so when you look into that passage there
are five things that i’m going to
encourage you to do
now i call these the five p’s of bible
study let me tell you that these little
p’s as i call them have revolutionized
the way i spend time with the lord when
i incorporate these five p’s into my
personal bible study
i without fail
hear god speaking to me through the
pages of scripture no matter what
scripture i’m reading from the old
testament to the new testament i begin
to have a dialogue with god and i know
god’s spirit is personalizing his word
to me so i want to share these five ps
with you because i think they’ll
encourage you the first thing you need
to do is position yourself to hear from
god
when you position yourself to hear from
god all that means is that you kind of
pull away to a place where you won’t be
distracted our lives are so busy
everything is moving at
so many miles per hour that we can
barely keep our thoughts straight so if
you can find a place that is a place
where you can just be alone and find
some quiet that’d be very helpful uh in
the book of habakkuk the prophet says as
i waited for god’s word this is in
habakkuk chapter two he said i’ll
position myself high on the watchtower
so on the watchtower it just meant that
he was alone and he was quiet
he could have his eyes peeled for the
king’s response to him find a place
that’s quiet listen it might even be
your car if you spend two hours a day in
traffic that’s a perfect sanctuary you
can position yourself to hear from god
in the car even
the second thing you want to do after
you position yourself to hear from god
so you’ve got your passage that you’re
going to ponder and you are somewhere
where you can really concentrate the
second thing you’re going to do in our
five p’s is that you’re going to pour
over the passage and then paraphrase the
major points
now when you pour over the passage it
means that you don’t just scan it
quickly we’re not after quantity here
we’re after quality of time in god’s
word so that means when you pour over it
you meditate on the scriptures if it’s a
story put yourself in the story how
would it feel to be that person um
consider if there is a command that god
is asking you to follow if there’s a
promise that he’s asking you to heed
really pour over it and take time
meditating on it when you do we’ve given
you room in your workbook to then
paraphrase the major principles from
each of those verses that you’re reading
so if you’ve got three verses maybe for
that day or two or maybe five if you’ve
chosen a passage that has that many then
listen just just write numbers down
verse one two three four and five and
then write a simple paraphrase for each
verse you’re not trying to be brilliant
or come up with anything new you’re just
putting down briefly what the verse says
feel free to even use verses that are
right there in the bible itself just
paraphrase the major points of the verse
the third p in our ps of bible study is
that after you paraphrase now you want
to pull out the spiritual principles
from those paraphrases so you simply now
want to spiritualize the the points that
you just wrote down on paper what is it
that you think god might be trying to
teach through those paraphrases through
those scriptures again is there a
command to follow is there a promise to
heed is there an attribute or a
characteristic of god that he’s trying
to reveal to you about himself is there
something that is to be learned from
those um those verses of scripture
pull out the spiritual principles
after you pull out the spiritual
principles the fourth p of bible study
is that you want to pose the question
this means that you just look at your
spiritual principles and turn them into
the form of a personally directed
question
ask yourself am i heeding that command
am i following that directive am i
heeding that promise do i believe that
god is who he says he is in this portion
of scripture you’re just gonna ask
yourself some questions and for me this
is where the rubber meets the road when
i start asking myself these questions
inevitably a divine dialogue starts
within me the holy spirit of god begins
to challenge me and even bring up
questions that i didn’t even think to
ask myself there are more questions that
come to me i write those down and i
begin to record the answers you’ll be
surprised how quickly and easily you can
begin to hear god’s spirit speaking to
you through scripture and when he speaks
you need to know that he doesn’t just
speak to be heard he always speaks to be
obeyed
and so the fifth p of bible study is
that we need to plan obedience and pin
down a date to obey
if you’ve been challenged or convicted
or encouraged by god’s spirit through
his word as you go through this bible
study to do something specific or to
stop doing something or to begin a
process in something then plan
strategize how you can obey listen we’re
on a battlefield the enemy is out to
keep us from living in god’s will to
keep us from being obedient so you and i
have got to be equally strategic about
planning how it is that we’re going to
do what it is that god is calling us to
do