The SECRET to My Bible Study Routine

Meditating on God’s Word Day and Night

Let's have a wonderful discussion about the Bible on YouTube. Amen? That's what the creators of YouTube wanted when they invented YouTube, right? So, Psalm 1 -2 says, Blessed is the man who meditates on the law of the Lord day and night.

That means that we need to hold particular teachings of God's word in our minds and then go back over and over and over it again. That's how we were meant to read the Bible. We need to chew on each one of God's words again and again and delight in it.

I get asked the question a lot these days, Nate, how do you read the Bible? How do you do what you do? What's the process look like so that you can understand the scripture the way that you do? Well, it's interesting because I didn't always read the Bible the way I do now, the way I teach others how to read the Bible.

When I was young in the faith, I actually struggled to read my Bible. As a matter of fact, even in the first year or so of becoming a pastor, Bible study didn't really click for me. It wasn't even close to the experience that I have today when I open up and read God's word.

And after some thought and wrestling with my own studies and practices and what works for me, I finally realized what I was missing. And when that happened, I was able to put together a study plan that has been tremendously beneficial, not only to me, but to others as I teach it as well.

It's interesting because I'll make videos and I'll react to various things and I'll constantly bring up the scripture. My goal is to constantly read the Bible on YouTube. And when I do that, when I make these videos, you're seeing my fresh thoughts, the actual Bible verses that pop up immediately.

And then I pull it up and we talk about it on the channel. So the question is, well, how do I know the Bible well enough to do that? Well, it comes down to a couple of things in my study of the Bible.

And I'm going to walk through those pieces with you in this video. I'm also going to show you what my Bible study with Logos Bible Software looks like every morning when I wake up. But before we go any further, if you're new here, welcome.

My name is Nate, and this is Wise Disciple, where I'm helping you become the effective Christian that you were meant to be. I get the name from Matthew chapter 10, verse 16, where Jesus calls all of his disciples to be as wise as serpents and innocent as doves.

By the way, check out the new shirt. Okay, this is actually not new. This is the classic first tee that I ever made over at the store. And it's back up at the store now for sale. So if you want to rock the Wise Disciple gear and the original logo, definitely check out wisedisciple .store.

Also, if this video blesses you, please make sure to like and subscribe and even share the video around. It really helps me when y 'all do that. Okay, let's get into it. Before I do, though, quick disclaimer.

There are a lot of ways to study the Bible, okay? I'm not trying to suggest at all that what I'm about to show you is the only way. It's not the only way. There are a lot of things to do to get a good working knowledge of the Scripture.

A lot of great studies to do as well. But my main concern whenever I read the Bible is depth. I want to understand the Word as deeply as I possibly can. And so my process, what I'm about to show you, is designed for the reader to go deeper.

It actually trades on a five-day Bible reading plan that I created when I was a pastor at a church in Las Vegas. One of the big concerns I have with regard to Bible study is oversaturation. Now, this doesn't describe every Christian in every church.

Some people, you know, they just need to open up their Bibles for the very first time and take a look at what's inside. You know what I mean? But there are a lot of Christians that they do something like this.

They go to church Sunday morning and, you know, they have a Bible preaching pastor who brings the Word up every Sunday. And then they go back Sunday night for more teaching. But now, all of a sudden, they're in a different place in the Scripture.

Okay? Or maybe some Christians don't have a solid Bible preaching pastor, so they go home a little frustrated and they decide to stream, you know, their favorite pastor or a Bible preacher. Okay? And then they go about their week.

But they also have a life group, you know, a home fellowship that they attend. And then they study another part of the Scripture. And if you add Wednesday night back at church, what you have is most likely four to five different passages of Scripture floating around in a lot of Christians' minds every single week.

But guess what? They don't remember what their pastor originally preached Sunday morning. Why? Well, because they've become oversaturated with information. This is not how we are designed to retain information.

This is not how God made us. Our job is not to cover impressive amounts of ground when it comes to Scripture. Our job is to meditate on Scripture. Psalm 1 -2 says, Blessed is the man who meditates on the law of the Lord day and night.

Okay? But wait a second. To meditate on the Scripture, that means that we need to hold particular teachings of God word in our minds and then go back over and over and over it again. The word in the Hebrew for meditate, it brings in this picture of a cow chewing its cud over and over and over.

That's how we were meant to read the Bible. We need to chew on each one of God's words again and again and delight in it. Now, does that mean that someone can't go over the Bible in 365 days in a year?

No, that's not what I'm saying. I actually think that's beneficial for a lot of people sometimes. What I am saying is that the consistent expectation of God's word for us is that we chew on it over and over again.

