There isn’t anything magical about choosing a section of Scripture to study.  People choose passages for different reasons, but whatever your reason, I hope you choose to dig deeper than a cursory reading of the bible.  While a reading plan helps you become familiar with God’s Word, I believe that a deeper study of the bible is needed to help you grow in knowledge, wisdom, and maturity of faith.

Here are a few recommendations for choosing a section of Scripture to study:

1. Do not choose too large a section of Scripture to study.  You can spend your time studying an entire book of the bible but if you try to take the text as a whole it will produce too much information and will feel like trudging through the swamp.  Take bite size chunks that will allow you to draw conclusions that can be affirmed or negated in the study process and then you can figure out how multiple sections fit together to make a whole.
2. Use the subheadings in your bible.  More often than not, these are good markers for where a thought begins and ends.  While it is not always accurate, this will give you a good beginning point for your study.  During your study process you will be able to determine whether you need to include more verses at the beginning or the end to get a complete thought.
3. If you are just beginning to learn about studying the bible, choose passages or topics that interest you.  This will keep you excited in your early stages of learning .  As you grow more comfortable with the study process you can begin to choose verses that are hard to understand or that challenge you in some way.
4. Go slow and do not get overwhelmed.  The process of an organized bible study can feel like too much work.  It is easy to start feeling like you will never finish, which is why it is critical that you keep in mind that this is a process.  It will take some time to properly work through a passage of Scripture.
5. Apply yourself. Knowledge comes with hard work and experience.  You will need to read, take notes, and most of all, think.
6. Take a break.  This is not a race.  If you feel stuck, take a walk; if you feel overwhelmed, take a couple days off.  Just don’t give up.  The more you study the more natural it will feel.

For the sake of teaching, I have chosen a section of Scripture for us to study as we take a look at the different elements of the process.

Let’s read and study Mark 12:13-17 together over the next few weeks.

This next week, read the verse of Scripture several times from different versions of the bible.  I would recommend reading from at least three different versions.  I shared with you my personal preferences in last week’s post.

As you read this week, write down your initial thoughts on what you think the verse is about.  In this instance, determine what you think Jesus might be trying to teach.  this will be a starting point for you to begin to affirm or negate your observations.

Also this week, you can start answering some initial questions about the book of Mark:

• Author, who wrote it?
• Audience, to whom it was written
• Purpose, why was it written?
• Date, when was it written?
• Setting, what is the background?
• Key people?
• Key places?
• Key verses?

You can find the answers to these questions by using one or more of the resources mentioned last week.  If you have a study bible, try checking the introductory pages just before the book of Mark.  If not, you can reference a bible dictionary or make a query online, using Wikipedia or Google search.

If you do not own a study bible, it will be helpful to begin keeping organized notes if possible.  Once you answer the initial questions concerning Mark, be sure to transfer them to a notebook or Word document.  This way the information will be available each time you investigate verses in this book.

Next week, we will answer the above questions and compare the answers from two separate resources to see how they are similar and how they are different.

In the comment section below, let us know how you choose a passage of scripture to study.