Most of us are creatures of habit. It’s easy to find a routine that we like, and then stick to it. But when it comes to Bible study, it can be really helpful to mix up our routine every now and then.

There’s lots of different Bible study methods we could use. One of the most basic is the verse-by-verse study, where we slowly move through a paragraph, examining each phrase, paying close attention to each conjunction so see how each phrase relates to others, and figuring out what each sentence means in part of the larger unit.

Similar to the verse-by-verse study is a chapter-by-chapter, or “big picture” study. Instead of closely examining each individual phrase, we could read through an entire book, paying attention to the overall flow of the book, structure, and repeated themes.

There’s also topical studies, where we pick out a particular topic and pay attention to everything written on that topic throughout the whole Bible. For example, if we wanted to study baptism, we might start by flipping through the Old Testament, paying attention to every time that God saved people through water. Then we might look up all the examples of baptism and compare them to each other. Then we might look up everything that is written about the significance and meaning of baptism.

There’s also character studies, where we focus on a single character, and look up every passage where he or she appears, with the goal of building a profile about what that person was like. What kind of situations did they face? How did they respond? How did they grow? What led to their downfall? etc.

There’s other study methods out there as well. Take some time and ask some of your Christian friends what study methods they use. You might try their approach. Mixing up our study methods challenges our thinking. Try it. You might learn something new.

Besides your Bible, there is no more important Bible study tool than a pen and a notebook.

What should the pen be used for? Practically anything you want. That’s the beauty of it. If you have a thought from the text, write it down. If you have a question about the text, write it down. If you want to sketch out an outline of the text, do it. If you simply want to make note of a key word, write it down. If you are having a hard time focusing, use your pen to list your distractions. If you want to rephrase a scripture if your own words, do it. If you want to write down all the possible interpretations of a text, do it. If you think of a tentative conclusion to a question, write it out, along with the supporting ideas that led you to that conclusion. And later, if you decide your conclusion is not a very strong one, just scribble it out. Draw arrows, symbols, circles, squares, or anything else that helps you capture your thoughts. Even if you choose not to write anything at all, always study with a pen in hand and a notebook near by. That way if you have a passing thought you want to capture, you will have the ability to do so.

To put pen to paper is to think. The process of figuring out what to write down requires observation, reflection, and analysis, even if on a very simple, almost subconscious level. But it is impossible to choose what to put on paper without thinking. It’s really that simple.

Unlike typing on a computer, when you are using a pen and paper, formatting is never an issue. Is your handwriting messy? Who cares? You aren’t writing for anybody for yourself.

Sometimes you will sit down to study, but a distraction happens. But if you are in the habit of writing down your thoughts, it can be easy to pick up right where you left off without losing your train of thought. You may not ever reference your notes again, but then again, you might.

Always study with a pen in hand.

I don’t have the time to watch movies like I used to. Most nights, I only have 15 or 20 minutes after the kids go to sleep to sit down and watch TV. That means that if I want to watch a movie, I can only watch a few scenes at a time. It usually takes me about a week to watch a full movie. It’s kind of annoying. Movies were designed to be watched in one sitting without interruption. If I ever have time to watch a movie in one sitting, it’s a treat.

The books of the Bible are the same way. When the churches in Galatia first received their letter from Paul, they didn’t say “Okay, this week we’re going to read and discuss chapter 1, and then next week we will read and discuss chapter 2, and so on until we finish the book.” No, they had the letter read to them from beginning to end. (The Bible wasn’t even divided into chapters and verses until the 1400’s!)

When we read books from beginning to end, it will be less likely that we will take a verse out of context. We will hear the entire flow of the author’s presentation. We will take in the text the way the author intended for us to take in the text. We will be more likely to hear what the author was saying to the original audience of his day. It’s not just the epistles where this practice helps. The books of the law, the books of history, wisdom literature, the prophets, the gospels, and Revelation all have a different feel to them when you read them straight through from beginning to end.

Try it. Read a book straight through. Do it in one sitting if possible. For those longer books, try to do it in just two or three sittings. The first time you do it, I guarantee you will notice things from the text you have never noticed before.

