How does one get started with Bible study? We offer the following five suggestions.
Set aside time. First, choose a day and time to do your study. This is dependent upon your individual circumstances and preferences. Some people find it easier to get up early, before others in the household, to have undisturbed times. Others prefer late in the evening. But the important thing is to have undisturbed time set aside. Work out with others in your household a time that they know they shouldn't interrupt you for trivial matters. Certainly, one should silence notifications on one's cell phone or computer. Divided attention will not yield much benefit.
Second, determine how much time you can spend doing your study. Again, this will vary considerably between individuals. Perhaps one can set aside a few hours. Perhaps someone who is retired can afford to devote an entire day to study. But whatever your circumstances, we recommend at least an hour per week. If you wait until it is fifteen minutes before your Bible Study group to do your study, you will likely have nothing worth sharing.
Get a notebook. The advantage of writing down all of your studies in a notebook is that they are there for future reference. It is also like setting aside a place to write your study akin to setting aside a time to do your study. Having a notebook provides organization beyond a bunch of unattached sheets of paper. There are any number of possible forms that a notebook can take - some prefer a spiral-bound notebook, while others prefer a bound notebook. Yet others might prefer a three-ring binder. The form of the notebook is unimportant so long as it works for you. And when you finish one notebook, you can start on a new one. The temptation that the modern westerner faces here is to type into an electronic device rather than physically write on paper. Though that is better than nothing, studies have found that writing engages more motor, language, and attention systems, engaging the brain more fully than typing. Additionally writing by hand improves memory, deeper processing, and stronger encoding. Take the time to write rather than type.Where to start. If you are new to the faith we'd recommend that you start with the gospel of Luke, then the book of Acts, and then the epistle to the Romans. This should provide a good grounding for your doctrine. If you're more advanced in your walk of faith, you may wish to start elsewhere, but all of the Bible is revelation from God - so there is no bad place to start. Often people figure that they will start with the first book - Genesis. This is good because it is actually foundational to the rest of the Bible. However, if you are new to the faith starting with one of the gospels is probably a better beginning. The only problem with starting with Genesis if you are new to the faith is that it seems logical to proceed to Exodus next, and one can get bogged down in the Mosaic law, instructions about the tabernacle and priestly vestments, etc. If you are experienced with Bible study, digging into these things can be illuminating, But if you are just starting out then Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy are going to be a tough road for you. Likewise, most of the book of Job.
Although all Christian traditions hold 66 books as canon (that is, authoritative), some traditions include additional books, such as the Apocrypha (Tobit, 1st and 2nd Maccabees, etc), Laodiceans, or others. Although these additional books aren't exactly heretical, we recommend that you stay within the core 66 books for your study. If you complete a study of all of those books, then you can consider including the additional ones. Incidentally, if you take one chapter per week, you would complete a study of the whole 66 book Bible in roughly 25 years. What do you do after that? Repeat the study! By the time you get back to a given book, all the other study you've done in the previous years will bring out deeper meaning as you study the book again. Even if you could live long enough to go through the entire Bible five times, you wouldn't be able to plumb the depths of what God has provided for us in the scriptures!
Preparing for study. We recommend that your onging study be a passage study. Taking one chapter at a time is the easiest way to break up the study of a book. Sometimes chapter breaks happen in odd places - like the middle of a thought. But going chapter by chapter is easier than trying to figure out which verses bookend each passage you wish to study. Take one chapter per week. Trying to cram more into a shorter period of time may make for a good Bible overview, but you will get that by simply reading it regularly. Study requires time. It requires that you spend some time considering it before you write down a single word. Therefore, we recommend that you read the chapter each day during the week leading up to your study time. More times than you might imagine, you will start to notice things in the passage by the fifth or sixth day of reading it that you didn't notice on the first few readings. If you can take the time, you might want to spend some time meditating on the passage after you read it each day.
Pray. Before you read the Bible and before you do your study: pray. Pray that the Spirit will quiet your mind so that you can hear Him speaking to you through the passage. Pray for understanding. Pray for the humility to accept what it says over what you want it to say. Scripture is spiritually discerned and should be approached with the enlightenment of the Spirit. Yes, the Spirit can (and often has) spoken to non-believers through the Bible. However, there are those who can read the Bible for years and never profit from it because they do not approach it with the right attitude. Humbling yourself before God, by asking for His help in understanding scripture, is essential if you want to grow more into the likeness of our Lord Jesus.