Easiest Books of the Bible to Read in a Bible Study for Teenagers
How to study the Bible for beginners - tips & ideas for beginners and experienced Christians. We are non taught in church how to read the Bible, but studying the Bible is an essential activity of Christianity. Information technology is easy to acquire to study the Bible with these 10 practical tips.
I received an email terminal week from a sugariness mom of 5 (five!) boys. She is a new believer, and she is trying to observe ways to fit her walk with Jesus around her already decorated life.
I responded to that email and told Amanda that I understood a niggling of her dilemma (although not all of it because I accept only 2 rowdy girls and that is not even close to 5 rowdy boys), and hopefully I could help her to effigy it out.
I remember being a new believer. I was introduced to the Bible every bit a kid, simply I never read or studied any of it until I came back to the church building equally an adult. Information technology was not all that long ago that I opened at The Word, knowing I was supposed to read and report it, but not having a clue what read and studyreally meant.
I was intimidated by the Bible and, if I'1000 being totally honest, completely overwhelmed by it. I had a King James Bible, and it didn't make any sense to me at all!
If y'all are there, my friend, read on. Even if you have been a believer for years and years, if yous don't have a strong Bible study habit, this post is for you, as well.
thirteen Tips for Studying the Bible For Beginners or Experienced Believers
- Go the right Bible translation. I have simply ever met one person who preferred the King James Bible over all others. Information technology is hard to read and most of it doesn't make sense to modern English speakers. Permit'due south only become that right out in the open. Well-nigh churches that I've been to use the NIV, and that is a sound and solid translation that is well respected. I've heard that the ESV is considered the nearly accurate translation according to the aboriginal languages, merely I personally prefer the NLT. Some people really similar The Message. The NLT and The Message are paraphrased translations which mean they weren't translated word for give-and-take which makes them both slightly less authentic but likewise worlds more readable. The ICB (International Children'due south Bible) translation is another paraphrased translation that removes some of the wordiness of the text and uses clear, concrete language intended for children but helpful for adults too.
Yous can get to Bible.com to read many different translations of the same verse or verses and get a experience for which you adopt. My betoken in telling you all this is that there are dozens of translations, and they vary widely, but they are ALL adept and valid ways to read and study the Bible. - Go the right Bible. I personally really like this illustrated NLT study Bible, but I've as well included an array of Bibles that I have and recommend at the bottom of this postal service. (Full disclosure: I may take a problem with buying Bibles. A girl can never accept too many, right?) Cull a translation that yous like, one that makes sense to you, and buy a paper Bible in that translation.
I am a digital girl for most things, but I like to read the Bible in paper. Somehow, it makes more sense to me when I can read, highlight, and write in the margins. I like to be able to put dates side by side to the verses that I've studied so that the next time I am led to those same passages, I tin look back and remember what I learned the last time. - Don't be agape to write in your Bible. I've dabbled in Bible journaling over the years, and that involves coloring in the Bible and sometimes over top of the text. (I have a special Bible just for that and don't exercise it in my normal study Bible.) Only even if you don't go that far, writing notes and dates in your Bible is important for consistent Bible report. Another important act is highlighting or underlining in your Bible. (Here's a good Bible highlighter that won't bleed through the pages.) You lot need a way to marking passages that were important to you. After reading The Circle Maker, I too started circling God'due south promises in my Bible and writing the dates on which I noticed them.
- Start small. The first time I ever really read the Bible, I signed upward for a Bible in ninety Days challenge. I'chiliad not even kidding. I jumped in with both anxiety and read the Bible for 2 hours a day at first, then I petered out somewhere around First or Second Chronicles. I'm amazed that I got every bit far equally I did for every bit much work as it was. Don't exist like me. Start with a goal to read the Bible one affiliate a day or for 10 minutes a solar day. Once that becomes a addiction, you can always up your game if you're able or residual comfortably knowing you lot're doing what you can. Simply if you get-go with an overly ambitious goal and don't striking information technology a few times, you lot more than likely will give up.
