Back in August 2009, I bought myself a chronological bible. Over the course of 2010, I religiously (pardon the pun) read it. I did enjoy it, as I can now say I have read the entire bible. So far, so good.
Some things I found a little annoying about this method of bible study was its sheer nature. Lump all evens which happened at the same time together and is can become a bit of a repetitive dialogue. I suppose it did make it a little interesting to note how similar different books of the bible were in terms of their narrative. Generally, I enjoyed putting the events and stories into context and the achievement of reading the whole bible.
So, at the start of the new year, it seemed the most obvious thing I could do was to start at the beginning again. I've managed 1 month. I realised just how much I'd remembered (I tend to be like that with my reading - have to wait years to re-read books I enjoyed). I also realised I wasn't getting any depth to my study. I was just reading it. I wasn't getting background on events or a deeper understanding of how the people and places relate to me. Shocking as it sounds, after a month of re-reading the chronological bible, I became a bit bored with merely reading the bible.
Now, I wonder how to approach my personal bible study. I have bought Tom Wright's Matthew for everyone, so I could work through Matthew. I could use Tom Wright's "For everyone" series for the whole of the New Testament, I suppose, but what about the old testament? What do you do? I'm interested to learn others experiences and things they find helpful and useful for their own bible study.
Dale Ralph Davis' commentaries on the books from Judges through to 2 Kings are very readable and illuminating. Solid stuff.
ReplyDeleteBible? Now which one's that again? ;)
ReplyDeleteMy own way in is to use the weekly lectionary readings and study/meditate on them... If you're in a church which makes use of the lectionary, it's fun to see which readings the preacher goes for and where they end up going with them and makes me prepared to engage in worship in a more focused way. Also, lots of resources are lectionary based - from commentary/ preaching resources through to prayer and Christian Ed materials.
Thank you for the link love! I enjoy your reflective writing. Thanks for reading my blog, Hundreds of Hundreds! All the way from Scotland! Wow!
ReplyDeleteDepends what you are trying to do. Is it Bible study you are after or personal devotional material?
ReplyDeleteThanks guys. Some great suggestions.
ReplyDeleteNik - I had thought that may be worth trying as my church generally goes with the lectionary.
John - I'm more think of peronal devotional stuff.