“Study” is a verb. It is an action. It takes effort. It takes work. It takes intentionality. It takes focus. Sometimes it should make your brain feel tired.

If you’ve ever been to college, you probably know what real “study” is. When I was in high school, the subject material was so easy, I could grasp it by simply showing up and taking the test. But when I got to college, I had to put in some work. I had to spend time intentionally learning the material. I had to spend time memorizing, asking questions, and really trying to grasp the concept I was studying. “Study” is a verb. It takes work.

Think about most group Bible “studies” (i.e. Bible classes) you have attended. How often can we really call those classes Bible “study”? In many instances, the only real “study” in Bible classes is being done by the one who has prepared the lesson, while the rest are passive listeners. And in some instances, when the Bible class teacher lazily shows up and just sort of “wings it”, Bible “studies” can become little more than conversations loosely revolving around the Bible (that it, a “pooling of ignorance”).

Don’t misunderstand me. I love listening to Bible class teachers share what they have studied. I’m 100% in favor of Bible classes. I’m even okay with just sitting around in a room and casually talking about the Bible. But let’s not call it Bible study unless we’re actually putting in the work to learn our Bibles better.

Dedicate some time. Ask questions. Research. Memorize. Consult resources. Consider different points of view. Think. Don’t just passively take in the Bible study of others. Study your Bible.

Every now and then I’ll hear someone make a comment such as “at our church, we don’t overthink things. We don’t get bogged down in trying to dissect every scripture. We just focus on loving God and loving our neighbors. Read the red words, and listen to Jesus’s overall message, and you’ll be better off for it.”

Comments like that give me mixed feelings. There’s so much to appreciate in a statement like that. Yes, focus on loving God and loving neighbor. Those are, according to Jesus, the two greatest commands (Mt. 22:35-40). In 1 Corinthians 13:2, Paul said, “If I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing.” I don’t think it’s too much of a stretch to apply the same principle to Bible study. Even if we grow to be experts in Bible knowledge, and can answer all the difficult questions about doctrine with skillful precision, but we don’t love God and don’t love others, all that Bible study is worthless.

And yes, one principle of good Bible study is to never loose sight of the big picture message (that was Bible Study Tip #13). And yes, ultimately all of Scripture points to Jesus, so the words written in red are of utmost importance. So yes, there is so much to appreciate in a statement like that.

What bothers me is the suggestion that clear thinking and attention to detail is somehow antithetical to love. Is it not possible to meditate on God’s word and be loving while we do it? Is it not possible to ask hard Bible questions without being a jerk about it? If we really love God, shouldn’t that drive us to make sure we are understanding and applying His words correctly? Is it not possible to pray attention to the details of God’s word without losing sight of the big picture message? Is it not possible that our assumptions about the big picture message could actually end up skewed if we don’t pay close attention to the details?

It is not a spiritual flaw to seek precise answers to hard questions. You don’t need to repent if you’re not satisfied with someone else’s explanation of a passage. Dampening our neighbor’s desire to understand scripture better by suggesting that they aren’t being a good disciple by asking hard questions isn’t part of loving our neighbor. Clear thinking is not antithetical to love.

There were multiple times in college when I would pray before taking an important exam. I would ask God to help me to do my best, and, if it be His will, for me to get a good grade. But I still studied.

Don’t misunderstand me. I believe that God answers prayers. I believe that God is powerful enough to providentially guide someone to select a correct answer now and then, if that’s what He decided to do. But if I had attempted to go through college without ever studying, and only praying before every exam, I’m pretty sure that God would have answered my request for a good grade with a big no.

It’s the same in Bible study. All too often people want to understand the Bible without putting in the time it takes to really think through what they are reading. And so they pray that God will guide them to a correct understanding of the Bible, and then trust that whatever impressions they draw from scripture must be correct, all because they prayed about it. There’s an unfounded assumption that the Holy Spirit will simply pick up the slack for us when we don’t study.