- Schedule Bible study. What you plan to do, you lot do. What you wish y'all'll practice, you never get around to doing. Accept you ever noticed that? Schedule a fourth dimension to do your Bible reading and studying, and then anchor that time to something y'all already do. For me, I read and study the Bible later I write in my journal. I exercise both of these things right before I showtime piece of work in the forenoon, at my desk in my domicile office. I like starting my day with the Bible, simply when I was a instructor, I ofttimes ended my day with the Bible. It doesn't matter whenyous practise it, onlythatyou practice information technology. The anchoring step is important here. It'south hard to go your encephalon to establish a new habit without an ballast. The anchor is like a trigger that reminds your conscious brain that it's supposed to do something. So perhaps your anchor could be that you study the Bible right afterwards breakfast or later on lunch or right before yous shower or whatever. Only choose something that you e'er do and make a betoken to always report the Bible forth with that other thing.
- Get your stuff together. This is a big beginner fault. Whenever you've decided to exercise your Bible study, yous probable volition not do information technology unless all your materials are in the aforementioned place at the same time. And then get it all together and put it in the identify where yous'll study. Make sure yous take your Bible, a pen or pencil, your devotional or Kindle, and anything else you lot think y'all might need, all sitting in your spot, fix to go.
- Pray before studying. In my Bible written report, A Grateful Eye, I accept listed out a prayer every mean solar day before the study begins. I pray this same prayer every single time I sit down downward to study the Bible, and you lot are welcome to use it too. I wrote it some years ago, and it makes sense to me. I ask God to bring together me in the study and to open up my heart and my optics to the bulletin He has for me. Information technology is a pocket-sized thing, only I remember it makes a difference.
There's also a really nice prayer in Jen Hatmaker'due south book called A Modernistic Daughter's Guide to Bible Report. I wrote information technology in the offset of my journaling Bible, just it is a lot longer and I oftentimes forget about it. And then I just pray the prayer to a higher place which I have memorized. - Avoid rules. Christianity is not about rules, no matter what some people say. Beingness a Christian, a follower of Jesus Christ, is about having a personal relationship with Him. Yep, He calls the states to read and study His Give-and-take. That is truthful. Only He does non say "Thou shalt read iii chapters of the Bible per 24-hour interval." Doesn't that sound ridiculous? I said above that you should get-go small-scale, and I totally mean that. If you can only manage to read 1 verse a day, then read one poesy. It was one more than verse than y'all read yesterday, right? It counts.
In A Grateful Heart (sample page pictured above), I advise a passage to read, ever a affiliate or less, and a poesy or 2 to write. I'll get to writing more below, so agree on to that, just the reading is e'er relatively brusque. I retrieve that's important. We are busy people, and we don't have time to sit and read our Bibles for 30 or 40 minutes a day. It would be prissy if we did, but we don't. We tin can manage whatever we can manage, and that is good enough. Don't allow yourself get trapped in what you should accept done and then that you fail to do what you could take done. - Write scripture. As a old high school teacher with a Master'due south degree in didactics, I can tell you all nigh the inquiry showing that handwriting helps you to retain information infinitely more than reading it alone, but the inquiry would probably be boring as heck. Instead, let'south leave it at that. Writing matters. Make information technology a habit to handwrite whatever verse or verses y'all choose to focus on each twenty-four hours. (Not necessarily the entire passage you read, merely just a poesy or ii that stuck out to yous and felt significant.) Continue a journal for this purpose considering that volition assist yous to look dorsum and see what yous were thinking most at dissimilar times. Information technology will exist a record of your walk with The Lord.
