A book can change your life. Jack Canfield writes, “We’ve all found that life becomes richer when we’re reading a great book. You go to sleep at night feeling that your time on Earth is more valuable, your experience here more worthwhile. You wake up seeing yourself, other people, and the world differently.”¹

I love to read, and certain books I don’t discard. They stay near at hand. A few of them are worth re-reading, sometimes multiple times. Charles Spurgeon said his favorite author was John Bunyan, the author of Pilgrim’s Progress, a book Spurgeon claimed to have read at least one hundred times.²

Do you have a favorite book? Is there one you’ve read more than once? Notice how you learn something new with each reading. Whether fiction or nonfiction, we see things with fresh eyes. A good movie is the same. Some people watch the same film over and over until they know the dialogue and have mastered the plot.

How much more should we want to read the Book of books—the Bible—repeatedly, methodically, devotionally, and personally! But a question arises. Could you be too familiar with the Word of God? Have we become “used” to its lessons, stories, commands, and promises? It’s possible to read the Bible with our eyes while our minds are far away.

In the 1980s, Kellogg’s came out with an advertising slogan for their cornflakes: “Try it again for the first time!” They were inviting consumers to rediscover a love for the uncomplicated taste of their cereal. It struck a cord with us; soon we were using that slogan for other things as well. People want to return to the freshness of their first discoveries.

Let’s do that with the Bible. We know God’s blessings are new each day. Jeremiah wrote, “The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases; his mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning; great is your faithfulness” (Lamentations 3:22-23, ESV). How, then, do we make the Bible a fresh read?

Pray

We need the spiritual illumination of the Holy Spirit every time we open the Bible for reading or study. Psalm 119 is the longest chapter in the Bible, and its major subject involves the promises, precepts, laws, and words of Scripture. Several verses are prayers we can “borrow,” asking for light and illumination.

• Open my eyes, that I may see wondrous things from Your law (verse 18).
• Revive me according to Your word (verse 25).
• Teach me, O Lord, the way of Your statutes (verse 33).
• I am Your servant; give me understanding, that I may know Your testimonies (verse 125).

Since the Bible is a holy book, we should approach it with reverence, pausing and asking God to speak to us with a personal word whenever we open it. The Holy Spirit has a way of shining a flashlight on certain verses or putting certain phrases under a magnifying glass. They almost jump off the page into our minds.

Remember when Jesus came alongside the two disciples on their way to Emmaus? He helped them recall and understand certain Old Testament passages about the Messiah. Afterward they said, “Did not our heart burn within us while He talked with us on the road, and while He opened the Scriptures to us?” (Luke 24:32) We should know something of that feeling as we pore over the words of Scripture with the tutoring of the Holy Spirit.

Act

It also helps when we look for new ways and methods to read and study the Bible. Here are some ideas that may stimulate your thinking on this. There are now audible Bibles in practically every version of Scripture. Why not play the reading of the book, say, of Ephesians, while you simultaneously follow in your printed Bible? You can also simply read a chapter aloud, perhaps into the recorder on your phone.

How about finding verses you like and using hand calligraphy or a calligraphy function on your laptop to make designs to put beneath the glass on your desk or on the wall or to give as gifts to others? Some people enjoy creating Bible-inspired artwork in the wide margins of their Bibles. I’ve heard of others who take verses of Scripture and create musical melodies just for their own profit and pleasure.

In another article in this issue, I mention concordances, which are now available online. They allow you to look up every time a word occurs in Scripture. Choose a word like thanks or anger and look up each reference, making notes along the way.

Try reading an entire book in one sitting. Use different translations.

Make lists. For example, in Galatians 5, the apostle Paul explains the works of the flesh compared to the fruit of the Spirit. Write these down in parallel lists. Think about the sequence of each item and see if you can draw any conclusions about why he said things as he did.

Choose a new verse to memorize each week. If you want to memorize Psalm 100, there are five verses. You could do it in five weeks.

Some people enjoy paraphrasing chapters of the Bible, simply putting the verses into their own words.

Another vital element of personal Bible study is deciding how to tell someone else what you are learning. That may come in the form of leading a small group, or it might be as simple as telling someone later in the day, “I found a very helpful verse in the Bible this morning, and I just have to share it with someone.”

Reset

To truly reset your routine, I have a final suggestion. Perhaps you’ve used your Bible for years. By now, its pages are well-marked with underlining, highlights, cross-references, notes in the margins, and so forth. This will be a valuable heirloom for future generations. Treasure that Bible, but ask yourself if it’s time to get a new one.

You might want to choose a Bible with wide margins. Shop around for some colored pencils, mechanical pencils, or a pen that won’t bleed through the page.

Open this Bible as if it were a new book to you, and choose where you want to start. You may want to begin in Genesis, or you might select another book to master, say, Proverbs or the Gospel of John. Read each verse with pencil or pen in hand, making notes in the margins. When you find a precious promise, circle it. If you find a verse that corrects your behavior, put an exclamation point beside it.

When you come to geographical passages that talk about places or travel, look up the locations in a Bible atlas or online map. If there’s a word in English you don’t know, consult the dictionary. If you have a reference Bible like The Jeremiah Study Bible, take time to read the notes.

If you are overly familiar with the Bible and gloss over reading the Scripture, do what you can to read with fresh eyes. Give the Bible a closer look. Kay Arthur wrote, “If you long to know God, if you yearn for a deep and abiding relationship with Jesus Christ, if you want to live the Christian life faithfully and know what God requires of you, you must do more than merely read the Bible and study what someone else has said about it. You must interact with God’s Word personally, absorbing its message and letting God engrave His truth on your heart and mind and life.”³

Let’s do that! Read the Bible again as if reading it for the first time. Use a fresh set of eyes, as it were, and take a closer look at the Book that changes us every time we open its pages.

Citations:

¹Jack Canfield and Gay Hendricks, You’ve Got to Read This Book(New York: HarperCollins, 2006), xv.
²Charles Spurgeon, Pictures From Pilgrim’s Progress (London: Counted Faithful, 2018), 8.
³Kay Arthur, How to Study Your Bible (Eugene, OR: Harvest House, 2010), 8.