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Podcast: 12 Key Tools for Bible Study (Lydia Brownback)

July 18, 2022 by: Crossway

This article is part of the The Crossway Podcast series.

Tools for Studying the Bible

In today's episode, Lydia Brownback discusses 12 key tools for Bible study that all Christians can use—tools that will help us go deeper into the biblical text and understand the Bible’s life-giving message for ourselves.

James

James

Lydia Brownback

In this 10-week Bible study for women, Lydia Brownback explores James verse by verse, addressing trials and temptations, the relationship between faith and good works, and choosing the wisdom of God over the wisdom of the world. 

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Topics Addressed in This Interview:

00:54 - Tool #1: The Bible

Matt Tully
Lydia, thank you so much for joining me again on The Crossway Podcast.

Lydia Brownback
It’s always great to be here with you, Matt.

Matt Tully
Today I want to spend some time talking about Bible study, and in particular some key tools that we can use for Bible study to help us go deeper into the text. I thought it would be fun to ask you because you are a well-known Bible teacher, you’ve written Bible studies for the church, and so I think you’re going to have some good insights into this.

Lydia Brownback
I hope so!

Matt Tully
The first thing that, obviously, we need when it comes to studying the Bible is a Bible—an actual Bible that we’re reading from. To start us off, what do you look for in a good print Bible?

Lydia Brownback
I look for a literal translation. I think that’s really important.

Matt Tully
Why would you say that a more literal translation is helpful in particular for Bible study?

Lydia Brownback
We want to understand the Bible in its original context before we make application to our own lives today. In order to best do that, we have to be sure we’re accurate in understanding how the people originally would have read it and written it. We want to understand in the original context how God spoke through those writers of Scripture and how the original readers, as well as the writers, would have understood it, because that is the way we are supposed to understand it if we want to accurately know God best.

Matt Tully
What about when it comes to the actual physical Bible itself? Obviously, this is pretty subjective. There are lots of different types of Bibles with different sizes and typesettings, but what is it for you? What are you looking for in a Bible that you’re going to study from?

Lydia Brownback
I love a big, giant study Bible with articles in it and lots of notes that have been carefully handled, done, prepared by a reliable team of Bible translators. I love study Bibles. They have all kinds today. They have women’s Bibles and men’s Bibles and kid’s Bibles. They’re not changing the text of Scripture for these. They are just having specific notes or articles tailored to a demographic when they do that. There can be all kinds of helps for young believers. There are some that have articles that are focused so much on the gospel, that help people grasp the gospel and see where it is threaded all through the storyline of the Bible. I do think a study Bible, of whatever sort someone might choose, is going to prove very helpful.

03:24 - Tool #2: A Study Bible

Matt Tully
That was actually another one of the tools I had listed here was a study Bible. If you think about all the features that are often included in a study Bible, what’s the one or two that you use the most?

Lydia Brownback
I think especially when I’m doing a challenging passage and reading through it, after I’ve read the passage I’ll go see what the notes say. There are usually one or two really helpful insights that set it in context, that help me understand what that passage says. And then the other thing I love are the cross-references—either there in the notes or back up in the verses—that will take you and link you to other related passages in the Bible. That is such a helpful thing. When you want to see what the Bible says about a particular theme, or when you want to see how what you’re reading in Galatians ties back to something in Deuteronomy, it’s helpful to have the cross-references that link back so that you can directly go and say, Oh! I see how the Old Testament factors into the New, and how the authors of the New Testament drew from what Moses said. It really does help you get an idea of the big picture of the Bible.

04:40 - Tool #3: A Pen or a Pencil

Matt Tully
Another key tool that we will often have when it comes to Bible study is a pencil or a pen. What are the kinds of things that you are writing in your Bible?

Lydia Brownback
I use pencil because it’s funny how, when I’ve written a little notation in the side, I will find a few years later when I encounter it that my thinking might have changed. So, I like to erase that.

Matt Tully
You’ll actually be erasing stuff that’s two years old?

