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How to read the Bible:

Now you might be thinking: sure, now I know a little more about the Bible, but what does that mean if I don’t know what to do with it? Nothing. You’re right. Without your obedience, the word of God will have no power in your life. Starting can be scary, but today we’re going to talk about one way to read the Bible. There are different strategies for different goals for your Bible reading, but this one is golden to really grasp a smaller portion of scripture. It’s called REAP.

REAP stands for Read, Examine, Apply and Pray. Each part of this process is so important to allow God to show up in your quiet time.

Read is pretty self-explanatory, but there are a few additional challenges here too! As you read through, highlight or underline the important details. None of the following steps will be fruitful if you don’t pay attention here- maybe you need to read it out loud or more than once. But reading doesn’t always mean understanding, so we keep going.

Examine means you ask questions about what you read and even search for answers! This is your time to make sense of it and get to the point which we decided was….. Jesus- right! Ask yourself, “What did I learn about God?” “How does this point to Jesus?” “What did the author want the original audience to understand/do?”

Apply is exactly what it sounds like. Once you’ve figured out what the author wanted from their audience, think about what it would look like for you to live it out too. Maybe what you read leads you to repentance, forgiveness, or sharing the gospel. Maybe what you read makes you rethink a false belief about God. That’s okay! We will forever be changed and molded by reading the Word- that’s why we read it!

And, finally, we pray about what we learned. Ask God your questions. Ask God to reveal your application to you. Ask God to help you along the way. And ask him to help you see anything you missed.