TIPPS 1- Prayer

Strange huh? I guess you expected me to start with something different. You are probably wondering how prayer is a bible study tip. Don't give up on me and give your girl a chance to explain. 

In the past, I made the mistake of thinking that Prayer and bible study were 'two separate' forms of communing with God. The consequence of thinking this way was that at different points in my life, I found myself neglecting one or the other.  

True study of the word of God should point you to God and if this is the case, you should be led to pray. Conversely, an active prayer life should cause you to seek God's word. Therefore prayer and bible study should not be seen as separate activities, but rather as complementary ones that support each other.

Let us discuss the influence of prayer on bible study and vice versa.

1- Praying before studying the word takes the rubbish out of the way.

In Mathew 13 Jesus spoke about the parable of the Sower where the soil represents us and the seeds represent the Gospel of Salvation. Let's focus on the seeds that fell on thorns. It is not mentioned whether this soil was fertile or not, but we know that the soil grew other things (thorns) that hindered the seed from germinating. A lot of us have competing loyalties (thorns) in our lives that distract us from the word of God, such as the worries of life (mat. 12:22; Colossians 3:2), the love for the world, and even unrepented sin. Therefore, it is important to pray before we start our bible study to prepare our hearts for scripture. Through prayer, we can ask the Holy Spirit to open our minds to the word of God (Luke 24:45) and to remove the distractions of the world. Prayer also allows us to repent and ask for forgiveness of our sins.  

By uprooting the thorns in our lives, prayer turns our minds into fertile bare soil for the word of God to have space to flourish and bear fruit.

2- Prayer is Equally Important

As Christians, we can sometimes fall into two extremes- either we study the word without praying or we pray without studying the word. It is my observation that regenerated Christians often fall into the former category. Beautiful Daughter of God I do not want us to fall into either categories. I want us to be filled with the word and be praying women. Prayer is a powerful tool that can help us deepen our understanding of the Bible and strengthen our relationship with God. As such, we should not view it as secondary to our walk with God, but rather as an important and integral part of our spiritual journey that should be practiced with equal dedication and fervor as our study of the word. 

Not combining an active prayer with an active bible study life can be likened to a student in an examination hall who either does not read the instructions on the examination sheet and goes straight to answering the questions or a student who reads the instructions but does not attempt to answer the questions. While my analogy is far from perfect, I hope you can conclude that in both cases the student will struggle to pass the test. I would not attempt to explain here which one is the instruction or the answer between prayer and bible study because I am afraid that doing so would only take me through the murky terrains of bad theology. However, I want to impress here and now that both prayer and bible study are important aspects of Christian life. The Word is supposed to direct how we pray but it would only do so if we do pray. 

3-     Prayer and Bible study work in synergy

 In pharmacology, we would say two compounds have synergistic interactions when they both interact to produce a combined effect that is greater than their individual effects. I hope to illustrate how this natural phenomenon of synergism plays out in our Christian life-

The first time I read the sermon on the mount (Mat 5-7), I was filled with agony! I remember thinking, poor in spirit? I don’t have that. Then I moved on to mourning over sins, Yeah, I have never done that! I remember thinking, I am in trouble! How do I become these things? I turned to prayer and laid my petition bare before God. I prayed 'God you said the Kingdom of God belongs to only those who have a contrite spirit, Lord you know I don’t have one please help me.' . After reading the word I had a more realistic view of myself, which guided my prayer. My life changed from that day and I became more aware of my deficiencies. My utter shock when I realized that I was not perfect, I truly have faults! Phew. Humor aside, this is one of many examples of the synergistic effect of prayer and bible study.

Let me give you another illustration as I hope to impress on your mind how both prayer and bible study work together to bring us closer to God. My friend and I once discussed how we struggled with our desire to pray when we did not feel like we had any needs. In retrospect, I realize that our problem was our lack of bible study (which was truly lacking) preventing us from recognizing our true needs. A lot of the time we focus on our physical needs, but the bible tells us that physical needs are the least of our problems (Mat 6:25). This means that since we are yet to reach Christ-level of perfection (in this world) if our focus is on our true needs (that is, our spiritual needs), our needs are therefore never ending so we would always have a need to pray about. We would never know what our spiritual needs are outside of the bible and thus would not know to petition God for them. 

Simply put, Scripture tells us what our prayer request should be while prayer causes the living Word to transform our lives. This again represents the synergistic interaction of scripture and prayer. As a Christian, you cannot do without either one. 

Dear Beautiful Daughter of God, although I have tried my best according to my ability to explain why you should never forsake prayer, I do not think that this post does justice to the importance of an active prayer life to a believer so I plead to pardon my in adequacy and I urge you to look at the example set by the one who died for you. In the four-fold gospels, we see the authors mention multiple times that Jesus left the group to pray (Mat. 14:23; Mark 6:46; Luke 6:12). We read about how Jesus would slip away from a crowd to have His quiet time with the father, and how He would go to the mountains in the early hours of the day just before the crowd gathers. We read about Him teaching His disciples to pray (Luke 11) and we read about Him warning His disciples to pray against temptation (Luke 22:39-42). This is how you know that prayer is important – because of Jesus.

PRAY BECAUSE JESUS PRAYED!

Reflection- I want you to reflect on your prayer life. How often do you pray? Are you consistent in prayer? How do you view prayer? What are the contents of your prayers? Do you focus on things of secondary importance while neglecting the most important need which is the safety of your soul? Are the contents of your prayers even scriptural? Are you keeping the main thing the main thing, or are you filling up on bread when the roast dinner is just beside you? If you find yourself lacking in any way when it comes to your prayer life, don't fret, turn to God and tell Him about all the ways you feel you have fallen short in your prayer life, repent from your old ways and you will enjoy the fruitfulness of an intentional prayer life. 

Shalom.

Your fellow heir in Christ, 

Isabella