Lydia Brownback
Oh yeah. Usually it’s more like ten years, but yeah, some last two years. It’s interesting to go back and see my own notes and how I’ve grown spiritually in my own understanding, in my own walk with the Lord, and to see, Oh! I understand that more deeply now, or in a different and more accurate way. If it’s in pen, I don’t want to have to be crossing it out. I would just rather erase it and write something new. Some people reverence their Bible so much that they don’t feel comfortable marking them up, but a Bible can become like a friend. I think about someone I know whose had the same Bible for almost forty years. It’s falling apart now, but she doesn’t want a new one because it’s her friend. She knows what she’s marked, the highlights, and the little notations she’s made. Her own notes speak to her and help her in her reading as she goes through it. I think it’s wonderful to feel comfortable marking up your Bible and making it a friend.

Matt Tully
What are the kinds of things you’re writing in the margins?

Lydia Brownback
I’ll note a cross-reference or I will say something specifically about how the Lord might be speaking to my heart about that text, something that really strikes me. Last week I was reading Psalm 115, and it was about idols and how those who make them become like them. I made a few notes in there about some temptations to idols in my own life and how that passage spoke directly to my heart that day—what it’s communicating about the Lord, what happens with idols, and what the Lord wants us to know about them. Then, maybe I’ll jot down, Swing over here to Jeremiah 2 because there’s more on that here, or something in Hosea. I’ll make my own set of cross-references.

Matt Tully
That’s so fun. It’s exciting to see those connections and to get to put them in there yourself. They oftentimes have a deeper significance for you. It’s an exciting thing to come back across those.

Lydia Brownback
Yes, it is!

Matt Tully
Sometimes people will have elaborate systems of certain marks or characters that they use. They’ll circle words and make a certain kind of mark there to indicate certain things. Have you ever done anything like that? Do you have any thoughts on that?

Lydia Brownback
I haven’t. I know a lot of people who do, and they use different colored pens and pencils and markers. They color different types of speech and different patterns. That’s very helpful to them to do. Their Bible becomes a study tool in a very deep sort of way that can be—I wouldn’t say academic, but I would say it’s helping them learn. They found their own pattern of learning. Whatever it takes for somebody to enter into the text, to know God more deeply in what he’s saying. All these tools can be really helpful.

Matt Tully
Speak to that a little bit—the process of figuring out how you learn and how you want to engage with the Bible with a pen or a pencil. I think some people might see a pattern demonstrated to them, maybe from a mentor or from a book they read, or maybe they’re going to listen to this interview and think that’s the way that it has to be done and that’s the best way to do it. How have you thought about that as you’ve developed your own approach to studying the Bible?

Lydia Brownback
I think if we try to follow a formula, or what someone else has done, that can be helpful to us to get going. But if we feel we have to do it a certain way, we’re missing the relational connection with the Lord. I think the best approach, at least for me and what I would suggest, is to always sit down and do it prayerfully and conversationally with the Lord. I’ll talk to him out loud about a passage I’m reading. Even when I say, Lord, I don’t understand this, so I pray for understanding. I always begin my Bible-reading time with, Lord, what would you say to me through your word today? I pray for a tenderized, humble heart that would be open and receptive to what I’m seeing there. Let’s say when we hit the genealogies and our temptation is to skip right over those, or, It’s in our Bible-reading plan, so we have to read it, it doesn’t have to be that we just check it off. Let’s ask the Lord, What would you say? What would you show me? And even if you don’t get it in that hour, he’s going to answer that prayer sooner or later. The more Bible study we do, the more illumination we’re going to get, even about those difficult portions. I think doing it prayerfully is the best approach, even if we follow someone else’s ideas of how to go about it. I don’t think there’s a right or wrong as long as we do it prayerfully and keeping faithful to what Scripture is telling us there. Not imposing our ideas of what we want the Bible to say. It’s taking out of the Bible rather than trying to read into it.

10:17 - Tool #4: A Journal

Matt Tully
Thus far we’ve been talking about marking in our Bibles themselves, but some people also will study their Bible with a journal—a separate little volume of paper essentially. Have you ever done anything like that—journaling alongside your Bible study? What could that look like?

