This Book of the Law shall not depart from your mouth, but you shall meditate on it day and night, so that you may be careful to do according to all that is written in it. For then you will make your way prosperous, and then you will have good success. ~ Joshua 1:8

Do you read the Bible daily? Do you meditate on God’s Word? How much time do you spend studying the Word of God? Five minutes? Ten minutes? An hour?

No, it’s not a contest or a race. And there is no magical “right” number of minutes to spend reading the Bible.

But there is a big difference between simply reading the Bible, and spending real time studying its words.

This is something I’ve been working on lately; not just reading a few verses to say I did it or skimming through a quick daily devotional. But taking my reading to the next level by reading more often and taking the time to meditate on the words I’ve read.

It’s not so much about counting the minutes that go by as you read. But it’s more about the quality of your reading.

You can literally read one verse a day and get so much out of that one verse. If God is speaking to you in that one verse, and you’d like to take the day to meditate on just those words, go for it.

The key is making sure the time you spend reading God’s Word is feeding your spirit.

INVITING GOD TO HELP YOU STUDY

It’s not enough to read the Bible from cover to cover. Anyone can read words on a page. But are you asking God to allow the Words to fill you? Are you asking Him to open your eyes so you can see, and to open your ears so you can hear?

Are you praying for God to show you with spiritual eyes the things He wishes to teach you? The scriptures contain spiritual messages that God wishes to convey to us through His Holy Word. But we cannot access the power behind His Word without truly digging and seeking to understand what we are reading.

I get it. You’re tired. You had a long day. What’s wrong with just reading a few verses before bed and calling it a night?

Well, what’s wrong is you are doing yourself a huge disservice by not devoting true time to the Word. Invest in God and He will invest in you.

We learn who God is by reading the Bible. We learn how God works in people’s lives by reading the Bible. We learn how we should pray and how we should fast. The Bible has words of healing and protection.

The Bible is not just a book. The Bible is God’s direct message to His sheep.

There is a difference between simply reading the Word and actually studying it for understanding, wisdom, and revelation.

BE HONEST WITH YOURSELF

Skeptics read the Bible and focus only on a few choice verses that seem offensive, and then decide the Bible can’t be trusted; it’s homophobic, bigoted, or misogynistic.

But did those skeptics spend time in prayer asking God for wisdom and understanding before reading the words on the page?

God wants to use the Bible to start a conversation with us. To bring us closer to Him and everlasting joy. He wants to feed our spirits so that He can teach us truths that we cannot find alone.

So, it’s time to be honest with ourselves. Ask yourself this question: Am I truly studying the Bible? If the answer is yes, GREAT!

But if the answer is no, it’s time to get to work. Show God that you are hungry for Him and He will begin to pour into you wisdom and understanding. He will start to open your eyes and ears to things you’ve always been closed off to.

How do you get started?

Again, it’s not a race. And it’s not even about increasing how “much” of the Bible you read each day. It’s about what you do before, while, and after you’ve finished reading. It’s about letting the words sink into your heart and meditating on them often.

FINALLY, THE 4 STEPS TO FOLLOW

If you follow these four steps, I guarantee you will start to see a difference in your relationship with God and your understanding of the Bible:

Step One:

Before you begin reading, go into prayer. Invite His presence into the room. Ask God to help you understand the verses that you read. Ask God to open your eyes and ears and remove any blinders that are blocking the truth. Pray that the words feed your spirit, and you gain spiritual wisdom. Ask Him to help you see how you can apply the words to your life.

Step Two:

While you read, talk to God. As you read through the verses, ask questions, offer up commentary, take notes, make it a conversation with God. Break down each verse line-by-line if you need to, talking through it with God, asking for clarity and understanding along the way.

Step Three:

Spend a few moments summarizing what you’ve read. Write it down if it helps. What did you learn? How did you feel as you were reading? What stood out to you?

Step Four:

After you’ve finished reading, follow-up your reading with a closing prayer. Thank God for making Himself available. Pray again that He shows you ways that you can apply the message to your daily walk.

***

Whether you read one devotional a day, or 10 chapters a day, make them count. Don’t just speed read through the words to get done. You are allowed to take your time to read, reread, dissect, and meditate on what you have read.

How do you study the Bible? What strategies do you apply to get the most out of the Word?

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One of the many reasons people do not believe in God is due to a lack of evidence. As a believer, it’s clear that evidence is all around us. But I can understand how some people need something more concrete.

But here is a big question of mine: why do non-believers seek such hard evidence for Jesus’s existence, when so many other historical figures have just as little evidence for their existence?

Every story in history is passed down from generation to generation, from people to people. The stories are passed down by man, from man, to man. And we all seem to trust the validity of most historical stories taught to us by our teachers. Or believe in data shared with us through our most trusted news sources.