- Consider a daily devotional. A devotional is a drove of brusque, Bible-focused passages that you lot can read to get a bite-sized slice of the Bible to think about as you lot go through your day. Most of the time, they include a scripture reference and short (a paragraph upwardly to a couple of pages) reading so a prayer. Yous can use A Grateful Heart as a daily devotional for the two weeks of the study, and I highly recommend that. The daily lessons tie back to the reading passages and requite you a place to springboard into your own study. After you've finished A Grateful Heart, you may like to move on to Jesus Calling or Jesus Always, two of my favorites. I read both every day to see which resonates and spurs me on to further written report, and they both minister to my heart in dissimilar ways. If yous'd like more than suggestions for great devotionals, I have included a bunch that I've personally used in my Amazon shop.
So at present that you've got a Bible and a devotional, and you lot're all set to go. What's next?
Or, you've finished A Grateful Eye. What'southward side by side?
A large mistake that beginners often make is to simply open the Bible to a random page and put their fingers down on a random verse and start reading. They don't know what else to do. (Delight tell me I'm not the only person who tried that aimless method at least once before.) Only that is not a adept method.
What follows are three additional methods to choose a passage that you can employ to read and learn scripture.
- Choose a theme. I have published more than than a dozen topical Bible verses lists on everything from thwarting to anger to loneliness to joy to miracles to grace. If you poke effectually in the Bible study section of the blog, you will notice them. Another nifty resource for these topical lists is my Printables Vault where you tin find every Bible study printable I've ever published, including all the topical lists and A Grateful Heart. (They are all included in one price for the vault.) Wherever you choose to go your list of verses, the key to studying thematically is to choose 1 verse per mean solar day, starting at the top. Expect upwards the verse and read the verses before and after it to go a solid idea of what the whole passage is saying. What message does God have for yous in these words? Write the verse or verses that are meaningful to you in your periodical, on paper with a nice pen. Pray over them and ask God to open your eyes to His message. Write the appointment in the margin and try ane of the Bible study methods here to explore the poetry or passage.
- Cull a book. I love the book of Philippians and also the Gospels (Matthew, Marker, Luke, and John). They are easy books to read, especially for beginners, and they pack a powerful punch. Nearly every poesy in each is important and personally meaningful. All five are in the New Attestation which is the part of the Bible about Jesus, and the Gospels are the books about his life from birth to death and across. The New Attestation (for the nearly part) is much easier to read than the Erstwhile Testament, and I take always enjoyed it more (except for Genesis which is my favorite book). Start in the New Attestation and select a book to read. If you're using a study Bible, it will have resource at the beginning of each chapter that will help you to understand who wrote the chapter, when, and why. Then you can move on to actually reading the verses a piffling at a fourth dimension.
- Offset at the beginning. At one point, I purchased a chronological study Bible and intended to read through the Bible from the commencement to the end in chronological guild. (The Bible is not written in chrono order so this involves a fair amount of shaking things up.) I got about a third into it and petered out in my daily commitment (about as far as I did that time of the Bible in xc Days), but I picked it upward not long ago and restarted. Starting at the beginning is overnice in a way considering you lot start out with a bang: Genesis is 1 of the most interesting and action-packed books of the entire Bible. But so you motion into the laws of Moses and all the sacrifices and whatnot of Leviticus, and all that tin exist difficult to plow through. If you decide to offset at the first and observe your mind wandering and delivery waning every bit you get through those laws and procedures and sacrifices, feel complimentary to change it up and read something else. Remember, there are no rules, right? This is probably my least favorite way to study the Bible, simply because of those chapters near the beginning that are so hard for me.
And at present that you've chosen a passage to study, there are many unlike means to actually report the text. Here's a post explaining 13 dissimilar Bible study methods you tin can use.
Bible study is piece of cake and very rewarding, merely it tin can be confusing and overwhelming and intimidating for beginners. I hope the methods and tips above will assistance you lot to get a clearer picture of what to practise and how to report the Bible. You tin do information technology!
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Easiest Books of the Bible to Read in a Bible Study for Teenagers
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