Lydia Brownback
I do it everyday, and it just sort of happened naturally. I probably started that thirty years ago. While I’m reading, when I’m finished, or even when I’m going into it, I will journal, but it’s always addressed to the Lord. These are journal entries—

Matt Tully
You’re writing and praying to God in that?

Lydia Brownback
Kind of, but I’ll start it almost as—sometimes I’ll even write, Good morning, Lord. I will speak back to him in my journal what I’ve just read in Scripture. It does sort of become a prayer for illumination, and sometimes it’s just sort of rehearsing what I’ve just read and learned, but saying it back to him on pen and paper. Thank you for showing me this. I never realized such and such. I wonder how that is going to apply to this thing in my life. I want to know about this. Would you open my eyes? That kind of thing.

Matt Tully
Have you kept all of these old journals?

Lydia Brownback
Yeah.

Matt Tully
Have you ever gone back and looked at them?
Lydia Brownback
Yes, I have!

Matt Tully
What’s that like?

Lydia Brownback
It’s amazing to see how my view and my understanding of Scripture has changed over the years. From being a baby believer when I would think that when you would pray and when Jesus said, “As for whatever you wish,” I took that literally. I want this. If I ask it, God will give that to me. Now, when I look back, I’m so thankful that the Lord showed me the truth and that he doesn’t do things our way. To be able to recognize how Scripture has changed me by means of the Spirit and reading it each day. He does change our understanding over time. Having those journals and then looking back on them is a great way to chart the Lord’s work in our own life and heart that we otherwise might not be in touch with because we’re living with ourselves everyday and we don’t see it.

Matt Tully
I can imagine someone thinking about looking back at something they wrote maybe ten or twenty years ago and feeling, I wouldn’t want to see that. I would be embarrassed. Have you ever felt those feelings? Or is it more of an encouraging thing that you get?

Lydia Brownback
That’s funny that you say that because I recently said—only half-jokingly—but I said to my family member, If something happens to me and you have to deal with my stuff, there’s this pile of journals over there. Please just burn them. Because some of it is really private. It’s between me and the Lord—things I was wrestling with, sins I was struggling with, and some embarrassing things about being immature that I look back on now and I don’t need anyone to remember. But it’s good for me to remember because it does show me how far the Lord has brought me.

13:14 - Tool #5: A Companion Book

Matt Tully
Another tool that we can use when we want to study the Bible is a Bible study book of some kind, whether that’s a workbook that you’re actually writing in and that’s written by somebody to help you understand the Bible, or sometimes it can just be a book that you’re not writing in, but it’s nevertheless walking through a book of the Bible or through a theme in the Bible. Tell us a little bit about how you’ve used those kinds of resources in your own life.

Lydia Brownback
I absolutely rely on those and love those. I will look for perhaps a pastoral commentary on that. Some commentaries are a pastor’s sermons on a particular book of the Bible that have been compiled into a book. It’s not an academic commentary by any means, but it is pastoral and it does teach you accurately what a book of the Bible is saying. To read that through, you’re getting all these sermons, you’re learning so much, but you’re also getting this heart part. Those have been really enriching. I think there are great books that aren’t commentaries, that are just regular books. I think about a new one Crossway has just produced—Nancy Guthrie’s book called, Blessed, which is a walk through the book of Revelation. It’s a beautiful entry point for people who aren’t familiar with the book, to understand how to understand Revelation. There are many out there that are really good and reliable at every level.

Matt Tully
Crossway has a Knowing the Bible study series, these little white books that are interactive and meant to help you study each book of the Bible. We have one for every book of the Bible. You, also, are writing a new Bible study series called Flourish, also in a workbook format. Tell us a little bit about what you’re trying to do with that series and how that could fit into somebody’s personal Bible study.