Why? So that we uncover the buried treasure, the depth of wisdom that comes from the special revelation of God in his word. And so we can know how to live it out in our daily practice. Okay? Jesus describes this to his disciples in one of the parables in Matthew chapter 13.

He describes this as the master of a home bringing out of his treasure something new and something old. Okay? He's talking about God's word. That's where we go to find the treasure. So take a look at the five-day Bible reading plan.

Again, I created this years back when I was a pastor at a church in Vegas. And so this is what I do. And I'll just walk through it with you. Every week, I focus on a particular passage of the scripture.

And so what I'll do is I'll read the same passage every day, Monday through Friday. So day one is Monday, day two is Tuesday, and so on. Day five is Friday. And I'll seek to, as I read and reread the passage, answer one single question each day.

Each of these questions are designed to help me do a deep dive into the passage so that I can discover a few things. Okay? So for day number one, what's happening and who's involved? This type of question is designed to get me to investigate the details of the passage.

Who is there? What's going on? What's the current situation within which this action or teaching of the scripture is taking place? And as I read, I'm trying to pay close attention to minute details so that I can answer the question.

So let me show you what that looks like. I'm going to pull up Logos here. Let's go to Matthew chapter 12, and I'll walk through what that looks like. So as Logos is loading here, this is Logos Bible software.

I've partnered with Logos. It actually is something that I use every single day to study the scripture, and you'll see why in a moment. Okay? But I highly encourage you to check out Logos. They have a bunch of different packages to choose from, but you can also just use the free app to study the Bible.

Okay. So notice my screen here. Immediately, I have a menu bar on the left side. It says Home, Library, Search, all that stuff. Library is where all of the books that I have in my particular Logos package that I've accumulated over time, that's where they exist.

You'll notice Factbook here and Search. These two are your friends. They are aspects of Logos that are absolute game changers for the serious student of scripture. I've mentioned this before. Google is not your friend.

Factbook is your friend. Sometimes we as Christians, we have questions about what the Bible says about such and such. So we go to Google. The problem with Google is they are now diminishing actual biblical teaching and elevating progressive, woke, false teaching.

And so that's what I mean. If you go to Factbook though, Factbook is going to help you out. It's really going to give you a solid biblical analysis for whatever it is that you're looking for. Okay. And maybe, you know, I guess if this is something that you want to see more of, I can make videos on that as well.

But let's go ahead and just type in. So every morning, this is what I see. And I type in the particular passage. Let's go to Matthew chapter 12. I'm going to type it in over here. And now you can see on the left side.

So by the way, my translation is the English standard version. Okay. That's on the left side. That's my default translation. And then on the right side, you'll see my default commentary. It opens up alongside my Bible.

Now I have a lot of different commentaries. Okay. But I tend to gravitate towards Carson's expositors commentary for Matthew, Mark, and Luke. Okay. I just, for some reason, I just keep coming back to that one over and over again.

And so that's the one that pops up for me automatically. I also like Blomberg's, Craig Blomberg's commentary. So I'm going to, I'm going to pull up a new tab here. And then just as you can see on the right side, can you see that?

Oh, hold on. Let me move myself over here. On the right side, you'll see books that are commentaries that are connected to this particular passage of Matthew that I've typed in. And so now I just want to go to Blomberg's and I'm going to pull that up as well.

And I'm going to have these open, ready to go. Okay. So I like Blomberg too, because he, he focuses on the historical context quite a bit. And I, and I truly appreciate that. That's what I'm concerned about specifically on days one and two.

So what I'm going to do is I'm just going to read a passage out of a selection out of chapter 12. It's verses one through 21. So I'm just going to walk through what this looks like with you. Verse one, chapter 12.

At that time, Jesus went to the grain fields on the Sabbath. His disciples were hungry and they began to pluck heads of grain and to eat. But when the Pharisees saw it, they said to him, look, your disciples are doing what is not lawful to do on the Sabbath.

Well, he said to them, have you not read what David did when he was hungry and those who were with him, how he entered the house of God and ate the bread of the presence, which it was not lawful for him to eat, nor for those who were with him, but only for the priests.

Or have you not read in the law, how on the Sabbath, the priests in the temple profane the Sabbath and are guilt less. I tell you something greater than the temple is here. So what I'm doing is I'm reading, but I'm trying to pay attention to the details.

And we're going to talk about that in a moment. Let's keep going. And I tell you, verse six, something greater than the temple is here. Verse seven. And if you had known what this means, I desire mercy and not sacrifice.

