Hunter Christner

How do you know who God is? There is a great disconnect in our best guess of who God is and who God really is if we don’t know what the Bible (God’s word) says. You can know who God is by getting a better grasp on God’s word. Let’s look at how devoting yourself to hear, read, study, memorize, meditate on and apply God’s word will lead to an ever strengthening grasp on God’s word.

Ponder this statement from Deuteronomy 29:29 for a moment: “The Lord our God has secrets known to no one. We are not accountable for them, but we and our children are accountable forever for all that he has revealed to us, so that we may obey all the terms of these instructions (NLT).” 

We are not able to understand everything, but the Bible contains things that we are intended to know and understand about God, ourselves, and how we ought to live. Here are six different principles that you can put into practice to get a grip on all that the Bible has to offer.

The first one is to HEAR God’s word. One practice of the Christian life that the Bible talks about is meeting together with other believers for worship and biblical teaching, or going to church. You can hear God’s word read and explained weekly at a Bible believing church. Find a church that you want to commit to, and once you do, attend every week. In addition to that, consider creating a habit of listening to the Bible in the midst of your busyness. Find an audio Bible and listen to it while you do whatever it is you may be doing. It’s essentially The Word of God podcast.

The second thing is to READ it for yourself. You can find all different kinds of Bible reading plans. A “Read the Bible in a Year” plan was pivotal for me to be able to read through the entire Bible by myself for the first time. It may be daunting but you can certainly do it, even if it takes you two years … or more. I guarantee you won’t regret it. It will broaden your perspective on the character of the person of God and how the reality of God applies to you. 

The third aspect of grasping God’s word is to STUDY it. This is different from reading in that studying the Bible usually happens in smaller sections than you would read or listen to the Bible in. You may study one verse or even a single word that shows up throughout the Bible. You could also study a topic that is repeated or a character that caught your attention as you were reading through the Bible. There are Bible study materials, and resources that have insight and perspectives from scholars and others who are more familiar with the Bible that will help you to understand the parts of the Bible that are not as straightforward.

The fourth element to help you get a better grasp on God’s word is to MEMORIZE it. If you have verses memorized word-for-word your confidence and credibility in conversations about the Bible will skyrocket. Plus, when you quote from the Bible it’s not your words, but God’s words that others have to interact with. If you have God’s word memorized you don’t need to have the Bible physically open to be reminded of what God says about how you should act or respond in various situations. The more verses you memorize the more confident you will be in your understanding of who God is.

The fifth piece of grasping God’s word is to MEDITATE on it. That simply means to think deeply about or focus your mind on the things you have heard, read, studied, and memorized for a period of time. The first four principles all have to do with input of God’s word into your head. Meditating on God’s word is the secret step to get God’s word from your head to your heart. 

The sixth part of grasping God’s word is to APPLY it. Or as the verse in Deuteronomy said it, to obey what you learn from it. The application step is where God’s word goes from being true to being real. God doesn’t just want to be true to you, he wants to be real to you. Do you want to find out who God really is? You can get to know who he really is by starting to implement these six aspects of grasping God’s word.

(Hunter Christner is associate staff at Campus Ventures in Powell.)