Lydia Brownback
I am more excited about that series than anything I have ever done in my life. My prayer for this series is that the women who do it—people who do a book in this series—will come out of it in love with going deeper in Scripture. My prayer is that it would equip them and get them excited about doing that. If they do one study of mine, my prayer is that they’ll want to go do their own studies of each book of the Bible. In this particular series, each workbook is about 120 pages, and it’s a walkthrough of a book of the Bible. There are questions for reflection to engage the text, and then there’s commentary threaded through as well. I’m finding that there are just as many individuals using the series as there are groups because it doesn’t have to just be done with a group. There’s no video with it or anything like that. People are using it in their morning devotions to learn a book of the Bible. I’m excited about that. I had someone this weekend who had finished the volume on 1 and 2 Peter, and they said that they had seen facets of hope in there. That’s one of the big themes in Peter, but there’s so much about hardship and struggle and trial that they had missed the hope until they spent ten weeks going through Peter’s epistles. By going deeper into a workbook type of thing, it does force us to focus slowly on each verse, each passage, each theme as we go through.

Matt Tully
Each of these studies is ten weeks long, is that right?

Lydia Brownback
Yes.

Matt Tully
I think one experience we’ve all had, maybe from school at some point, is the fill-in-the-blank thing where you have a question, the answer is very obvious, and you’re just looking for that right answer. How are you preventing it from being that? Help us as we think about what this could look like.

Lydia Brownback
I’m trying to get them to see how a particular book of the Bible ties in with the overarching storyline of the Bible. The 66 books of the Bible are not separate books; it’s all one story. We can almost say it’s 66 chapters in one book. We need to set each book of the Bible in context of the Bible as a whole. I think going slowly through a book of the Bible in a workbook type of format helps make those connections, because there’s time to say, Well, today we’re going to spend time going back to the Old Testament and seeing where this factors into this; how this informed this New Testament epistle. That proves helpful. I wouldn’t say there are fill-in-the-blank questions, but I do say, In these verses here, what are the four things Paul is wanting us to do? What are the concrete actions? It’s kind of fill in, but you have to focus on that angle of it.

Matt Tully
You’re forcing them to slow down and actually notice those things. So often we just fly through stuff. We’ve heard it before and don’t really think about what it means.

Lydia Brownback
Right. Exactly.

Matt Tully
I know you’ve released a number of volumes in this series, so I’m just kind of curious what you’re writing right now. What book of the Bible are you working on for this?

Lydia Brownback
It never gets old. It’s so exciting each time there’s a new one. I’m writing Ephesians right now.

Matt Tully
Wow. What a wonderful book.

Lydia Brownback
That one’s pretty easy to break into ten weeks. I just turned in Job, which is a very long—

Matt Tully
What a different genre! Is there a specific approach you’re taking, like doing all of Paul’s epistles together or are you intentionally trying to jump around in the Bible?

Lydia Brownback
I want to cover a wide swath of different books. I want to do some Prophets, I want to do some of the Pentateuch (the first five books of the Bible), I want to do some psalms and some of the wisdom literature, and I want to cover a lot of the New Testament (if not most). It’s the longer books that are challenging to do in a ten week study. The longest one I have out right now is Luke. Groups that have decided to do this have decided to go longer than ten weeks, or they follow along and do the ten weeks. But there’s a lot of reading. If you’re going to read through the entire book during ten weeks and do a study on it, there are weeks where you’re doing a lot of Scripture reading. Those are the more challenging ones, but individuals are finding that’s not so much of a challenge in the same way. But again, it’s going slowly through, but it’s doable. I’ve tried to break it down in such a way that it is. In my series, after Ephesians is going to be Jonah, and then Habakkuk is coming out right now and that’s a very short book of the Bible. You could really go in depth and go into the ties of other portions of Scripture because you’re taking a short, three-chapter book and studying it over ten weeks. It’s really fun to do the shorter ones and go into great depth.

Matt Tully
It is amazing how, especially with a good Bible teacher, how you can really go as deep or stay as high level as you need to with Scripture to fit the time or the space. As you were saying, some of these studies could even be expanded to go more than ten weeks if that was helpful.

Lydia Brownback
Yes.

