by Do you have goals to spend more time in your Bible in 2025? Here are some tips to help you have a more consistent time in God’s word:
*Get a plan. You can download a free plan online. For example, a read-through the Bible in 365 days. This plan will give you what chapters to read for that day. Stick to the plan. You can also get a Bible that is arranged into daily readings. Or customize your plan by choosing which books you will read through and settle on how many chapters to cover a day to accomplish this.
*Highlight your Bible. Some millennials and Gen Xs in Kenya are still hang on “don’t write in textbooks” from their school days. It is ok to highlight your Bible and make comments and notes. This practice will slow you down as you note what stood out for you.
*Summarize. Read a chapter or two or three and write a summary of what you read. There are various formats you can use for how you can write chapter summaries. These could include rewriting what you read in your own words, bulleting story line and main points/truths among others.
*Pray scripture. Read a chapter and pray it. You can start with the Psalms for this. This one-Psalm-a-day slows me down. We also pray three to four Psalms in the morning and evening to help with memorisation. You can however pray any chapter of the Bible after reading it.
*Write it out. Writing is one of the ways we learn. You can type out a verse on social media but making a journal entry will help with internalizing what has been read.
*Use cross references. There are various Bible study tools you can use. A concordance, a topical study guide among others will lead you to others places in scripture where the related word or topic can be looked at is located or used.
*Use a Bible study guide. In our study groups we do an overview of the chapter and provide study questions for participants to study. If not in a group, you can buy a study guide to help you discover the text yourself. The beauty of groups though is you get to learn from others also.
*Use the following common acronymns to enrich your chapter or book or verse reading from the Bible.
SOAP- which stands for Scripture, Observation, Application and Prayer
SPECK which stands for Sin to confess, Promise to claim, Example to follow, Command to obey and Knowledge of God)
*Read fast and slow. Read through a whole Bible book, best done in one sitting, then start again by slowly going through it, this time making observations. Reading fast and slow helps us see the big picture.