Now, we could do a careful study about John 16:13 to show that Jesus wasn’t discussing personal Bible study, but rather was addressing his apostles about how the Holy Spirit would lead them into all truth. But for the moment, let’s leave that discussion aside. Because even if God answers prayers for a better understanding of the Scripture, we are still warned “do not believe every spirit, but test to spirits to see whether they are from God” (1 John 4.1). We’re supposed to closely examine our ideas, and not simply assume they are from God.

I don’t see any reason to believe that God is in the habit of giving Christians a miraculous download of knowledge without them putting in the work. If God is going to answer our prayers for a better understanding of Scripture, He’s going to use the informational content that we’ve put into our minds.

It’s a good thing to pray while you study (see Psalm 119). But the Holy Spirit is a poor excuse to be lazy when it comes to studying Scriptures which are inspired by the Holy Spirit.

Sometimes the Bible doesn’t give us many details. Think about Melchizedek. We know almost nothing about the guy. We don’t know anything about his family. We don’t know how he became a priest of the Most High. We don’t know hardly anything about his reign as king. Very often, the Bible doesn’t tell us everything we want to know. But when the Bible does give details, pay close attention.

The fact that Melchizedek’s genealogy isn’t mentioned might at first seem quite insignificant. But that tiny detail was very significant to the author of Hebrews (Heb. 7:3).

There’s other times when tiny details in the text actually end up being very significant. When Jesus confronted the Sadducees about the resurrection (Mt. 22:32), He based His argument on something as simple as a verb tense. In Exodus 3:6, the LORD says “I am the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.” He didn’t say “I was the God of Abraham…”. The fact that God spoke in present tense implies that He is still Abraham’s God, even though Abraham is dead, which implies that there will be a resurrection of the dead. It’s a tiny detail, with huge implications.

In Matthew 22:44-45, Jesus bases an argument over something as seemingly insignificant as David addressing Psalm 110 to his “lord”. It’s a tiny detail, with huge implications.

In Galatians 3:16, Paul develops an argument based on the fact that God made a promise to Abraham’s “offspring”, rather than to Abraham’s “offsprings.” It’s a tiny detail, with huge implications.

Yes, it is critically important to understand the gist of what is being said in Scripture. But it’s not just the main idea that matters. When God spoke through prophets, He put specific words in their mouths (Jer. 1:8, “Behold, I have put my words in your mouth.”).

In 2 Timothy 3:16 it says that all Scripture is “breathed out by God”. Notice it doesn’t say that God simply breathed into already existing words. He breathed out the words themselves. Although the process of inspiration was very earthly, using human writers, who wrote to human audiences, in response to very earthly situations, the end result is the same. All Scripture came into existence as human authors were carried along by the Holy Spirit (2 Pet. 1:21).

Every word of Scripture was breathed out by God. When the Bible includes details, pay attention. Tiny details can have huge implications.

We’ve all seen photo mosaics before. If you zoom in close, you can see lots of little pictures, each with their own little details. But if you stay zoomed in, you can’t make sense of the big picture. If you step back, you can see how all those little pictures fit together into one big picture.

The Bible is the same way. Sure, it can be enjoyable to pick out a random Bible verse or story we like, and we can admire the little details. But if we’re only looking at the tiny pictures, it can make it really difficult to figured out how to use some parts of the Bible.

Sure, some verses are good to highlight and put on refrigerator magnets. But what about those verses in Leviticus that describe how different bodily fluids can make a person unclean? Those verses don’t make good magnets. Sure, some Bible stories make really good children’s books. But what about the story where Simeon and Levi murder a whole village of men who were sore from being circumcised? When is the last time you attended a Shechem-themed VBS? Yes, there is value in studying Bible stories up close on their own, or on meditating on a particular verse. But to really make sense of the whole Bible, we have to take a big step back.

Think about Jesus’ conversation with his disciples when He first appeared to them after his resurrection (Luke 24:36-49). As Jesus tried to explain what what had just happened, He said, “Thus it is written, that Christ should suffer and on the third day rise from the dead, and that repentance and forgiveness of sins should be proclaimed in his name to all nations beginning at Jerusalem” (vs. 46-47).

