11.10.06
A daily guide to spiritual development
Time spent alone with God in practice is not nearly so neat and tidy as this outline might imply but these themes have been shown to be effective in helping people to connect daily with God and so develop their character to be more Christ like one day at a time.
Spiritual progress requires thoughtful and prayerful engagement with God’s word. Reading large chunks of scripture can be a meaningful spiritual discipline. However, you need slow in-depth meditation with a view to personal application to make spiritual progress.
I recommend choosing a book of the bible to work through a verse or two at a time. Or you can use this form to study any passage on which you will be studying with a group or in preparation for you to lead or teach yourself. Don’t feel that you need to legalistic and check off each step. Some days I don’t get beyond observation before I move to prayer. As you develop proficiency you may discover that the stages blend together. However, unless you are strongly grounded in scripture it can be dangerous to jump to interpretation before making careful observations about what the text meant to its first hearers.
Bible Study
Observations:
Type or write here observations that you make about this verse or passage. At this point you are seeking to answer the question, “What does the text say?” You are not yet asking, “What does the text mean?” That’s a second level. Don’t leave this section too soon. The key to effective Bible study is to develop a keen eye for detail. I usually am largely rewriting the verse and I look at it from various angles.
Interpretation:
Only now do you begin to ask the question, “What does it mean?” An even healthier way to look at this is that you are asking, “What did it mean to its first hearers?” We have to seek to understand that before we can seek to understand what it means now. This level is about asking good questions, primarily why and how?
Cross-reference:
Use scripture to interpret scripture. Most study Bibles have ample cross-references to each verse in the margin. Look up one or two, especially if it concerns a word or a phrase about which you need help. This can be especially helpful in discerning what a passage meant to its original hearers in cases where a cross-reference often refers to background information about a concept or an incident.
Application:
Now you are asking the question, “so what?” Or it may be helpful to ask, “What do I need to do based on this passage of scripture?” You may also ask the question, “How do I do this?” Rick Warren often writes in the margin of his bible the acronym YBH. (Yes, but how?) to force him to think about specifically applying passages of scripture.
Prayer
We often do our best praying in response to reflection on scripture. You may also want to try praying through the themes of the Lord’s prayer using it as an outline. Or you may want to follow the ACTS acrostic (Adoration, confession, thanksgiving, supplication)
Journal
Record any impressions from the previous day. You might want to use these questions: What did I expect to happen? What did happen? What can I learn from the difference? This is also the place to record any insights, or any thoughts, to work out in prayer situations in your life that are troubling to you. Experience is not the best teacher. Reflection on experience is.
