Maximizing Your Study Time, Part 1

January, 2004

by: John Richard

One of the repetitive questions that I hear when my son Joshua watches Bob the Builder is, “Can we fix it?” The characters always respond positively saying, “Yes we can!” If I were to ask you, “Can you study the Bible with great effectiveness?” hopefully your response would be, “Yes, I can!” Often, people make excuses as to why they are unable to study the Bible with great effectiveness. They might cite that they don't have time, they are confused, it doesn't seem relevant or it is boring. However, the Bible, which is essential for salvation (2 Tim. 3:15), growth (1 Pet. 2:2), maturity (Heb. 5:11-14), spiritual effectiveness (2 Tim. 3:16-17) and the source of God's blessing when obeyed (Luke 11:28), can be understood. But how is that possible? Well, I am glad that you asked, for the next three articles I am going to write on how you can maximize your study of the Word.

There are several steps that constitute this process, but before we even climb those stairs to the top level of maximum effectiveness, there is a very important step that must be followed and adhered to. This step is your preparation. It is necessary for you to efficiently mine the rich nuggets of truth found in God's Word. So how do you prepare? Well, in the rest of this article, I am going to enlist characteristics of what you must be or what you must be ready to do in your Bible study. If these describe you, you will be a perfectly tilled field, ready for the seeds of truth to drop and grow.

The first step of preparation is that you must be saved in order to have maximum effectiveness. Paul said, “But a natural man does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him; and he cannot understand them, because they are spiritually appraised.” (1 Cor. 2:14; cf. Jn. 8:47). A natural man, one who doesn't have the Spirit, cannot understand the things of God. Unbelievers, unlike the true believers, do not have the Holy Spirit residing within them, so they don't have the proper “equipment” to understand the spiritual truth, since it is spiritually appraised. Now they are able to know the facts of Scripture, but they cannot discern the spiritual content of Scripture. So in order for a person to be able to maximize the spiritual content of the Scriptures, he or she must be saved. But is this the only necessary preparatory step? No, in fact there are six more characteristics or actions that you must be ready to perform to finish the race in Bible Study 101.

The next characteristic is that you must be pure. Both in 1 Peter 2:1 and in James 1:21, the authors command us to lay aside our sin before we receive the Word. Thus in order to lay aside your sins, you must confess all of your sins to the Lord, so you will be spiritually clean when you study it. Now after you have become clean, you will want to make sure you are humble (James 1:21) when you come to the Word. So when you sit down to submerge into the depths of Scriptures, you must not dispute or resist what you learn, even if it might contradict one of your presuppositions. You must be ready to accept it for what it is, the Word of God. One way to help you become humble is to pray for humility, which leads us to another step, which is prayer. Even though you have already prayed to be clean, it is necessary that you also pray that God would “open your eyes, that you may behold wondrous things in His law” (Psalm 119:18). The author of this Psalm continually begged God for help (Psalm 119:27, 29, 34, 36, 73, 125, 133, 144, 169). We should follow His example and beg God for help. Every time you come to the Word, whether it be personal time or when you are listening at church, prepare yourselves in this manner.

Now that you have prayed for God's help, confessed your sins and are ready to receive the Word with humility, you are about to eat of the fruit of truth. So if you are going to get the most out of the Word you can, you must long for it (1 Peter 2:2). If you are not hungry, why would you want to eat the fruit of the Word? The Scriptures are an interesting entity, for they are utterly fulfilling, but yet they leave us hungry for more. When you physically work hard, you get very hungry, which is similar to the Word of God. If you want to be hungry, you must be diligent (2 Tim. 2:15), which is the next preparatory characteristic. If you want to get fully nourished on the truth, you must work hard at it. It is hard work, but when you labor diligently, you get hungry to know more truth. However, some times we get tired when we work hard, that is why we finally have to be persistent in our study. We need to continually contemplate or meditate on God's Word (Psalm 119:15, 23, 27, 48, 78, 97, 99, 148), diligently striving until we see our Lord and Savior. As one man said, “There's nothing that beats prolonged exposure to the Bible.”

If you are going to prepare and study properly, you must be saved, pure, humble, prayerful, hungry, diligent, and persistent. These attributes and actions will guide you to the land of spiritual fruit and honey. A young man keeps his way pure, by living according to the Word (Psalm 119:9), but the only way he lives by the Word is to know it. So I urge you, let these attributes and actions characterize you, so you might live a pure life before the Lord, fully maximizing your study of God's Word.