Like an onion…

I recently began a new Bible reading plan that I found on a website called Ransom Fellowship. (I found it via my new favorite "research" tool…Pinterest)

According to the article, the plan goes back to the time of the Puritans but it was repackaged by Margie Haack as the 

Bible Reading Program for Slackers and Shirkers

(A similar plan can be found HERE)

Basically…the plan assigns a reading from a different part of the Bible each day of the week.

Sunday - Poetry
Monday - The Pentateuch
Tuesday and Wednesday - Old Testament History
Thursday - Old Testament Prophets
Friday - New Testament History
Saturday - New Testament Epistles

There are two key benefits to this plan. You can see the interconnectedness of scripture. And since there are no specific dates assigned to the readings, there is not as much pressure....or guilt.....when life gets in the way and you miss a few days of reading. Missed this Monday's reading? Tomorrow is a new day....so simply move on to Tuesday's reading and pick up next Monday where you left off.

I also found a very simple bible study method (again thanks Pinterest) called the SOAP METHOD.

SCRIPTURE
OBSERVATION
APPLICATION
PRAYER

I know there are many ways to study the bible. In fact, while researching for this article (No not Pinterest this time…google) I came upon a website that talks about some of the methods with links to "worksheets" for each of the different types of study.

The Bible Study Methods
Method One – The Devotional Method
Method Two – The Chapter Summary Method
Method Three – The Character Quality Method
Method Four – The Thematic Method
Method Five – The Biographical Method
Method Six – The Topical Method
Method Seven – The Word Study Method
Method Eight – The Book Background Method
Method Nine – The Book Survey Method
Method Ten – The Chapter Analysis Method
Method Eleven – The Book Synthesis Method
Method Twelve – The Verse by Verse Method

The word study method piques my interest because I have found that, oftentimes,the English word does not really do justice to the meaning of the word in the original language. But even though the detailed worksheets appeal to the OCD aspects of my personality, for now I'm going to KISS and use the SOAP method.

So anyway...the inspiration for this entire post was a quote by Emmet Kelly that I happened upon this morning. I love the diamond mining analogy he uses. I've heard scripture compared to an onion....layer upon layer upon layer of meaning. When you "dig" a little deeper, things are not always what they appear on the surface.

The study of the Bible is not unlike the search for diamonds in South Africa. At first people found a few diamonds in the yellow clay, and they were delighted with their good fortune, even while they supposed that this was to be the full extent of their find.

 Then, upon digging deeper, they came upon the blue clay, and, to their amazement, they then found as many precious stones in a day as they had previously found in a year, and what had formerly seemed like wealth faded into insignificance beside the new riches.

In your exploration of Bible Truth, see to it that you do not rest satisfied in the yellow clay of a few spiritual discoveries, but press on to the rich blue clay underneath.

 The Bible, however, differs from the diamond field in the sublime fact that beneath the blue clay there are more and still more and richer strata, awaiting the touch of spiritual perception—on and on to Infinity. Emmet Fox