Exciting to Explore

by Stacia McKeever on July 17, 2017

Illustrations by Paul Agner

The Bible has been amazingly preserved over the years—another sign that God wrote it (Matthew 24:35). For example, over 1,500 years ago one Roman emperor, named Diocletian, decided that he wanted Christianity to end.

He ordered every Bible to be found and burned, and he even built a stone column over the ashes of a Bible to celebrate his victory.

Seems like that would be the end of the Bible, doesn’t it? But it wasn’t. Diocletian couldn’t destroy all the copies of the Bible. And 25 years later a new emperor, named Constantine, had 50 new Bibles produced.

Since the Bible is the eternal Word of God, we need to read and study it and obey what it says. We can use it to help us understand the world around us. When we read the Bible as the writers intended and in the way their original audiences would have read it, we have a basis for understanding and explaining what we observe in the world.

It’s exciting and important to study God’s Word as much as we can!

Pray

Pray before you read the Bible. Ask God to help you understand His Word. The writer of Psalm 119:18 asked God to open his eyes so that he could see wonderful things in God’s Word.

Read

Read the Bible. Pay close attention to what you’re reading. Write down what you learn from the verses. EXPLORE the Word of God! As you read, ask yourself:

EX Is there an example to follow?

P Is there a promise to claim?

L Is there a lesson to learn?

O Is there an offense—a sin—to confess?

R Is there a rule to obey?

E Is there an error to avoid?