20:55 - Tool #6: A Commentary

Matt Tully
You’ve already mentioned commentaries—a pastoral commentary that would be very applicational in flavor. I would imagine for maybe some listeners that just the mention of commentary sounds intimidating. It sounds like something only a pastor or a Bible teacher could use profitably. Help us understand what the value of a commentary is. What does it offering to the average Christian who just wants to study their Bible a little bit better? What would be some things that you would recommend that they look for in a commentary?

Lydia Brownback
When I’m going to study a book of the Bible, I like to have two commentaries for that book. I want to have an academic one and I want to have a pastoral one. For people who are going to teach Bible studies, I recommend that. If you want to go really deep and get into the more technical aspects of it, that’s a great thing to be able to do. If you can’t afford to collect that many, there are so many resources online from reliable websites.

Matt Tully
How many commentaries would you say that you have?

Lydia Brownback
My goal is to collect two on every book of the Bible. I am slowly but surely doing that. I started my collection thirty years ago, so I am probably halfway there. It’s a great privilege to be able to do it. I would say for someone who is not going to be teaching—someone who just wants to know and grow in their understanding of Scripture—pick a pastoral commentary. You’re going to learn so much about it. You’re going to learn the background, the history, ties to other parts of the Bible, and you’re going to get that application part, too, that is going to be really helpful. I think, for example, when I studied Ezekiel for the first time in my morning reading and I really wanted to spend a couple of months going through the book, I found a commentary that was so great. It really helped me because it set a particular chapter of Ezekiel in its original context, and then it talked about how different aspects were later fulfilled in the New Testament and other parts that were going to be fulfilled even later. Then, it made application to our contemporary context now and our life today. When you look at Ezekiel for the first time, you think, Was this a madman? What was this? I think we need help from those whom God has raised up and equipped to teach us some of the harder aspects. Think about the Ethiopian eunuch who encountered the disciples and they said, Do you understand what you’re reading? He said, How can I, unless someone explains it to me. He wanted to know, he wasn’t afraid to admit that he didn’t know, and so God sent along people he had equipped to help. He’s raised up certain people to teach, to understand, and to be able to communicate his truth. Making use of that for our own understanding of Scripture is really vital. We don’t have to go to seminary for that. There are so many great resources today, whether online or books we can buy. And then, of course, everyone has access to (if they don’t have a computer or online access) is the church and other believers. I think it’s seeking out wise, older believers who maybe know Scripture better. And wherever you happen to be, asking the Lord to provide that.

24:37 - Tool #7: Other Christians

Matt Tully
That was one of the other tools I was going to mention was just other Christians. Speak a little bit more to the ways that God has used other people to help you understand the Bible.

Lydia Brownback
I think about in Philippians and other places where Paul says Imitate me. Imitate us. Imitate those who walk faithfully. One of the things I imitate is how they study Scripture. Not necessarily the underlining and the highlighting, but when do they read Scripture? How faithful are they? Is it everyday? How long? I’m fascinated by how they live their lives—their time with God, their Bible reading, the resources they use. What are they involved in at their church? How do they grow in their knowledge? It’s exposing myself to their lives as much as I can to try to imitate them.

Matt Tully
Who would you say in your life has had the biggest impact on you and your own study of the Bible in particular?

Lydia Brownback
In recent years, I’d say Kathleen Nielson. She is kind of under the radar a little bit. She’s such a sound Bible teacher. When I first heard her speak, she was at a retreat and she was walking through the twenty-first chapter of John’s Gospel. She did all these sessions just one verse after the next. It was the first time I had been to a women’s conference, and after that I thought, I want to know how she goes about her life. I asked her once, Do you ever teach topically? She said there was nothing wrong with that. It can be a wonderful thing, but she said, The time is short. With the opportunities I have, I have decided that this is the most important thing. I’ve never forgotten that, and so I’ve leaned more and more in that direction.

Matt Tully
Even in your own personal study?

Lydia Brownback
Yes, in my own study and in my own teaching especially. I read all kinds of books. I read a lot of topical, thematic books. I think about another one that Crossway just put out called, Overcoming Apathy. What an amazing theme that speaks to all of us in our Western culture. We need those books too.

