Why Study the Bible?

In my family, there has been a great diversity of faiths, but when I was going through my personal crises, I did not want to hear from my favorite TV or radio pastor or family or friends; I didn’t want to hear from anyone else but God.

I was Christian long enough to know that if I truly wanted to hear from God, then I had to read the book through which He is speaking to the whole of humanity, for all time. And of course, my first response was “the Bible is hard to understand!” And this was the first of my misconceptions to be proven false.

Why would anyone who has a burning message to convey to a loved-one or friend, purposely try to make the message hard to understand? It’s not logical. Quite to the contrary, this person would try to make that message more understandable. How might this be done? Maybe that person would tell a parable – a story with characters and situations with which the hearer is familiar, and that teaches a lesson.

That first journey through the Bible took me 6 years, but what a journey it was! Now, when I hear someone say, “the Bible is hard to understand!”, I think, “That sounds like a person who hasn’t read the Bible!” It was on this first journey that I learned:

1. God wrote this word for me;
2. God wrote this word for every human being walking this earth, whether illiterate or in possession of a PhD in Christianity;
3. God wants us to know Him. And, I want to know Him.
4. When you study the Bible, you will discover God’s heart toward you, but also, your own place in the world.

My Approach to Bible Study

God encouraged me to get started reading and ask questions about anything I don’t understand, and He told me to start with His covenants – which neatly placed me in Genesis. As mentioned before, it took 6 years to get from Genesis to Revelation the first time.

Years later, I was reading an article on Socrates – “father of western philosophy” – and the technique he used to try to understand the world around him, he asked questions, sometimes to the annoyance of the ones being queried. This technique sounded very much like the conversations God and I would have over particular ideas, points, and events in scripture. I came to understand and know things I never even considered or knew before, and I was in NO way a Bible scholar! If just reading and asking God for understanding helped me, how much more any other average Joe, or Joanne, who has an interest in knowing God?

I set out from that point to share what I’ve learned and how I’ve learned it with others, hopefully, encouraging everyone I meet to open the word of God. It is so empowering!

I have come to understand:

1. I am a precious child of God – a princess while I’m learning, and a queen when I come into a full knowledge of God and who I am in Him;
2. I was created to be a mighty woman of God.

I have come to know and understand, that when God looked at us at creation, He said “This is good!”