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Experiencing the Bible: A Practical Guide
Experiencing the Bible: A Practical Guide
Experiencing the Bible: A Practical Guide
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Experiencing the Bible: A Practical Guide

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For new Christians and longtime followers alike, it can be daunting to even think about diving in to the Bible, but it shouldn't. In this book you hold a three-part guide that will help you on your journey to discovering the depth of love, knowledge, and wisdom that lies within the Word of God.

In Part One, you will find information on some of the author’s personal Bible study methods and tools, one of the most powerful tools being journaling.

Part Two offers a guided safe space where you can dive into brief Bible passages, considering them each in detail and leaning into thinking about, understanding, and applying what you’ve read. Here is where you will journal, a practice that is particularly helpful for creating lifelong habits that promote true understanding!

Part Three leaves you with reviews of carefully selected resources to help you continue your journey past the pages of this book, and into the rest of your walk with Christ.

LanguageEnglish
Release dateDec 25, 2022
ISBN9780975443064
Experiencing the Bible: A Practical Guide

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    Book preview

    Experiencing the Bible - Tammy Cardwell

    PART ONE

    Let’s Talk

    WHO IS THIS?

    One of the first questions you should ask yourself when reading a book like this is, Who is the author, and why should I listen to this person? So…

    My name is Tammy Cardwell. I was saved and water baptized when I was 13, but it was a few years before I began to really understand what it meant to live as a Christian. As of this writing, I’ve spent something over 40 years actively working on my relationship with God. I’ve been faithful to the same church (Hillside Church, in Mont Belvieu, TX) that entire time, and currently serve as one of the church secretaries. If you wish to take the time, you can learn more about Hillside Church and my Pastor’s teachings by visiting myhillsidefamily.com; doing so would show you my spiritual foundation.

    You can also learn more about me at TammyCardwell.com. Here you will find some of the articles I’ve written over the years as I’ve contributed to various magazines, as well as several years’ worth of blog posts. I regret to say I’m not the most faithful blogger, but there is much of me on those pages.

    So how did I end up here, with this book?

    Maybe thirty years ago, I had a revelation: God’s Word will never pass away (Matt. 24:35). We will live by the Word of God – The Bible – for eternity. When this fact finally hit me, I felt like a student who was entering Finals Week completely unprepared. I suddenly snapped to the reality that I will live by the Word of God FOREVER and I didn’t know much about it at all. Yes, I attended church. Yes, I paid attention to the sermons. Yes, I read the Bible on occasion. I had even memorized some verses. But…

    I mostly read what interested me, which kept me pretty much in the New Testament. I also tended to just READ the Bible, rather than meditating on it the way we’re commanded to in Joshua 1:8. I knew I needed to make a change, and I did.

    I’ll say up front that, although I have taken formal Bible courses, participated in many Bible studies, and have been actively pursuing a relationship with the Word for years, I’m far from a theologian. I can quote a lot of scripture for which I can’t give you the address; I’m not proud of this weakness, but I refuse to pretend to be something I’m not. I’m also not experienced in apologetics, and I hardly know what words like hermeneutics mean. Nonetheless, I have a passion for God’s Word. I love it. I love its subtleties, its promises, its prophecies fulfilled… Most especially, I love how it affects my life, how it helps me grow when I let it work in me.

    So, who am I? I’m a fellow traveler on this journey, and I’m here to share how I changed my approach to the Word and, hopefully, help you in your experiences with the Bible.

    WHAT IS THIS?

    I have a heart for those who have been told, You’ve got to get into the Bible! but haven’t been told how to go about it. I get it; just thinking about diving into this massive collection of books can be terribly intimidating. So, in this book, I’ve set out to help you develop a relationship with the Bible that feels natural and is exciting. Getting to know Him through His Word has done things for me that I can’t even put into words. You really DO need to get into the Bible. Every time you pass up the opportunity to do so you are cheating yourself.

    The book you are reading comes to you in three parts. First, I will share some of my story and introduce you to a few of the basics of experiencing the Bible.

    Part Two focuses on the practical application of basic Bible journaling, so you will need a journal; even a composition book will do. As you work through Part Two, you’ll see my own reactions to and thoughts about various verses and passages, and you’ll hopefully journal your own thoughts and reactions to those same passages. Perhaps you’ll dig into other references or record other verses that relate. You may also choose to record your reactions to what I have to say. This would be great too, even if you disagree with me. Disagreeing with others can really force us to think, and thinking is good!

    Even as you work your way (hopefully slowly) through Part Two, I suggest also digging into Part Three. Here you will find information about Bibles, journaling, helpful apps, and websites. These resources will assist you as you dig deeper into the Word.

    I strongly suggest you keep your journal handy. Don't limit yourself to only recording your thoughts about and experiences with the verses we explore here; stop and jot down anything God shows you about the Word before you have a chance to forget it.

    THE JOURNEY BEGINS

    In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through Him, and without Him nothing was made that was made.

    John 1: 1-3

    And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth.

    John 1:14

    As I said, we will live by the Word of God forever, so it behooves us to invest ourselves in it today. But, although I used it as an example earlier, this isn’t just about passing a final exam in school.

    Jesus IS The Word; The Word IS Jesus. If we want an intimate relationship with Jesus, The Word, then it behooves us to gain and maintain an intimate relationship with the Bible, The Word. We must understand this foundational truth if we genuinely intend to grow as children of God. And here’s the big thing, as Christians we have no business picking and choosing what we want to learn about Him any more than we should be picking and choosing what we want to learn about those we are closest to. Our loved ones should be able to be real with us, show us who they fully are, their genuine selves. With Jesus, this is even more true, which means we need the whole Word.

