Editor’s Note: We continue our series of blogs for those who are reading the Bible with us cover-to-cover this year. Interspersed with our thoughts on our daily reading, we want to provide some tips about reading the Bible in general. Today we want to explore …
What Camera Will You Take on the Journey?
A 20th anniversary trip to Hawaii is truly something to be remembered. Melodee and I had dreamed of such a trip for years. Now that we were going, we wanted to take some of the trip home for our scrapbook. We wanted to be able to share our experiences with family and friends. So we needed some visible record of our journey. Before we left we stocked up on data cards, made sure we had the battery charger for our camera, and made sure our camera was working in excellent condition.
A trip through the Bible is also something to be remembered. But how does one ‘take photos’ when they are reading? How do we record our journey as we go? Obviously, we will not use a camera. Our camera for this journey will be the journal we mentioned in Thursday’s blog. How do we “record” our journey in our journal? Consider these picture-taking tips:
– Write down a brief outline as you go. Consider something like a day-by-day journal to help you remember some of the details you may forget in a week or so. You don’t have to be exhaustive, just right down the things that caught your eye.
– Try to sketch out a scene that you want to remember. After all, that is what photo-taking is all about. You do not have to be a great artist to do this. Sketch the people in the scene, or the landscape and try to determine how the events take place.
– Write down lists. One of the great advantages of a journal is that it allows you to write down what came first, second, and so forth. It allows you to categorize your list with a topic. When reading through Proverbs, you may wish to write down a list of descriptions or characteristics the Bible describes concerning wisdom, foolishness, or any of the other hundreds of topics explained.
– Sketch family trees. It is enjoyable to know who is related to whom. This makes your journey much easier. As you are reading, keep a separate page for each family line. In Genesis, start with Adam. You can compare your family line with the account in the Bible for accuracy.
– Maintain comparison or contrast lists. A simple comparison of whom God speaks to and whom God ignores is a great place to start. Contrasting what God calls evil and what he calls good is another great list. Be creative! Follow your interests and the sure to examine their opposites.
– The Word in Worship Daily Devotional Journal. We have written a simple journal to help you both record your prayer requests and make your prayer life easier as well as journaling your Bible reading experiences. This journal revolves around 2 Timothy 3:16-17 and helps you seek to answer four questions every day from the passage you have read. You can learn more about this at EaglesInLeadership.org and in the back of this book.
There are dozens of other ideas that you and your companion can come up with as you travel through the Bible. If you think of new ones as you go, write them down! Your photo record will become almost as valuable as your Bible if you will spend the time and use it. Please share them with us in the comment section below as well!
It is our hope that this background information helps a bit as you read on in the Bible. We will continue this series with our next installment: “How to Pack for our Journey Through the Bible” on Sunday when we talk about “What Camera Will You Take on the Journey?”
For daily insights into the passage we are reading together each day, you can follow Dr. Smith on Twitter and on Facebook.
You can obtain more help from the FREE Bible reading schedule on our resource page. In His Image is a daily devotional that also follows our reading schedule and expresses the Biblical truth: “God Created You to Love You.” You can find this resource on the side bar of our website.
