By Jimmy Witcher, Senior Pastor, Trinity Fellowship Church June 2022

Where to Start

Hey there! I’m Jimmy. I’m the Senior Pastor at Trinity Fellowship Church in West Texas and also the host of the Biblecast, where we spend 10 minutes reading the Word of God four days a week.

The Bible makes a big promise: Your best life. This doesn’t mean an easy life or a life without challenges. But life with Jesus is a fulfilling one – and an exciting one. If you want to make a difference in the world, lead your family for generations to come, and feel confident and satisfied in the decisions you make in life, the Bible will teach you how. In fact, it’s the only guide out there that can TRULY fulfill its promise to transform your life for the better.

Maybe you’re on board with this idea already, but you’re wondering, practically, how do I start reading the Bible? Or maybe it’s... I’ve tried to read the Bible but I can’t stick with it or I feel like I’m missing something! Well, I’m here to help!

If you want a tangible guide for making Bible-reading on your own part of your regular spiritual practice, I created a simple, free resource you can download today. It will teach you some history of the Bible, what happens when we read the Bible, and give practical, achievable steps for getting started that you can implement right now, today with no wait time at all! I’m really excited about this.

Something you’ll learn about there is that there are four approaches – or we might call them kinds of exercise – we can take to read the Bible. This isn’t at all unlike how we have different approaches at the gym depending on the health benefits we’re seeking, like running for improved cardio, heavy weights for strength building, or yoga for better mobility.

The spiritual exercises or approaches to reading the Bible are: Hearing, Devotional, Studying, and Meditating.

“Hearing” the Bible is what happens on the Biblecast or when you attend church and hear a message preached. You are invited to hear the Word of God with me right here on the Biblecast every Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday! It’s a wonderful community, and I created it to be a very easy way for you to spend more time in the Word in a format that fits your lifestyle and schedule. You can also join us at Trinity Fellowship Church every Sunday in-person or online to hear the Bible preached in a longer-form message format.

Creating a Connection

I’d love for you to join me on the Biblecast or attend Trinity! However, I also want to really encourage you – if you’re not already, include one-on-one time with God as part of your regular spiritual health plan. God will use others to speak to you – but he always wants time with JUST YOU. Imagine if you were trying to get to know someone better, but every time y’all hung out they brought someone else along. You’d get to know each other, sure, but the relationship would have a growth limit.

I detail the activities and spiritual health benefits of the solo approaches to reading the Bible – Devotional, Studying, and Meditating – in the downloadable resource. Here’s a quick summary: Devotional reading will engage your spirit and your soul. If you’ve been around Christians for a large portion (or even a small portion!) of time, you might associate the word “devotional” with devotional plans or devotional groups – but that’s not quite what I mean. “Devotional” is kind of a churchy word nowadays. But let’s break it down, one definition of the word “devotion” is, “the fact or state of being ardently dedicated and loyal.” Essentially, we engage in devotional reading when we come to the Bible simply out of loyalty to and love for God. You’re only goal in devotional reading is to discover God’s purpose for your life. You can use a devotional guide – but, remember, that’s still kind of like bringing another person along into your journey. Consider just picking a verse, story, passage, or one book of the Bible to read.

Studying the Bible will engage your spirit and your intellect. This is an opportunity for you to uncover and unpack the authors, contexts, and cultures represented in the Bible. This exercise should include some trusted outside resources, as you will be studying linguistics and history alongside the Bible. I recommend selecting a resource to guide you, especially in your first few years of study. Studying the Bible will strengthen your faith as you gain better contextual understanding of the specific meaning of vocabulary used in the Bible or how transformative Jesus was to the culture he was born in as a few examples.

Finally, Meditating on Scripture is not only a beautiful practice, but also one that we are repeatedly commanded to do in scripture! Meditation is about truly just getting scripture into us. It’s reading the same verse again and again. It’s listening to it in the car. It’s reading a passage and thinking on it throughout the day.

Your Turn

If there’s one takeaway I can give you, let it be this: Don’t overthink, just get started. Reading the Bible regularly will change your life! I hope this was helpful to you! To learn more about all of these practices and more you can download my How to Read the Bible for free. See you on the Biblecast!

Feel free to reach out if you have any questions or comments we would love to answer them!