we would use to understand all other letters we receive? The answer is you shouldn’t. If you want to understand the gospels start reading the gospels. Finish one and go to another. When you’ve read through them all start again. If you have trouble concentrating on what you are reading try reading out loud. After all, these letters were originally meant to be heard and not read since the people to whom they were addressed couldn’t read. The same goes for Paul. Read through a letter in one sitting if possible. Then read another. When you come back to ones you’ve already read you will discover that you are seeing things you hadn’t seen before. If you can’t understand a certain section of the letter don’t panic. Make a note of the verses. Ask God to help you understand them and then move on. You might discover that a bit from another letter helps you understand.

As you read you are getting pieces of the truth that are all intertwined. The more pieces you have the more of the beautiful tapestry you can make out and the better you can understand the other pieces.

Nothing too hard or mysterious about learning the Bible is there? If you follow this method soon you will know the Bible better than you ever imagined you could.