Matt Tully
It’s not an either/or. You’re saying that when it comes to your Bible study in particular you’ve been focusing more on book by book.

Lydia Brownback
Yes. And then I think about the pastors I have sat under, learned under, and worked for. A pastor once told me that every morning, in addition to his other Bible reading, at some point in the day he reads one psalm and once chapter of Proverbs. There are thirty-one chapters in Proverbs. He reads one a day, and he’s committed to doing that the rest of his life. What a wise man he is. His marinating in Proverbs shows up in his life. Little tips like that are very helpful.

27:43 - Tool #8: A Concordance

Matt Tully
A few other tools that might be a little bit less common, but nevertheless very helpful. What’s a concordance?

Lydia Brownback
A concordance is one of my favorite things. Often they are in the back of a Bible.

Matt Tully
Sometimes they’re built right in.

Lydia Brownback
Yes. I would say many, many Bibles have those built right in. I do recommend Bibles that have those. Say you see a term, like sanctification—or any word at all. What if you’re doing a study on love? You can go to the concordance, and it’s an alphabetical listing of terms. It will have all the references in the Bible that have that word. That’s called an exhaustive concordance. That’s when every single verse that contains the word love is going to appear in that concordance.

Matt Tully
It’s also exhaustive because it’s so big and you’ll feel tired after you’ve picked it up.

Lydia Brownback
Yes. Most Bibles don’t have exhaustive concordances; they have a sampling. They’ll have maybe ten or fifteen of the verse.

Matt Tully
Key references for that term.

Lydia Brownback
Yes. If you go to one of those references, you’re going to see a cross-reference there to other references. So you can sort of build your own concordance as you go. It’s really helpful if you want to understand a particular term, or if you’re doing a thematic study on something. Think about doing a study on the tongue. You go there and you look up tongue, and then it will take you to verses on lying and gossip and other things. Then you can go back to your concordance and look up verses on gossip and verses on lying and verses on all different kinds of speech patterns—good talk and bad talk. So it’s finding key terms, and then sort of building a theology of the tongue, a theology of love—to see what Scripture might say, what the Lord is saying to us in his word by looking all over the Bible at a particular word and understanding not just that word and what it means, but the Lord and where he is in that concept and what he wants for us. It’s such a helpful resource.

29:59 - Tool #9: A Bible Dictionary or Encyclopedia

Matt Tully
How about a Bible dictionary or encyclopedia? How could that be helpful?

Lydia Brownback
Those are really great too. It’s kind of a similar idea. Say you want to understand more about angels. You have a Bible encyclopedia or dictionary, and it’s just like any other encyclopedia or dictionary. You go look up that term, and if it’s an encyclopedia, it’s going to have a paragraph or two explaining what that is in Scripture, what it’s history was, the background of that term, where you’re going to find that in the Bible, and what it means. Those could be really helpful and important. If you’re building a theological library, it’s really good to have a Bible dictionary or encyclopedia.

Matt Tully
Where would a one-volume Bible encyclopedia fit in your list of priorities if you were someone who was just getting started trying to study the Bible and trying to be a little bit more intentional with their Bible or theological library? Where would an encyclopedia rank in your mind?

Lydia Brownback
I would say underneath a concordance, but if you’re serious about wanting to teach or just to grow at that next level, it would be a really good addition. Maybe before you start collecting a ton of commentaries it would be really good to have that.

31:22 - Tool #10: A Bible Atlas

Matt Tully
Yeah, that’s great. Another question: How about a Bible atlas?

Lydia Brownback
Those are great too. I would say that would be a little lower on the list, but so helpful. Study Bibles often have maps all throughout of various spots in the Bible. But having these maps is not just for the pretty picture. It really does help us grasp the original context. In the Old Testament you’ll have maps of the Middle East and what it was like then in Abraham’s day. Then, when you go to the New Testament and you see those same places but with “Paul’s Missionary Journey” stamped on them, you say, Oh! All of this happened in the same general locations. This is how it was different and this is how society had changed. It does help us understand visually the storyline of the Bible and how it’s unfolding.

