Fire of the Lord
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Know your Bible
Benefits of knowing the Bible
As a christian it is very important that little by little you get to know well the content of the entire Bible. If you have good knowledge of your Bible you will enjoy the following benefits:
- You will know well the will of God regarding any issues in your life.
- When you listen to a sermon or a teaching, when you read christian literature, or when somebody gives you advice or even a prophetic word, you will be able to discern well if what is said or written is entirely according to the word of God, or whether things are added to or omitted from it.
- You will be able to help out other christians better because when you will talk to them you will remember what you have read and will be able to give them sound, biblically based advice.
Before you start
Buy a Bible version that is easy to read and understand for you.
Pray before each reading session. Ask God that He gives you understanding of what you will read. Ask Him that He gives you the desire to read.
Use your time well. If possible set aside a fixed hour daily.
For better concentration read out aloud.
Start small but read it all
Does the volume of the Bible scare you off? Start with a small goal. Do not get paralyzed by looking at how thick that Bible is and thinking you can never read all of that.
First read the gospel of Mark, just a few verses at a time. Then read one of the letters of the apostles. Then read the rest of the New Testament.
Make a plan to read the entire Old Testament. Remember how many pages you had to read during your study years? Would you make a similar effort now to get to know your God better?
Find out how many pages the Old Testament has in your Bible. Decide in how many days you want to read it all. Now divide the number of pages by the number of days. The result is your daily reading goal.
For example if there are 900 pages and you want to read it all in just 3 months, which are about 90 days, you would need to read 10 pages daily. Do you think that is impossible? I set this goal at the start of 1999 for myself. I rose early almost daily and read my 10 pages. Somewhere in May of that same year I completed my first full reading of the Old Testament.
Re-read the Bible over and over again
When you finish your first reading, commit yourself to read your Bible all over again and again.
Each time that you finish reading a book in your Bible, write down the date so that you have a record of your reading efforts.
Read in the book of Proverbs every day. Proverbs has 31 chapters. One chapter for each day of the month.
Memorize verses or parts of the Bible
Read more about the importance of scripture memorization and how to achieve it on the website of Dr. Jack Van Impe.Recommendations from St. Augustine
The well known bishop, philosopher and theologian St. Augustine, who lived from 354 to 430 A.D. gave the following recommendations in his book "Christian Doctrine" (volume 2 chapter 9):
Seek the will of God in the books of the Bible. To do so, observe the following rules:
- Know the books of the Bible. Read them all, even if you do not understand everything. At least read them so as not to remain wholly ignorant of them.
- Next, search more carefully and diligently into rules of life - like hope and love - and rules of faith laid down in the Bible.
- After this, investigate the more difficult passages. Look at easier expressions to throw light upon the more difficult. Use the evidence of passages about which there is no doubt to remove all hesitation in regard to doubtful passages.
In all of this it is important to have good memory.
In the name of the Lord Jesus Christ.
Bart De Wolf
Master of Information Technology
Ambassador of the Lord Jesus Christ
Witness of the God of Israel
Mechelen, Belgium
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