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