Gifts for Moms, Dads, and Grads
Gifts for Moms
What We Lose When We Don’t Study the Bible Ourselves
Don’t Shortcut Your Learning
When I was in high school, I took advanced Spanish courses in preparation for spending my summers doing volunteer work in Central America. This was long before smartphones existed, so I couldn’t rely on Google Translate to communicate for me. I had to study vocabulary, conjugate verbs, work on my pronunciation, and employ the rules of grammar in awkward, jarring conversations with my classmates and teacher.
When I got to Central America, I was able to shop in the market, work alongside the locals, and generally understand what was being said to me. It was rewarding to have done the work of study to be a real participant in the world I was briefly living in. While it would have been easier if I’d had an app to rely on, I would have missed the growth in developing the language as well as the joy that came from being able to connect with the local Spanish speakers. Shortcutting the process of language learning would have robbed me of personal growth and rich relationships.
The Purposes of Bible Study
These days, we have numerous apps and aids to make our lives easier. While it’s not wrong to use things that make tasks more efficient, there are some processes in life wherein shortcutting the learning process isn’t best for us. Bible study is one of those things.
While you won’t find a direct command in Scripture to study it, you will find exhortations, patterns, and principles that encourage us to make a close examination of God’s word for the purpose of spiritual growth, a deeper understanding of God and his story of redemption, and to cultivate a closer relationship with him.
Bible Study
Glenna Marshall, Winfree Brisley
This volume of TGC’s Disciplines of Devotion series invites women to stir their affections for God by cultivating the biblical practice of Bible study.
The purposes of study require that we do the work of study. We cannot expect spiritual growth without living closely to Scripture. We cannot hope for a deeper understanding of God and his redemptive story while refusing to learn the Person or the story. We won’t grow closer to the Lord if we refuse to engage with his chosen means of revelation. The things we desire to take from Bible study will only come through studying the Bible. A deepened affection for the Lord and a heart that reflects Christ come from a life saturated with Scripture. Because God’s word is living and active, regular study will (over time) shape you to look like Jesus, to love what he loves, and to hate what he hates.
To enjoy the gifts of growth associated with a Scripture-saturated life, we must take the plunge and go deep into the waters of God’s good word.
The Long Path of Spiritual Growth
No one in the history of the world has had as much access to Scripture and supplemental study materials as we do in the twenty-first century Western world. Whether it’s the stack of Bibles on our shelves, the study guides we can download in an instant, the apps that read Scripture to us, or the podcasts that tell us what Scripture means, our access to a wealth of biblical knowledge is an embarrassment of riches! Yet research suggests we are still more biblically illiterate than ever.1 Having access to God’s word doesn’t automatically mean that we are studying God’s word regularly.
In my experience as a Bible teacher and a pastor’s wife, I’ve observed that those who do not do the regular work of deep study themselves but are only fed by others are unable to see much spiritual growth over the course of their lives. Without regular personal study, they struggle to grasp the overall redemptive story arc, have difficulty seeing Christ in all of Scripture, and are quick to pluck verses out of context for personal application. Discouraged by the lack of immediate spiritual growth and quick understanding of difficult texts, the solution is to rely on the study of others for a faster, more efficient way to grow in the Lord—or to quit trying altogether. But there is no app that can sanctify you or make you like Jesus.
The path of spiritual growth must be walked with an open Bible in your own hand.
While learning Scripture within the body of Christ is crucial for our growth, we can’t rely solely on the teaching of others for our own maturity in Christ. The path of spiritual growth must be walked with an open Bible in your own hand. When we shortcut the work of Bible study, we miss out on engaging with the text and wrestling with the parts of Scripture we don’t understand. And though wrestling with the text is hard, it’s good for our souls.
The Reward of Wrestling and Learning
I look back on my first awkward interactions in another language and cringe at how poorly my words must have come across. I hunted for words in my mind while staring blankly at the person I was speaking with. It was hard to think and speak in another language! But working through it made me better at it, and it was rewarding to be able to dialogue with others. I could have relied on a translator, but I would have missed the personal engagement of one-on-one conversations.
In Bible study, we often bump up against passages we don’t understand at first. Sometimes the genre makes it difficult for us. Hebrew poetry and apocalyptic literature can be challenging to grasp. With an endless stream of knowledge available at our fingertips, we’re not good at sitting with the phrase “I don’t know.” We swipe, tap, and research to escape the helplessness of not knowing. So when the “I don’t know” frustration creeps into our Bible study, it’s tempting to immediately turn to a commentary or a pastor or podcaster to tell us what the text means. It’s certainly not wrong to seek help when we need it, but if we always skip the challenging parts of study, we miss out on the reward of engagement with Scripture.
Study feels hard because it often is hard! But God gave us his word so that “through the encouragement of the Scriptures we might have hope” (Rom. 15:4). It is his will for us to read and understand. Therefore, we must obey him and let his word dwell richly in us, even when it’s challenging to grasp (see Col. 3:16). I’ve found that wrestling with the text might mean asking questions to help round out your understanding of it. When you’re reading Scripture and feel stuck and uncertain of its meaning, consider asking questions like these:
What does this teach me about God’s character?
How does this show me man’s need for Christ?
How is the hope of the gospel apparent in the text?
Are there commands to obey or sins to confess and repent of?
As you read and question, don’t forget that you have one of the greatest study aids you could ever hope for: the Holy Spirit. If you are in Christ, the Spirit lives in you to guide and help you both remember and understand the words of the Lord (see John 14:26). One of the most important ways to work through passages you don’t understand is to ask the Holy Spirit to help you understand what you’re reading. As you persevere, he is your guide and your comfort. You never study Scripture alone!
Lifelong Transformation
I must confess that I let go of my ability to speak Spanish decades ago. I quit doing the work of study, so I lost the language. If I had worked to hold onto it after my teen years, I’m certain I’d be fluent now in my mid-forties. But, as a student of Scripture, I’ve learned that the joy I find in digging into the word each day is immeasurably greater than any frustration I feel in the studying process. As I open my Bible to read, question, observe, interpret, and apply Scripture, God is working in me. While I can’t look at the last three months and see any measurable spiritual growth, I can look at the last five or ten years and see many ways in which God has changed my desires, deepened my love for him, convicted me of sin, and comforted me in trials.
What we can’t see in the daily study of Scripture is the slow work of transformation. It’s not something we can chart on a graph or track in an app. But God uses his word to help us “grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ” (2 Pet. 3:18). And growth takes time. When you open your Bible today to study God’s word, consider what he will do with your obedience in five or ten years. Our purposes in study are to know the Lord and to love him more, and it’s the daily work and wrestling that bring about those purposes. Because God brings growth through our daily obedience to engage with his word, that’s not a process we want to skip.
Notes:
- “Are We More Biblically Illiterate Than Ever?” by Joe Holland, Ligonier Ministries, March 28, 2025, https://learn.ligonier.org/articles/are-we-more-biblically-illiterate-than-ever.
Glenna Marshall is the author of Bible Study.
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