Nine Ways to Use Your Bible
Channel: Galen Currah
Date: 2017-12-07

Nine Ways to Use Your Bible
Practical advice for those who want to read the Holy Bible
www.wordwatchers.link 2007

1. Choose your Bible
• Find a version of the Bible in a language that you understand and is comfortable to read.
• Various versions or translations of the Bible differ very little, and all teach the same truths.
• Jewish editions have only the Old Testament, and some Christian versions have only the New Testament. Get a Bible that has both Testaments.
• The Mormons and Jehovah’s Witnesses have versions with falsified verses.

2. Read your Bible
• The Bible was written several centuries ago by folk who viewed the world differently from us today. 
• All of the “books” in the Bible are not equally interesting, so read first its more interesting parts.
• The more one reads the Bible, the more it becomes enjoyable and informative.
• Some passages may seem hard to accept, at first, try to withhold judgement until you learn more.

3. Study your Bible
• Analyze a passage’s grammar and logic.
• Look up hard words in a dictionary. 
• Look up on-line biblical places, persons and historical events.
• If your Bible has references or notes, then read those, and compare other verses.

4. Understand your Bible
• Ask questions of your Bible, and seek its answers.
• Summarize the Bible’s teaching in your own words.
• Discuss with others what certain verses and passages seem to mean.
• Remain open to get a better understanding from your own study and from others who also study the Bible.

5. Believe your Bible
• Put the Bible to the test, by asking the God of the Bible to make his promises come true for you.
• Distinguish which promises apply to you, and which were for others.
• Affirm your faith in Jesus Christ who died on a cross because of your sins, who rose back to life, and who has gone back to Heaven.
• Ask the God of the Bible to forgive you all of your sins, to put his Holy Spirit in you, and to grant you everlasting life.

6. Obey your Bible
Show how much you love Jesus, by obeying his commandments from the Bible. You might start with these:

(1) Believe in God, believe in me.
(2) Get baptised in my Name.
(3) Love God, love others and forgive enemies.
(4) Pray to God through me.
(5) Remember my death by breaking bread.
(6) Give freely to meet urgent needs.
(7) Help others to do the same.

7. Teach your Bible
• Share with friends and family truth and insight that you have found in your Bible.
• Lead a class or a discussion group, in which you help others to discover together what the Bible teaches.
• When invited to do so, teach others from Bible passages that you have studied and understand well.
• When qualified, lead formal Bible courses in churches and schools.

8. Defend your Bible
• Seek for ways in which to answer those who ridicule the Bible, and those who have a different holy book.
• Explain how God revealed the Bible in ancient times to those who viewed the world differently from us today.
• Learn the history of the thousands of manuscripts in which the bible has been transmitted across many centuries.
• Be ready to explain the Bible to those who are willing to learn.

9. Translate your Bible
• Give to support those who translate the Bible into other languages.
• If you have opportunity to study Hebrew and Greek, then help translate the Bible for a community that needs it.
• Find ways to recount bible stories and to explain the Bible’s teaching to modern folks who view the world differently.
• Lead your life in ways that help others to see the reality of the Bible and of the God of the Bible.

“The sacred writings … are able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus. All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work.” 2 Timothy 3:15-17