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By Philana Crouch

The year I turned six I got a pretty cool birthday gift...a little brother! One thing I noticed really quick was that he needed to eat. He needed to eat a lot. Why? Because he needed to eat to grow!

In growing up our parents would read to us, something we both enjoyed. But we did not stop there, we both not only learned to read on our own, but we both developed a love of reading. Recently my brother graduated with his Masters in Public Health, I am pretty proud of him. I received also my Masters in Divinity a few years ago. We were able to accomplish this because we had learned to not just be read to, but to love reading on our own.

It's the same way with our spiritual life. We both need to eat spiritually, and grow to the point where we spiritually feed ourselves. The Bible is our spiritual food (Matthew 4:4; Luke 4:4). But what is the Bible?

The Story

The Bible often called the "Word of God" is a collection of books, histories, songs, poems, prophecies, biographies and letters. These documents were written in Hebrew and Greek by people called by God to write down how He has interacted with humanity. The Bible is the Story!

The Story begins with a home of perfection lost by the tragic choice of its inhabitants to both believe a lie instead of trusting a God with whom they walked in intimate friendship. It continues with God's sole purpose to woo and reclaim a relationship with those He created with His hands. It tells the story of how He sent messenger after messenger with His words of love and warning. It tells of how He refused to allow people to think inanimate idols could actually save them, that if danger came He was the Only One with the ability to save. It tells ultimately of how people kept misunderstanding Him, so to set the record straight He incarnated and dwelt with His creation!

Its the Story of the Infinte God became a human being named Yeshua or Jesus! His name means Yahweh Saves. The climax of the Story is the death of Jesus on the cross, where He took on the sins of humanity and through His death brought healing for the damage the disease of sin has caused. But He did not stay dead, on the third day He was resurrected from the dead. Through that death and resurection He can offer both new life here and eternal life in His Kingdom when He returns. This event is called in the Bible The Appearing (Parousia). It's a compelling Story, and we are invited both to read and enter into the Life of that Story.

So let's discover how to enter into the Story!

Some quick tips as you read:

Pick a book of the Bible to start, a good choice is the Gospel of Mark. It's short and you get introduced to the life of Jesus at the start.
Go to a quiet place to read.Pray!
Take Notes...try the SOAP method

Scripture - write a verse or two down after reading the chapter
Observation - write out what the passage means
Application - write out how you can apply what it is saying to your life
Prayer - write out a prayer based upon the passage and it's application asking God for help in putting it into practice

Question: Where did you choose to start reading the Bible? How did you apply it?

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