Simplicity of Bible Study

Study this Book of Instruction continually. Meditate on it day and night so you will be sure to obey everything written in it. Only then will you prosper and succeed in all you do. Joshua 1:8

Reading through the Bible in a year. I’ve started the journey to completion more than once. Through various classes, Bible studies, sermons, trainings, teachings, and personal reading/studying, I have probably read most of the Bible and many parts hundreds of times.

But I’ve never managed to read the whole thing in one set amount of time.

This year my husband and I are doing it together. 

I can’t lie. I didn’t think we would both follow through with this through January. I definitely didn’t think we’d both still be reading religiously come day 71 on March 12, 2014.

Nor did I think we’d find ourselves discussing what God illuminated in each passage as we share about our day each evening. 

And yet we are.

Tonight’s conversation about how much “new” learning is taking place reminded me of an article I read earlier this week about mistakes being made in women’s Bible studies.

Again, I can’t lie. My toes were being stomped all over as I read “7 Mistakes We Make in Women’s Bible Studies”. 

The more I read, the more irritated I got. 

See, I’ve needed, or used, Bible study for many of those “mistakes” before. Sometimes those groups have been my only friends. Yes, I was the needy member. Even if I was the teacher.

Tonight as I listened to someone tell me how much more they were learning from simply reading the Bible instead of a Sunday school quarterly, I remembered the article I had read.

I wonder how often we turn to “ready-made curriculum” because it seems easy. Is it easier than opening the Bible we already own and reading it? 

Hanging up those posters? Cutting out those strips for role play? Getting a creative activity together that matches our intended theme? Are all of these things easier than opening the Bible?

Our study the past ten weeks has been pretty easy, and yet we’re learning. No posters. No activities. No teacher. No quarterly. A Bible, the Holy Spirit, and an accountability partner who happens to enjoy discussing every once in a while.

Perhaps we’re making this corporate Bible study thing too complicated.

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