Hopefully you all are reading the bible regularly in your homes. As believers in Jesus, we should all love him and his word. As the psalmist says, it should be our delight. We should love reading his word and being transformed by it. Sometimes this may be easier said than done. Much of what is in the bible is very straightforward and easy to understand. However, there are some passages that are more difficult. We should be reading prayerfully and relying on the Holy Spirit to help us understand God’s word, and some passages require more study than others if we are going to understand exactly what is being communicated.
I want to offer 6 questions (Who? What? When? Where? Why? and How?) that we can ask when reading the bible. Answering these questions will help us to come to a better understanding of those more difficult passages, but they will also help us even to understand the easier passages more fully and more consistently.
In order to keep these blog posts short enough to be read and digested in a timely manner, we will consider these questions over a few posts. This is the second. The others can be accessed below.
2. What?
A second important question to ask is “what.” In some ways, this is the easiest question to answer—or at least the most straight forward one. At some point, all of us have been reading and after several sentences, paragraphs, or even pages, realized that we don’t really know what we have read. Often our minds wander, we get distracted, or for whatever reason, we do not fully comprehend what he have just read. This happens with all types of reading, and it happens when reading the bible too.
We cannot begin to think about why the passage was written or how it applies to us today (questions #5 and 6 in this series) if we do not remember what it is that has been said—the basic information. There are several tricks that can be used to help us to remember what we have read, and different ones may work for different people. I have found that four pretty simple techniques have been helpful for me.
- Read the passage more than once.
Reading the same thing more than once can help us to comprehend what we are reading. If we read a passage three times for example, we are less likely to miss the same things each time; so, after the third reading, we will have a pretty good understanding of what has been said, what has happened, and etc. in a particular passage.
You may even want to make a habit of reading each passage three times and looking for certain things each time.Maybe the first time you read a passage through you look for the overall main idea and the main flow of the passage.The second time, you could read with the main idea already in mind looking for more details.The third time, you might try to notice the emphases and other nuances that we often miss on a cursory reading.
Depending on the length of the passage you are reading and the amount of time you have, you may not be able to read this in depth all the time, but at the very least, if you are reading and find yourself unable to remember what you read or to summarize the main ideas, you would want to go back and read part of the passage or the whole thing again.
- Read the passage out loud.
A second strategy for comprehending what we read that may appeal to some of you is to read the passage out loud. This adds another layer of activity. This way you are not only seeing the words on the page and thinking about what is being said, you are also hearing what is being said. This method can be really helpful.
- Write the passage as you read it.
If you have the time and are really struggling with understanding a passage, you may want to add a third level of interaction. This does two things. It forces you to read much more slowly, and forces you to use another part of your brain as you not only read but also write. You could also combine this with the strategy above and read out loud as you write. Again, this method may be less practical if you are reading a large passage, but it could be helpful in the right situation.
- Write a short summary of each paragraph.
Another way to help you comprehend what is being read is to try and summarize what you are reading or put it in your own words. This doesn’t have to be anything big. It could just be stopping at the end of each paragraph and summarizing it in a few words—no more than one simple sentence. The famous passage in Matthew 21 could be summarized as simply as “Jesus drove the moneychangers out of the temple.” Many modern translations divide passages into sections with headings. While these are not inspired, they can be helpful for this purpose.
Some passages are easier to understand than others.You may not need to use any of these techniques for some passages, but for others you may find one or more of these methods to be helpful.You may have other tricks that you already use to help you read with understanding/comprehension.The key is to find a way that helps you to remember what you have read.
Be sure to check back in the next few days for part three.
