Pressing In And Moving On

I have been away from the Internet world for a little while since I have been working and spending some time with family. So I am excited to give you the second to the last part of this little mini-series. I hope you have enjoyed the series so far and I believe that this one and one more will be beneficial for your relationship with the Bible.

I have heard many people talk about writing in their Bible’s from both a positive and a negative perspective. Some feel that it is defacing God’s Word when we mark our Bible’s and others feel its a critical part of Bible reading. I believe that a dirty Bible equals a clean life and a clean Bible equals a dirty life. Now I hope you don’t take that to an extreme although I do believe there is truth in the statement. For me, I can hardly stand reading my Bible without a writing utensil. I love to mark in my Bible what I am reading and keep track of dates and special occasions as the years go by. For this portion of my series I have no scripture to build this upon only personal preference.

Many use High-lighters, pencils, pens and markers or anything else they can get their hands on. I personally have come to be fond of ball point pens that don’t bleed onto the following pages. I have found that Highlighters tend to leak over through the other pages as well as fountain pens. My Bible has what’s called onion pages so they are very thin. Marking my Bible is a very important thing to me, so much so that when I say its hard to read it without one, I am not kidding around. Before I read I will look everywhere for one and go to great lengths to find one. Its very important to me to keep track of what I’m reading and have some way to chart it and place it in areas that I can find again. I most always use along with a pen my computer. Its a rare day that I read my Bible without my computer near by so that none of my thoughts get lost. I have built several files and files under files of thoughts, ideas and seeds for the present and the future. I have a collection of things that I have discovered through the written Word that have become precious to me. i would encourage you if you don’t already to start witting in your Bible and marking the things that you read day in and day out. The thing I most often do when I’m marking my Bible is circle the thing that stood out to me. Then I draw a line from that circle to the index or the margin and I start writing. I draw the line from the subject to the circle so I can connect my thought to the passage. I also write the current date at the end of whatever chapter I stop on. So if I read Act chapter one, two and three I would put today’s date at the start of Chapter four. I do this so I know where I left off which enables me to pick back up again where I stopped. have found over the years that this helps me realize how long I’ve been away from the Word and challenges me to remain faithful to it.

Once again, these thoughts are my own, and only suggestions to you as you build your relationship with the Holy Scriptures. In the last part of this series I will cover how I read my Bible.