You would not have condemned the guiltless for the son of man is Lord of the Sabbath. He went on from there and entered their synagogue. And a man was there with a withered hand. And they asked him, is it lawful to heal on the Sabbath so that they might accuse him?

He said to them, which one of you who has a if it falls into a pit on the Sabbath will not take hold of it and lift it out of how much more value is a man than a sheep. So it is lawful to do good on the Sabbath.

And then he said to the man, stretch out your hand. And the man stretched it out and it was restored healthy like the other, but the Pharisees went out and conspired against him, how to destroy him. Jesus aware of this withdrew from there and many followed him and he healed them all and ordered them not to make him known.

This was to fulfill what was spoken by the prophet Isaiah. Behold my servant whom I have chosen, my beloved with whom I, uh, my soul is well-pleased. I will put my spirit upon him and he will proclaim justice to the Gentiles.

He will not quarrel or cry aloud, nor will anyone hear his voice in the streets. A bruised reed he will not break and a smoldering wick he will not quench until he brings justice to victory. And in his name, the Gentiles will hope.

Amen. Okay. So, okay, now let's talk details. We're still in day one. We're answering the question for day one, what's happening and who's involved. All right. Um, by the way, I, I, I'd love for you, uh, also, if you do this with me, this little exercise, why don't you share what you're seeing too in the comments below, like make your observations and just share them.

I let's have a wonderful discussion about the Bible on YouTube. Amen. That's what the creators of YouTube wanted when they invented YouTube. Right. So, okay. So first let's answer the question who's involved.

Right. So immediately I see Jesus, right. I see his disciples. I see the Pharisees. And then later I see, uh, the crowds, the many, right. Um, okay. What's happening here? Well, Jesus is doing a couple of things in this particular passage.

Uh, and, and, and what he's doing and his disciples appears to be drawing the ire of the Pharisees, right? So first the disciples eat the heads of grain that makes the Pharisees man. Uh, then later Jesus heals a man on Sabbath that makes the Pharisees angry.

And then, uh, and then down here, Jesus heals a bunch of the people, but then he says, uh, don't make any of this known. Uh, okay. Right. And that is to fulfill Isaiah. Okay. Well, let's press into the details and let's try to discuss this even further.

A couple of things worth mentioning here. Um, right at the top here with this exchange as well, the Jews took Sabbath keeping incredibly seriously. Did you know that by the way, uh, as a matter of fact, according to first Maccabees chapter two, the Jews refused to defend themselves when enemies attacked them on Sabbath.

Instead, they essentially allowed themselves to be slaughtered men, women, and children rather than take up arms and fight back. So maybe as we, you know, we, we see the Pharisees reaction here, maybe this helps us to understand a little bit more of the pushback, right?

There's, there's a bit of history behind this, maybe even a deep sense of responsibility on the shoulders of the Pharisees, right? Well, when the Pharisees challenged Jesus in verse two, you know, and then again in verse 10, they are challenging his adherence to the current, uh, Halakha.

Halakha is a, it's, it's a Hebrew word that at its root means to walk. And what it refers to is walking out the Torah in your life. In other words, what does it look like to obey God's law as you live your life on a daily basis?

Okay. On a number of occasions, Jesus is questioned about the law. And that's essentially what's going on here. You know, teachers of the law are seeking to understand Jesus' adherence to Torah, how he walks it out in his own life.

Well, Jesus' response to the Pharisees is to point to the scripture and the story of David and his men, you know, to, in order to defend his own Halakha interpretation and to show that the Pharisees Halakha interpretation is off.

Okay. Now, how do I know that? Well, Carson points this out on the right side here of the commentary. Um, you see a characterization, some commentary here on, uh, what's going on with Jesus, uh, disciples picking the heads of grain, but you also see a Jewish rules of conduct and Carson ends up, uh, bringing up the notion of Halakha.

So, so if you just read the commentary alongside the passage, you will glean, um, a lot of deeper insights. Now, Carson really doesn't go into, you know, these issues, um, in very much depth, but the commentaries will actually, you know, point you in the right direction so that you can do your own reading on the subject, which is what I've done, you know?

So, so there is that. Here's something else to note, right? Um, remember what Jesus said in the Sermon on the Mount. He said, I did not come to abolish the law. Now this is to abolish the law means to misinterpret the law.

Okay. Uh, he, this is a Hebrew idiomatic expression. When, when Jesus says, I did not come to abolish the law, I came to fulfill it. He's referring to properly interpreting the law. That's what Jesus is talking about.