So why are so many other texts (also written by man) trusted and taken as plain-faced truth while the Bible is constantly questioned? What is it about those other texts that make them more reliable? Why is it so difficult to consider the existence of an all-knowing Creator when there is so much wonder around us?

If I am expected to read a textbook in school and trust the words flowing from the pages as truth, then why not the Bible?

THE BIBLE MAKES BIG CLAIMS

We should treat the Bible with the same respect we treat any other historical text, and then some, because it claims to hold a truth inside its pages that redeems. Even if it sounds too out-of-this-world to believe, it’s worth looking into.

C.S. Lewis said, “Christianity, if false, is of no importance, and if true, of infinite importance. The only thing it cannot be is moderately important.”

These words mean so much. If Christianity is false, it changes little. If it is true, well, it changes everything.

If the Bible is true, it is the most important book you will ever read (or not read) in your life. Yes, that is a big claim. And because the claim is so huge, if I were a non-believer, I would be very curious.

I understand that you cannot believe everything you read or trust every source. Sources must pass a test. And especially ancient texts with questionable origins. It makes sense to do our due diligence to find out if the documents that we are reading is trustworthy.

And sure, this holds true for the Bible as well.

But do you want to know the great news? The great news is a lot of historians and scholars have done tons of work over many years to prove the authenticity of the Bible. The evidence is there, and countless hours have been invested into clearing the Bible as a valid historical text that can be trusted.

Below are 5 reasons you can, at the very least, trust that the bible is authentic.

ONE

ARCHEOLOGY: There have been numerous archeological findings that align with names and places in the Bible.

• The Dead Sea Scrolls: ancient religious writings found in 11 caves at the Qumran archaeological site. Amazingly, in these scrolls, there are copies of every book in the Hebrew Bible, except Esther. The scrolls were written sometime between the 2^nd century BC and 2^nd century AD. 

TWO

HISTORICAL EVIDENCE OUTSIDE THE BIBLE: Yes, it does exist. See two examples below.

• The Tel Dan Inscription: this is considered the first historical evidence of King David from the Bible. It is a ninth-century stone slab with writing from an Aramean king who is proud that he defeated several Israel men from “the king of Israel” and “the house of David”. The name of the specific King David was not preserved, however. This Aramean king does not reference the Bible in any way. Read more here.
• Flavius Josephus: Flavius was a 1st-century historian who wrote a 20-volume text of Jewish history called the “Jewish Antiquities”. (Read more here.) Essentially, the text makes mention of Jesus on two separate occasions. In one instance, he identifies James as the brother of Jesus. And in the second instance, he talks about a man who did “surprising deeds” and was crucified by Pilate, who we can easily assume could be Jesus.

THREE

OLD TESTAMENT PROPHECIES FULFILLED: The old testament writings were completed hundreds of years before Jesus’s birth. And yet, hundreds of verses foretell of Jesus’ death, resurrection, and how this impacts Christians. How can mere “stories” from hundreds of years ago accurately foretell future events?

Many say you cannot use the Bible to defend itself. But I beg to differ. The old testament is full of prophecies that are fulfilled in the new testament, which was written by various writers hundreds of years after the fact. A couple of examples:

• Deuteronomy 18:15 reads “The Lord your God will raise up for you a prophet like me from among your fellow Israelites, and you must listen to that prophet.” Moses foretold of Jesus in this passage, saying these words before the Israelites entered the promised land. You can read more here.
• Isaiah 7:14 reads “All right then, the Lord Himself will choose the sign. Look! The virgin will conceive a child! She will give birth to a son and will call Him Immanuel – ‘God is with us.’” Isaiah wrote these words somewhere between 700 and 600 BC (before Christ). This prophecy is was then fulfilled when the angel of the Lord comes upon the virgin Mary and she conceives a child, our Savior.

FOUR

THE BIBLE’S MANY AUTHORS: The bible is not one big book written by one author. It is several books written by many authors across centuries of time. That alone says a lot! These are writers born of different times, but speaking about the same future events that are actually fulfilled. That is truly inspired by God.

FIVE

THE BEST-SELLING BOOK IN THE WORLD: The Bible is the most printed, best-selling book in the world. According to the Guinness World Records, it’s no secret that it’s the most widely distributed book of all time. “A survey by the Bible Society concluded that around 2.5 billion copies were printed between 1815 and 1975, but more recent estimates put the number at more than 5 billion.”

That’s a big deal! Now, of course, being the most printed book in the world doesn’t automatically make it the truth by default. But, it is very telling. The Bible clearly has some vital information that everyone around the world is seeking. Read more here.

What reasons do you have for trusting the Bible’s authenticity?

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