Matt Tully
I know for me, in addition to helping me understand a particular passage a little bit better, there’s also this less tangible sense of when you see these maps and see these town names and roads and rivers, it kind of makes the Bible more real in a sense. It forces you to realize that these were real events that happened in real places. Do you ever have that sense as you have studied a passage?

Lydia Brownback
Very much. Also, what might have been involved? When you look at a map of the wilderness wanderings back in Exodus and you see what was going on there, you can visualize where they wandered and the space that was—the actual area and the geography and what it must have been like. It helps you enter into their world a little bit.

Matt Tully
Oftentimes, atlases will include photographs of the areas and pictures of structures or diagrams of buildings, so it really does give you a more real, tangible sense of what it might have been like.

Lydia Brownback
Building on that, a great resource (I have a couple of these) is Manners and Customs of the Bible. It takes you through each era of biblical history and it talks about what people wore, the food they ate, what the women’s lives were like, what the men’s work life was like, what raising children was like. It will walk you through each era and explain how that changed and what that was like. That is so helpful too.

33:53 - Tool #11: A Bible-Reading Plan

Matt Tully
Getting down to the end of my list here, another helpful tool to have is a Bible-reading (or Bible study) plan. Speak to the importance of having a plan of some sort as we try to study the Bible.

Lydia Brownback
I think it really helps us to be disciplined. If we don’t have a plan, we can wake up and say, I don’t really know what to read today, and before we know if we’re playing Wordle and our Bible-reading time is gone. Having a plan is a really helpful tool to get up, know what you’re going to read that day, and get right into it without having to spend time figuring out what you feel like reading. We miss out on so much that way—Do I feel like reading a psalm today? Maybe I feel like reading a gospel passage? We’re going to miss out if we don’t have a plan. Truth be told, I don’t follow any plan. My church does a Bible-reading plan and I do my best to keep up with that, but I don’t always. They read two chapters of the Bible a day, and I usually just pick one of those and read it instead of two. But that’s even aside from my own Bible-reading plan. This is my Bible-reading plan: on January 1st (this is my annual tradition) I sit down and I map out my own Bible-reading plan for the year. I always begin that day with Psalm 119. I read through that prayerfully, and it’s about a love for God’s word and God’s way. I want to pray through that psalm on New Year’s Day, and when I’ve finished doing that, I make my Bible-reading plan. I always begin with a Gospel, and then I will pick an Old Testament book. Then I set up a New Testament book, and I go back and forth to where I think it’s going to cover enough to get me through the whole year. What I love about that is if I decide I really want to park in a particular book because it’s really gripping me or I want to go deeper, then I can spend a month on a chapter of the Bible. Or I can just read through it and go on to the next one. If I don’t make it through my plan, that’s okay. I bump them to the next year. I just keep a checklist to make sure I’m going through every book and check them off. It can take me a few years.

Matt Tully
So you’re not necessarily trying to map out what you’re going to read on every day. Some plans do that for you and that’s great, but you’re just more putting the biblical books in a certain order and then working through them.

Lydia Brownback
Yes. I go Gospel first, then an Old Testament book, then a New Testament book.

Matt Tully
Why do you think you always want to start with a Gospel?

Lydia Brownback
I want to be in the words Jesus said, and I want to focus on the gospel message. It’s just so foundational for me. We know that Jesus is everywhere in the Bible, of course. It’s all he said and not just the red letters, but it just anchors me in Christ and his person. It helps me focus on him so much. I don’t even really know for sure, but that’s just my tradition now.

Matt Tully
That’s part of it, too, is I’m sure as you’ve done this for years and decades, you do start to develop little habits that you like to do that aren’t right or wrong necessarily, but are just the way you like to do it. Does that come out in other ways with relation to studying the Bible?

