One Sure-Fire Way to Revitalize Your Bible Study

The summer before my senior year of high school, I went to camp with the other youth from my church. After one of the morning sessions, the speaker asked us to spend 20 minutes alone, reading the Bible.

Twenty minutes reading my Bible? Other than sitting in church and turning to the page the pastor directed us to, I couldn’t remember ever sitting down and opening the Bible for myself.

While my friends found a separate spot to do their reading, I meandered around the campgrounds until I came across a path that led straight uphill. When I reached the top of the trail, I discovered a grassy meadow encircled with tall pine trees. A log stretched across the grass like an altar hewn from nature’s surroundings, so I knelt there.
But I had no clue where to begin.

I decided to start with the new stuff, but as I skipped around I found myself thinking the Bible was boring, depressing, and confusing. With a good 13 minutes to go, my eyes fell on James 2:19:
You believe that there is one God. Good! Even the demons believe that—and shudder (ɴɪᴠ).

Now, I didn’t know much about the Bible, but I had been in church long enough to know about angels and demons. And the thought had never occurred to me that even the demons believe in God!

I stopped right there and asked God to show me what it meant to live for Him in such a way that it’s more than just believing about Him. In that moment something happened. A peace enveloped me. And I knew Jesus was there. He was with me.

After camp I returned home, and something weird happened. I had this bizarre desire to start at the beginning of the Bible, in Genesis, and work my way back to James. So I did. And I discovered parts I liked. But other parts still seemed boring, depressing, and confusing.

I began to memorize the shorter verses I liked best. To aid my memory I’d write the verses in a notebook.
I noticed that I remembered Scripture better when I wrote the words on paper. So I started to write longer passages.

Eventually I dared to venture into those “other parts” of the Bible. The strange and confusing parts. Whenever I read a chapter that didn’t make sense, which was often, I’d write it out and say it out loud. And I asked the Holy Spirit to teach me the truth of God’s Word. I also got myself a study Bible and made use of those notes at the bottom.

Today I love writing the Word as much as ever. I like the way it forces me to slow down and absorb each word, line by line. The simple act of moving my pen along paper—to meditate on God’s Word—quiets my soul the way David’s harp soothed Saul.

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It’s truly an amazing, humbling, and beautiful joy to invite you to join me on this journey through the Bible by writing Scripture. Word Writers is an inductive-plus Bible study that uses four key approaches to God’s Word: observation, interpretation, application, and saturation—the opportunity to write the Word. So grab a few girlfriends and get together for some tea and conversation and Word writing!