Do you STUDY your Bible without doing THIS?

 If you were given an instruction book, would you begin studying only certain parts of it before you read the whole thing to know what all the instructions were, and how the instructions in different parts of the book might interact with one another?

Of course not! 

But that is exactly the approach many people take with the greatest instruction book of all time...the Bible. 

It is natural for new Christians to begin studying their Bibles through the lens of someone's teaching, but why not immediately open the book and begin reading the whole thing for ourselves? That way, we can judge anyone's teaching by the whole Bible--not just the parts someone might want us to focus on, or worse...use those parts as a myopic lens or filter by which to judge everything else we read in the Bible. 

The scriptures command us to judge all things by the Word of God...and that includes the teachings of our favorite pastors or teachers.

God gave his people gifts in the form of shepherds and teachers, and we should learn from the good ones. But good stewardship of our faith requires having a personal understanding of the Bible for ourselves, and not just parroting what we have been taught by someone else. There is only one way to know whether our favorite teacher is teaching truth or not, and that is to have a working knowing of the Word of God for ourselves. 

Deception happens by having only partial understanding of something. And only by reading the entire Bible, can we gain perspective from the whole, instead of having only piecemeal understanding of it.

By reading only two to four chapters a day, the entire Bible can be read through every year (with the possibility of reading the New Testament through twice!). When we begin adding Bible study to our daily reading, it is recommended to continue reading every day, always picking up today where we left off yesterday. That way, we  never miss a  thing.

Jesus said, "Humanity shall not live by bread alone but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God." God's word is our necessary food. It gives us guidance and comfort. Knowing and being obedient to God's Word (as we continually grow in our understanding of it) is a vital ingredient in our faith in, and relationship with, our Creator. Reading and gaining understanding of the Word of God is a lifetime endeavor, and not a one-time thing.

The scriptures themselves admonish us to rightly discern the Word of God. And we can only do that by knowing what is in it...by having a working knowledge of what is in it. And we can only gain a working knowledge of the Bible, by reading it, all of it...over and over...every day for the rest of our lives.