How to Grow in God’s Word in 2022
Four practices to help you grow in your knowledge of the Scriptures this year.
As the new year dawns, many people will get started working on their New Year’s resolutions. For countless followers of Jesus, this means getting started on a new Bible reading plan. Many helpful reading plans are available, but reading plans are not really the point. The most important thing is that we are engaging with God through his word, growing in the knowledge of his word, and allowing what we learn from his word to change our hearts.
I recently outlined four strategies for reading God’s word in 2022. Today, I want to recommend four more practices to help you get the most out of the Bible this year.
Ask the Bible Questions
I was spending time with my youngest daughter this morning. It would be impossible to count how many questions she asked me. She asks because she’s curious and that is a trait I hope she never loses. Her natural curiosity reminded me of the kind of heart and mind we need to bring to the Bible. We read over so many things quickly because we are vaguely familiar with them and think we know them well or because we don’t want to do the hard work of thinking about Scripture. Either way, we must abandon our old mindsets and ransack the Bible with questions.
One of the first questions we need to ask of each Bible passage is “what is this?” By this, I mean that you should mark unfamiliar people, places, things, or themes and find out what they are. A few months ago I was studying Psalm 56 and the title for the Psalm says David wrote this when he was fleeing Saul and lived among the Philistines. I made a note to go read that narrative so I had the background set. This was basic information I needed to know to understand the passage.
Also, ask questions about how the paragraphs and sentences are related to each other in the passage you are reading. This means noting the connecting words like “for,” “therefore,” “as,” “in order that,” and others like it. Ask how these words tie the thoughts in the passage together and start thinking through possible answers.
Memorize More of the Bible than You Do Now
A few years ago, I read an amazing post about Vern Poythress’ Scripture memory practices. In this post, Dr. Poythress’ son shared how he reviewed six chapters of the Bible every day. Even though I may never match his pace in Scripture memory, his example challenged me to renew my efforts at Scripture memory.
For 2022, take whatever you have been doing in Scripture memory and challenge yourself to do just a little bit more. For some of you, this may mean learning a verse a week. That would be great since you would have stored 52 verses of God’s word in your heart by the end of the year. For those of you who are memorizing a couple of verses a week, see if you cannot add to that total by a couple more a week. Also, maybe this is the year that you need to memorize an entire book of the Bible for the first time.
We need to understand, though, that the key to long-term Scripture memory is reviewing the verses you have already memorized. It does not take long to lose verses that you memorized when you have not looked over in a while, but you will find that a regular review schedule will help you keep verses fresh in your mind. If you use an app like ScriptureTyper, it has a built-in schedule you can use.
Pray Over Your Bible Reading
When I was a young Christian, I often thought that Bible reading and prayer were two separate activities. I would read my Bible, then close it, and pull out my prayer list. Thankfully, someone recommended Donald Whitney’s Spiritual Disciplines of the Christian Life when I was still in college and it helped me bridge the gap between my prayer and Bible reading.
This calls for you to read your Bible with an eye toward your everyday life. Is there something in this passage you know that you need to do, but feel that you lack the strength to obey? There’s your invitation to pray. Did the passage of Scripture you are reading reveal a sin for which you need to repent? Stop and repent in prayer immediately. Does the passage show you something you should thank or praise God for? Praise God as you read Scripture.
Get 8 Hours of Sleep on Saturday Night
If attending your church’s Sunday worship gathering is a Saturday night decision, and it is, then doesn’t it follow that your Saturday night sleep will affect your attention span in worship? We cannot listen to and engage with God’s word properly when we don’t get enough sleep on Saturday night.
Turn off the TV and put down your phone an hour earlier than you normally go to bed on Saturday night. If you know the text your pastor will be preaching on Sunday, take out your Bible, read the passage, and meditate on it before you go to sleep. Then ask the Lord to help you sleep well and get the eight hours of sleep you need so your mind can be fresh when you hear God’s word preached on Sunday morning.
We truly are in a biblical literacy crisis, but we don’t need to remedy this so that we can win Bible drills or trivia contests. We need the Bible for life. We need the Bible for healthy Christians and healthy churches. We need the Bible so we can help our neighbors. We need the Bible so we can love the God who made us more faithfully.