Gospel News — Jun-Aug 2012

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daydreaming while I read. Most of us start off reading the Bible without enjoying it, yet we persevere because we know that reading the holy scriptures is the right thing to do. What can we do to cultivate greater appreciation for God's written word? How can we enjoy reading it? Consider the following suggestions.

Approach your Bible reading session in a prayerful and focused frame of mind. Ask God to help you develop an eagerness to study His word. Petition Him to open your mind and heart to grasp His wisdom more fully (Psalm 119:34). Without this kind of approach, Bible study can quickly become mechanical, and you may lose the desire to continue. I sometimes read too fast and completely miss side points, and I do not even fully grasp the main ideas.

Value what you learn. Remember that understanding and apply Bible truths in your life. Therefore make a conscientious effort to find practical points and apply them. We must look for the things that help us to identify wrong attitudes and motives in ourselves. Set attainable goals for yourself. Try to search out something new about Bible characters. You can find fascinating facts about many of them by consulting insights on the scriptures, eg by Christadelphian publications. If you take men and women of the Bible as real people with personalities and feelings, they will come alive in your mind.

Look for new ways to reason about the scriptures (Acts 17:2,3). Study with that in mind. Visualise Bible accounts: "The word of God is alive" (Heb 4:12). As we read the scriptures, God's message lives in our minds by imagining what the Bible characters were seeing. Try to hear what they were hearing, and feel what they were feeling. Associate their experiences with specific circumstances in your life. Learn from the way

they handled situations. This will enhance your understanding and retention of Bible accounts. Devote time to difficult scriptures and to explanations of them, so that you understand them clearly. Allow yourself plenty of time for each study session. You may well come across very interesting questions that require extra research. Look up unfamiliar words, consider footnotes, and check cross references in the Bible. The more you understand and apply what you read, the more you will find delight in God's written word. You have to say what the Psalmist says (Ps 119:111). Develop a greater longing for God's word. The apostle Peter said, "As newborn infants form a longing for the unadulterated milk belonging to the word, that through it you may grow to salvation" (1 Peter 2:2). Babies do not have to cultivate a longing for milk. The feeling comes naturally. But the scriptures acknowledge that we do have to form a longing for God's word. If you read just one page of the Bible every day, that longing will soon come. What may at first have seemed difficult, will soon become pleasurable.

Meditate on scriptural passages. Great benefit also comes from meditating on what you read. This will help you to link together spiritual topics that you have investigated. Soon you will acquire a string of spiritual pearls of wisdom (Ps 19:14; Prov 3:3). Time well spent, sticking with good study habits, takes effort but the blessings are immeasurable. Your spiritual comprehension will then improve (Heb 5:12- 14). The degree of wisdom you acquire from the inspired scriptures bring happiness, and peace. Wisdom is found in God's word (Pro 3:13-18). With your decision to be guided by what you read in the Bible, you will experience the refreshing and stabilizing influence of God's word (Matt 24:45) and will be more positive, optimistic and spiritually orientated.