I'm here to show you what it truly looks like to obey God. Okay. So if you look at his comments then here in verse three, um, and then also, uh, again in verse eight, right, what he's doing is he is talking about how to properly interpret, uh, the law.

In other words, he's correcting the Pharisees and, and, and really by extension, all of the Jews, I'm sure, uh, their misunderstanding of the true interpretation of the Sabbath, you know, the true intent and purpose of the Sabbath.

Again, by, by going to Tanakh, right, which is the Old Testament, Jesus is showing that the Pharisees, they, they would not even allow David and his men to eat either. And if they think that that's actually a problem, uh, that they would not have allowed David to eat, well then there must be a problem.

This, this proves that their understanding of the law and that their halakha is wrong. Boy, thank you so much for watching this video. Did you know that the majority of people who do watch are not subscribed to the channel?

Uh, if this video is blessing you, would you do me a favor and like and subscribe to the channel? It just really helps me to get the word out about this ministry. I greatly appreciate it. Y 'all with me so far?

These are the kinds of details that come out of answering the study on day one. Okay. Uh, let me give you one more piece here in, uh, in verse five, right? Jesus points out that the priests are very active during Sabbath, but they are considered guiltless, right?

Have you not read in the law? How on the Sabbath, the priests in the temple profane the Sabbath and are guiltless, right? Well, on the Sabbath, priests would still perform the functions of changing the consecrated bread, of offering the double burnt offering, right?

And the implicit suggestion here is that in the same way that priests are considered guiltless in spite of their many activities on behalf of the Lord, Jesus' disciples are also guiltless. Why? Well, because Jesus is greater than the temple.

As a matter of fact, Jesus is employing a rabbinic teaching method, um, that entails arguing from the lesser to the greater. So in other words, if, if something is true on a smaller scale, it certainly is also true on a much larger one.

Again, this is how Jesus, uh, he points to his divine identity. When he says something greater than the temple is here, right? That's verse six. He's saying the temple is the lesser thing and Jesus is the greater thing.

He's greater than the temple. So therefore, again, if the priests are guiltless on Sabbath, then the disciples are also guiltless. Let's go to day two. Uh, day two, the, we're going to reread the passage.

Um, and then I'm going to ask the question, what's the connection, right? So I wake up on Tuesday, uh, and then, uh, I, I, I follow along with the reading plan. Now, why do I do that? Right? Why do I reread the passage?

It's because I want to chew on the same thing that I chewed on the day before. I want to meditate on it. What I certainly do not want to do is I want to read it and forget it. Okay. And so that's why I reread the passage.

Um, and, and perhaps as I reread it, as I go back over it, I'll catch something that I didn't see on the first go around. Amen. So for day two, it's simple. I'm just looking for, um, connections to other parts of the scripture in this passage.

So again, I mean, there's connections here, but particularly to the Old Testament. Okay. Now, why is that? Well, it's because Jesus very often connects his teaching to the Old Testament. As a matter of fact, I would go so far as to say that everything Jesus says in the gospels is either an illusion to, or a direct quotation from the Old Testament.

So we have to know the Old Testament to make these connections. Um, so, so again, so if I look to the right side of my screen here, uh, particularly to Blomberg's commentary, I'm going to notice that, yeah, Jesus makes a few connections, uh, to, can you see that?

Yeah. To Old Testament passages, right? First Samuel, I'm seeing first Samuel chapter 21 here. I'm seeing, uh, Leviticus chapter 24, right? Leviticus that's the, that's in regard to the priest's activity on Sabbath.

Let's Leviticus chapter 24. Um, Jesus also makes some other numbers chapter 28, but look at this. Jesus also quotes directly Hosea 6, 6. Okay. Remember it's in verse seven. So look to your left side. If you had known this is Jesus.

If you had known what this means, and then he quotes Hosea 6, 6. Okay. Well, let's take a look at Hosea 6, 6. So now we're trying to make the connection, right? So what does Hosea 6, 6, uh, look like?

So I'm going to click my hyperlink and bring it over. Okay. Now, before I read Hosea, a couple of things, Hosea is focused, uh, on some big overarching themes. One of them is Israel's unfaithfulness. Okay.

And Hosea is not the only one to point that out. Right. But another, uh, sort of big theme here is God's unfailing love for his people. It's almost as if God in Hosea, he just, he wishes that his people had his love, had his heart, that they knew him.

And so this is, it leads to a very interesting statement that, that Yahweh himself makes in Hosea 6, 6. He says, I desire steadfast love. Um, I do not desire sacrifice, right? I desire the knowledge of God rather than burnt offerings.

