It’s the Saturday Do It Yourself edition of Scripture for Students. Grab your Bible for some hands-on.
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This is Scripture for Students. I’m Steve Whitacre, president of Trinity College and a pastor at Sovereign Grace Church of Louisville. I want to help students build a daily habit for life-long Bible reading. Today is December 7, 2024 and this is a special Saturday DIY episode, so grab your Bible and get a pen and your journal or some paper.
DIY means Do It Yourself. So far in this Advent series of Scripture for Students, I’ve been talking and you have been listening, so think of Saturday DIY as a workshop: time for some hands on with some Bible study of your own.
I’m going to give a few explanatory comments here and then it is over to you, to spend some time with your Bible and see what you can learn.
When this episode is over, I’d like to ask you to read the Advent story in Luke’s gospel, Luke 2:1–2:21. If you have a lot of time or you are feeling really adventurous, make it 2:1–40!
I’m going to suggest two levels of DIY. If you’ve never done anything like this before, read these verses and as you are reading, keep four questions in mind. I didn’t make these questions up myself; they are from a book entitled, Asking the Right Questions, by Matt Harmon. It’s a really great little introduction to how to read and interpret the Bible.
Here are the four questions:
- What do we learn about God? Look for God’s character, conduct, or concerns. What do we learn about God?
- What do we learn about people? Look for what it means to be made in God’s image, our fallen condition, and how people should live. What do we learn about people?
- What do we learn about relating to God? Look for things to praise and thank God for, sins to confess and repent, or promises and truths to believe. What do we learn about relating to God?
- What do we learn about relating to others? Look for ways we should interact with and treat others, ways to pursue reconciliation with others, and specific ways to love, serve, and care for others. What do we learn about relating to others?
(These questions are from Asking the Right Questions by Matt Harmon, p132)
If you didn’t get those questions written down fast enough, I’ve put them in the show notes of this episode so you can just copy and paste them.
So read the passage with those four questions in mind and then take some time to write out some answers to each of those questions. You won’t necessarily be able to answer every question from every passage you encounter. And you don’t have to write a paper or an essay. You’re not turning this in for a grade. Jot down some notes or make some bullets, whatever works best for you.
If you want to go a level deeper, print out the passage on a piece of paper and double space the text at least. Get as many colors of pens and highlighters as you have handy. Now read through the text and start using the pens and highlighters to mark up the text. Maybe use a yellow highlighter to mark the verbs, and also underline imperative verbs in red. Maybe highlight people in blue and places in green. Maybe draw a star next to key terms or unusual phrases. Write little numbers above each element in lists. Are there key connecting words like and, but, or, for, therefore, so, also? You might draw a purple diamond around words like that.
The actual colors and marking system don’t matter very much—do it however you like. The point is to s l o w y o u r r e a d i n g d o w n. Pay attention to the details and make note of what you learn about grammar, syntax, and vocabulary. If you enjoy this kind of thing and want to get better at it, I highly recommend Grasping God’s Word by Scott Duvall and Daniel Hays. It’s an outstanding guide to interpretation with a lot of very hands-on exercises to help you become a better Bible reader. I use the book in my freshman hermeneutics class at Trinity College and my students love it.
Don’t forget to ask the four questions above!
However you decide to do this Saturday DIY episode of Scripture for Students, finish your reading by talking to someone about what you learned. You’ll be surprised by how it will help cement your insights and memory to have to explain it to someone else.
That’s all for today. If you enjoyed this episode please share it with a friend and follow us on Apple Podcasts.
This content is sponsored by Trinity College of Louisville. We shape young men and young women for Christ and for the church. Learn more at TrinityCollegeLou.com. Until next time, keep growing!