What Scripture was Jesus quoting? Where was it written in the Old Testament that the Messiah was to suffer and rise from the dead, and that repentance and forgiveness of sins should be proclaimed in his name to all nations? Absolutely nowhere in particular. There’s not a single Old Testament Scripture that says that. At least not until we take a big step back and look at the big picture story. Once we look at the big picture, we can see that the death and resurrection of the Messiah, and the necessity of preaching repentance and forgiveness of sins to all nations, is written everywhere!

Jesus wasn’t making up an imaginary scripture. He was in the habit of thinking about the big picture story. We should develop that same habit.

There are some people who tend to avoid hard questions in their Bible study. They think they have it all down. That’s not a healthy approach to Bible study.

But there’s also some who thrive on hard questions. Take some time to read some scholarly books about the Bible, and you’ll see what I mean. Often times scholars love to raise different, often overlooked, questions. They very frequently remind others that maybe they don’t have things down as firmly as they think they do. They love reminding others that there’s more to think about.

Scholarship isn’t a bad thing. Sometimes we might not have as firm of an understanding of a subject as we think we do. Sometimes we need to be reminded of those hard questions. Sometimes we need to be challenged to think through our positions a little more thoroughly. Sometimes we might even hold incorrect positions, and through the process of considering someone’s questions and objections, we end up exchanging error for truth in our own understanding. Go ahead. Ask the hard questions. Wrestle with scripture. The process of wrestling with questions can actually be a really enjoyable process. But we also need to remember that questions are not conclusions. We should seek to draw conclusions when we study Scripture, especially when it comes to critical points of doctrine. Yes, it is true that the Bible is clearer in some places than it is in others. But if your Bible study always ends with open ended questions and uncertainty, that’s not a healthy approach to Bible study either.

It is important to draw conclusions so that we can have a framework to make decisions. We are not supposed to be “double-minded” and “unstable” people who are continually filled with doubt (Jas. 1:5-8). Meditating on God’s word is supposed to leave us grounded like a tree planted by rives of water (Ps. 1). No, we may not always feel like we have a perfect answer for every questions all the time, but if Scripture is profitable to teaching, reproof, and correction (2 Tim. 3:16-17), this implies that we should be drawing conclusions about how Scripture should impact our lives. As we mature as Christians, we are supposed to develop “discernment” (Heb. 5:14; Phil. 1:9-11) to draw wise conclusions.

At some point we have to land the plane in Bible study, even when we know that the plane will eventually have to take off again. You can draw conclusions, and still remain humble about the limits of your knowledge. It’s okay to draw tentative conclusions, and then allow yourself to revisit an issue at a later time. But at some point we have to draw conclusions.

“What if someone asks me a question and I don’t know the answer?” This is a very common concern for people when they are asked to teach a Bible class or lead a personal Bible study for the very first time. But it’s not just first time Bible teachers who have a hard time admitting “I don’t know.” Sometimes experienced teachers, preachers, elders, and deacons have unique struggle with this as well. People often presume that we have it all nailed down. We don’t. It’s not always easy to sound uncertain in front of people, but sometimes it’s the truth. Sometimes we’re just not certain. It happens with every one of us non-omniscient beings.

But the truth is, even if we put up a front of confidence, I don’t think we’re fooling anyone. None of us have all the answers all the time, and we all know it. It’s okay to give it your best shot at giving the right answer right now, and then say “but I’m not positive. I’ll keep studying and get back to you.” People tend to respect those who are humble and honest enough to admit that they don’t know it all.

Psalm 1 describes the ideal Bible student as someone who meditates on God’s law day and night. The Bible is not a book that is designed to be perfectly grasped on the first (or even the hundred and first) reading. It is a book that is designed to be meditated on throughout a lifetime. There’s always more we can learn.

Embrace your ignorance. If you remain humble, continue to ask hard questions, continue to absorb information, continue to grow more familiar with scripture, and continue remain submissive to God’s word, you will continue grow. You will change your mind from time to time. You will grow more nuanced in your understandings of certain topics. You will grow more firmly convinced of others. Don’t be discouraged by your lack of omniscience. Just keep studying.