    I spent much of my early Christian life as most do. I loved the Lord, without a doubt. I decided to be faithful in church attendance when I started college. I began tithing at the same time. (Side Note: Only once since then did I decide I couldn’t afford to tithe. That move led to a downward financial spiral that didn’t stop until I repented and got my act back together.) And then the day came when I got it, when the revelation of the necessity of an active relationship with the Word of God hit me like a ton of bricks.

    Let me pause here to say one thing. What I’m about to share is MY story. I highly recommend the path I took in those first few months, but don’t in any way want to imply that it is the only way to launch into a powerful relationship with the Word. Also, in what I’m about to share, in those first months I was only reading, not studying, the Bible. My purpose at that point was to gain an overall understanding of and hunger for The Book.

    I’d tried reading through the Bible before, but…well…it’s easy to get bogged down in certain books. This time was different. The Bible I had picked up, The One Year Chronological Bible, was in chronological order in the New Living Translation. The translation helped immensely, but it was the chronological approach (events in the order they happened) that made all the difference in the world. For instance, when I got to the book of Leviticus (which had been one of those books for me) things finally started making sense because of what I’d only recently read. The same held true throughout; I was suddenly able to build new bits of information onto what I’d been reading instead of trying to connect them randomly. Somewhere near the end of Revelation I decided that, as soon as I finished, I was going to start at Genesis 1:1 again.

    That was when I discovered a 90-day challenge somewhere online. I saw what people had to say about the power of reading the Bible from Genesis to Revelation in 90 days, and something lit up inside me. I was going to do that! And I did. My chronological Bible was divided into 365 days of readings, so I did the math to determine how many days I needed to read every day to reach my goal. That 90 days was like none I had ever experienced, and it fueled my hunger for God’s Word in a way I can’t explain. The minute I finished, I started again, even more hungry, more excited than I’d ever been in my entire life. This time I read the Bible through in six weeks, with my passion growing greater every single day. The Bible had taken on a whole new life for me!

    Consider this. You pick up a novel and only read a page a day. How much do you remember 130 days later? Not much, right? But if you read the novel in a single day…that’s an entirely different story. This is exactly the way it is when you read the entire Bible (especially chronologically) at an accelerated rate. You find yourself remembering things and making connections that you might never have made otherwise. Trust me; that six-week read-through stands among the most impactful things I’ve ever done in my walk with God. The way it changed my view of Scripture cannot be ignored.

    No, this book isn’t about you doing the same thing. I’m merely sharing my experiences right now. I do highly recommend that everyone be continually reading through the Bible, though, whether you read it through in six weeks, six months, or six years (Yeah, maybe not six years.). I’ve never done another accelerated read, because now I tend to take time to think about (meditate on) and do at least some study as I turn the pages.

    Another note: Although those three back-to-back readthroughs were in the same Bible, I tend to change translations every time I read through; it helps me see things differently. I also keep multiple translations on hand (either in hard copy or in my Bible app) for reference.

    So, the next step along the journey…

    PURSUING THE WORD

    When we tell Christians, You need to be in the Word, we too often fail to realize that, for many, it’s not that simple. Their question is, How? What do you mean when you tell me that? This book is MY answer. By that, I mean I’m sharing some of my experiences with the Bible through the years, including how I’m doing it today.

    The most obvious way to study the Bible is with a pre-written curriculum. Our church offers regular Bible studies, and they’re awesome. In this case, they’re usually video-oriented classes featuring teachers we’ve learned to trust, and we meet as a group once a week as well as studying at home. There is a wealth of excellent Bible studies out there, both for groups and individuals. I love doing them because these teachers bring out information I may have never discovered on my own, and they cause me to look at the Word from different angles. There are also many devotionals available, both in print and in apps, that offer tremendous insight into the Word of God. But these are only two ways to get into the Word, and if you’re not careful as you select your Bible studies and devotionals you can do what I did as a young Christian and focus only on those topics that interest you while unintentionally ignoring the rest.

    Which is why I also read through the Bible. As I explained earlier, I don’t simply read through it anymore. My relationship with the Word has morphed a lot through the years as I’ve taken Bible courses and used different Bible study methods and tools. The method I’m using today may not even be what I’m doing a year from now. That’s the beauty of it – and potentially the confusion. What works for me may or may not work for you today, and it may or may not help you tomorrow. Your relationship with the Bible should be forever growing. Going back to something I said earlier, it’s sort of like your relationships with people.

    Say you meet someone new on social media: You get to know them first through their posts. But then you become online friends, and as you DM with them you see them from an entirely new angle, perhaps discovering things you never dreamed. A face-to-face meeting adds more to your relationship, and if you reach the point of spending time together every week you may eventually look back on when you first met them online and think, I only thought I knew them back then.

    So, when I or someone else tells you that you need to be in the Word (without going into exacting detail) we’re not trying to leave you hanging or make things hard. It’s just that getting to know God’s Word is much like getting to know a person. The Word of God is living and active (Heb. 4:12) and your relationship with it should be living and active too.

    When I first decided to focus on meditating on the Word, it was because God stopped me in my read-through. I’d made a lot of progress, and He was ready for me to make even more.

    Tammy, you’re moving too fast. Stop and meditate on My WORD.

    I was reading through the book of Romans at the time and what God showed me was that I was only reading through the book of Romans. He had me slow down and read one verse, one sentence, and occasionally one word at a time – then take time to meditate on that word, truly think about it, and even study individual words in the original languages. As simple a step as it was to take, this revolutionized my Bible studies, which dramatically changed my walk with Him.

    As I slowed down and looked at each verse individually, as well as in

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