Lydia Brownback
I think so. That’s where I started doing the commentary thing. When I picked Ezekiel, I hadn’t done that and I thought, I’ve got to put Ezekiel in because I’ve never put that in my plan. When I got near to that I was a little intimidated, so I thought, Well, I’m just going to get a commentary to help me with this. That’s now become a habit. I will never read the commentary before the Bible passage. I prayerfully read through the passage, and then after I’ve done my reading and listening to the Lord, then I will read the commentary to be sure I’m understanding correctly. That’s become a habit as well.

Matt Tully
I think that’s one of the dangers of commentaries, or even just a study Bible, is we maybe too quickly rely on that commentary to help us understand. We don’t really want to take the time to do the hard work ourselves.

Lydia Brownback
And to listen. We’re so quick to want an answer. What about just thinking about it prayerfully and meditating on it? I will never automatically go to the notes. That is always backup to make sure my own understanding is accurate and Spirit-imparted. It’s there as a reinforcement or as a corrective, so I think it is important to serve in that way. But I think it’s a mistake to start out reading the passage, then reading the notes, and then just saying, Okay, I’ve done my Bible reading today. It really should just be a reinforcement.

39:03 - Tool #12: Prayer

Matt Tully
That’s a great segue into the last thing I wanted to highlight. It’s something you’ve already mentioned a little bit, but that’s just prayer—having prayer be a foundational part of what it means to study and read the Bible. I wonder if you could just walk us through what would be the key things that you’re praying after you’ve read your Bible for the day?

Lydia Brownback
When I’ve asked God to open my heart and illuminate what he would say to me that day, there’s always some conviction of sin. And even if I don’t feel it, it’s there on the page. Or, there’s an application point of some sort, and there’s always, always, always something about God that’s been revealed. I will thank him for that attribute, I will praise him for it, I will ask for deeper understanding, and I will ask him to help me think on it during the day and to understand what about his character that it is indicating and that he’s showing. People say God told me, God told me. Yes, he did in his word. Are we listening? That’s where he speaks to us is in his word. If we sit down with our Bible and understand that it is God speaking to us, then whether we feel something or not, it is still him speaking to us, no matter our mood. He is always saying something.

Matt Tully
Sometimes I’ve found that as we’re reading a passage, if we don’t understand it it can be hard to apply. It can be hard to see how it is relevant for our lives. All Scripture does speak about Jesus ultimately in the gospel and our need of him. It teaches us about God. Help us understand how sometimes it’s that first step of understanding Scripture that then leads it to feel more relevant to us.

Lydia Brownback
It’s understanding that this is God’s word to us. It’s God speaking to us, so he has something to say to us in every word of the Bible, even if it doesn’t seem relevant to our lives or our particular situation or context. For example, you think about Ezekiel—a challenging book that you look at and think, What did these visions have anything to do with anything about life today or real life anyway? And then you think, What does it say about God? That’s the question we need to ask. When you think about one of those visions, it’s a picture of God slowly leaving the temple. The temple is where his presence dwelt in those days, where his people would go to meet with him. The people’s sin was so great, God had given them so much time to repent and they had not, so he was withdrawing. What do we learn about that? There is relevance to that because it’s showing us that God is grieved by sin, he’s grieved by our sin, he’s reluctant to leave—he left slowly—so he is not quick to judge and show wrath or anger. He loves to show mercy. That is so relevant to us. You think about another type of thing—the genealogies are another good example.

Matt Tully
Two of the hardest examples in all of the Bible.

Lydia Brownback
You look at that and say, What does this have to do with today, or anything beyond those initial people? What does it tell us about God? It tells us that he knows people by name. He knows everyone by name, including us. It means that he keeps his promises because genealogies are meant to show us the thread of one generation to the next and how he was bringing a savior out of a line of people—specific people, not just people in general and not just the Israelites, but specific individuals. God cares about people, and he cares about his promises. Even in those things we need to ask ourselves, What do these difficult passages that seem irrelevant tell us about god? Each one tells us something about God.

Matt Tully
Thanks so much for helping us to better understand some of these tools that help us dig—these tools of the dig that let us get into the Bible a little bit more deeply.

Lydia Brownback
It’s exciting that we have so many resources that are available to us, and I hope we can all make great use of them.

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