This is a guest post by Angie Stanley. Angie lives in the Black Hills of South Dakota with her husband Isaac and her toddler daughter, serving at Calvary Baptist Church, where Isaac is the associate pastor. Angie has an increasing desire to help others grow in their confidence in studying Scripture for themselves; she blogs as a hobby at In the Meantime. She also reads, cooks, plays board games, and drinks coffee.
No matter how many times I’ve been instructed in the steps of Bible study — observe, interpret, apply — it still tends to feel like a complicated and confusing process that quickly overwhelms me: Have I made enough observations and asked enough questions to move on to interpretation? How do I know when I’m done with the interpretation step? What if I am totally off-base in how I interpreted this passage? Such questions haunted me every time I attempted to study a passage on my own and crippled my ability to move beyond the first few verses of the passage. Over and over again, I’d start studying a passage, only to get bogged down a few days later with “following the process.” I would quickly give up, defeated and discouraged to have once again failed to dig into the Word for myself without having to have my hand held the entire time.
And then I discovered Journibles. A Journible is simply an empty notebook dedicated to a book of the Bible (or to a collection of short books of the Bible) where you copy the exact text of Scripture on one side and jot your notes and questions on the other side. You could make the concept work with any blank notebook, or you can buy published Journibles with lightly-printed questions every few pages. Since I have begun using Journibles, I have felt much more confident in my own study of the Bible. Here’s why.
1. It slows me down
To copy a sentence word for word, I have to read the original sentence at least once, perhaps even two or three times, before the entire sentence has been completed. This process causes me to read each sentence multiple times; it also forces my brain to actually focus on each word as I read it. For example, when writing “In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth” (Gen. 1:1), I have to specifically look at each word to ensure that I get it word-perfect: “I-n t-h-e b-e-g-i-n-n-i-n-g G-o-d c-r-e-a-t-e-d….” By the time the entire verse has been written out, I’ve had to read the verse several times.
2. Observations come to mind
Because I write much slower than my brain can read and think, my brain does a lot of processing while I write. So even as I’m write “I-n t-h-e b-e-g-i-n-n-i-n-g, G-o-d c-r-e-a-t-e-d…” my brain begins to make observations and ask questions about the phrase; only five words into the verse, I have already learned when creation happened (in the beginning), and who created (God).
Obviously these are very simplistic and basic observations, but it illustrates the point that the exercise of physically writing out a passage word for word presents a prime opportunity to observe details within the text. And here’s the secret: I hardly even realize that I’m asking questions and making observations! It just naturally happens because I’m simply taking a few moments to consider each word of the sentence.
Before I started using Journibles, I would ask questions because “I’m supposed to ask questions.” However, with Journibles, I now ask questions and make observations because I am genuinely interested in the particular question or observation that I have!
3. Themes jump out
Manually copying large passages of Scripture is conducive to noting key words and themes woven throughout the passage. For example, I recently copied the entire books of 1 and 2 Thessalonians. As I worked through these books one verse at a time, themes began to surface simply because I remembered copying words such as affliction, rejoicing/joy, unity, walk, and encourage elsewhere in the book. And so, Journibles once again aided me in the process of studying the Bible by helping me identify key words and themes.
4. Answers present themselves
Because Journibles are set up with one side of the page being designated for writing down questions/observations/other notes and the other side for copying the passage, each verse has ample space for jotting down questions and observations that come to mind. In turn, there is also space for noting any answers that may be found in the immediate context or in other parts of Scripture.
Because writing out a passage allows my brain time to process what it is reading, this approach lends itself to being attentive to answers to questions that may surface, even as I write. Consequently, this helps me move beyond only making observations of what is in the text to putting together some of the pieces of the puzzle concerning the intended meaning of the text.
5. They become references
The handy thing about Journibles (or simply using a notebook) is that the passage, along with correlating questions and observations, are all recorded together in one book. In the future, it is easy to pull out a particular Journible in order to reference particular questions, observations, or even answers that surfaced as I worked through a passage.
A Journible does not formally work through the entire observe-interpret-apply Bible study process, for in its essence, it is simply an empty notebook that is waiting to be written in. However, I have found this simple and reproducible method to be an effective tool in helping me dig into Scripture and grow in my confidence in studying it for myself.
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In the spring of 2018, Crossway introduced the ESV New Testament Scripture Journals. Available either individually or as a 19-volume set, these books are unique.
