Bible Reading By Books Since we have been studying the Bible by chapters or paragraphs or verses, now we are ready to study the Bible by books. Originally, Bible is to be read book by book not by chapter or paragraph. Bible Reading is God’s command. Therefore, it is essential. Although you might say simple reading is not sufficient for us to understand the Bible, God promised the Holy Spirit will guide us into all truth. (Jn 16:13) I believe the Holy Spirit is the Key to understand the Bible without minimizing the importance of other Bible teachers or other books written by Bible teachers.
As we all know, when we read the book, it is very possible for us to see what we want to see, while missing what we need to see apart from the Holy Spirit. Therefore, we should minimize the negative influence of our present knowledge. We need to minimize the negative influence of others’ knowledge. The real questions is how we can do this? Let
the Holy Spirit illumine the Bible to us through reading the whole Bible book by book so that
we can understand the main theme of the each book. Let
the Bible interpret the Bible through reading the whole Bible through book by book so that we can
understand the big picture of the each book and of the whole Bible. This could
be the one of the best ways to understand the Bible correctly.
This is my personal suggestion about Bible reading by book for Second Bible study on Saturday morning. 1> Read the each book over and over again without attention to the details at first. 2> continuously read the each book focusing on the main theme for each book. 3> Read the each book connecting each book in the whole Bible together.
This is more in detail of my personal suggestion about Bible reading. The 1st reading: Read the entire book without attention to the details. What is the one main theme/ Key verse of the entire writing? The 2nd reading: Read the entire book again. What are couple major topics or subjects in this book? The 3rd reading: Read the entire book again. What are the main divisions of the book? The 4th reading: Read the entire book again. How is each chapter related in this book? The 5th reading: Read the entire book again. How is each paragraph related in this book? The 6th reading: Read the whole book again. Look for relevant parallel/paradoxical passages within the same book. The 7th reading: Read the whole book again. What is the importance of this book in the whole Bible?
This book by book reading will take a lot of time especially long books. But I believe that reading book by book through the entire Bible will be rewarding. |