Okay. Um, and that's interesting. So now Jesus uses the word mercy. So instead of steadfast love, Jesus says mercy, right? So again, Matthew 7, I desire mercy and not sacrifice. Okay. Um, but what God is saying in Hosea 6 is I wish you, you, uh, had mercy, love.

I wish that you had the knowledge of me, right? If you love God, you'll know that God is a merciful God, right? Like you'll know, like if you really pay attention to how he reveals himself in the word, God extends mercy, even to those who don't deserve it.

Okay. But now wait a second. Isn't that what Jesus is trying to point to in verse seven, right? Um, Jesus was getting at something that the Pharisees did not know. Now we're getting to a lesson. We're getting to a lesson, aren't we?

Mercy, Knowledge of God, and the Pharisees’ Blindness

Day three, what's the lesson for the original audience? Okay. Now let me, let me make a comment here. What you'll, what you'll find is that you can do this study in a particular passage, right? Then you could come back to it in six months, a year from now, whatever, two years from now, do the same study at a later date and end up with a different lesson for different people.

Okay. And why is that? Well, because there's much to, like I said at the beginning, there's much treasure to glean from God's word. Okay. But today let's just stay focused on the Pharisees as Jesus' original audience.

Is there a lesson that they needed to learn? And I think it's clear there is a lesson that Jesus wanted them to learn. Jesus had something to give them. That's why he says in verse seven, if you had known what this means, if you only knew, and then he quotes Hosea.

So the question that we have to ask as good Bible students is, how is it possible that when God in human flesh is doing something wonderful in the midst of these teachers of the law? So you got to remember the Pharisees, they're not just any old Joe off the street.

They know the law. They know it so well that they teach God's law. They teach his word to everyone else. How is it that these teachers of God's word, these experts, they do not perceive God in human flesh in their very midst.

And even worse than that, how is it that they're getting upset? They're getting angry. And they're seeking to oppose God because of what God is doing. Remember in verse 14, it says that the Pharisees are so dead set against Jesus that they conspire against him, how they're going to destroy him.

So the question is like, where did everything fall apart for these people? Right? So that's what day three is all about. We're identifying the original audience and we're seeking to understand a lesson for them.

They couldn't see who Jesus truly was. What's going on here? Jesus' answer is they lack mercy. They lack mercy because they don't truly know God and they don't truly know the love that he has. That's Jesus' point in verse seven.

It's right here. If you had only known what this means, I desire mercy and not sacrifice, you would not have condemned the guiltless. And because of that, they don't even understand that the Sabbath, what the true intent and purpose of the Sabbath is.

It's a means of mercy. You know, you got to remember the Sabbath was given by God to former slaves, slaves that came out of Egypt. These were people who they had been beaten. They had been tortured, forced into heavy labor, probably every single day of their lives for centuries.

And then God brings them out of slavery and then he gives them Sabbath, which is a full day of rest. Why? Because he's a merciful God and because he wanted to extend mercy to them. So the spirit that shapes and informs Sabbath is mercy.

How do I know this? Because of Jesus. He shows mercy. He shows mercy to his hungry disciples on the Sabbath. He shows mercy to the man with the withered hand, right? And he shows mercy to others as well.

That is the heart of God. As a matter of fact, in John 9, Jesus heals a blind man and some of the Pharisees say later, you know, this man is not from God for he does not keep the Sabbath. Imagine being so spiritually blind that you actually get upset when God moves in your midst.

Like, how is that even possible? Jesus says lack of mercy. It's lack of mercy. If you had known what this means, you would not have condemned the guiltless. In other words, God desires a merciful heart in his obedient children.

What he does not desire is obedience from unmerciful people. Think about that. And because of the Pharisees lack of mercy, they failed to recognize their own Messiah. Jesus says, I am the Lord of the Sabbath, but they failed to recognize God in their very midst.

Why? Because they didn't have any mercy in their hearts and no amount of miracles that Jesus could perform was ever going to change their minds. They were so rigid and inflexible in their understanding.

God was doing something that was outside the bounds of their understanding, and they immediately dismissed him and his disciples as guilty lawbreakers. So I think that we have enough here where we can state a lesson, but maybe in the negative, okay?

Lacking mercy leads to condemning what is not understood and becoming blind to the activity of God. Lacking mercy. And I suppose the inverse is also true. Being a merciful person leads to truly understanding God's word.

Why? Because God is a merciful being. And when a person does the hard work of tending to their own heart and cultivating the kind of mercy in themselves that God truly desires, right? And they do it by the power of the Holy Spirit.

They're going to know God more. They're going to know God's word more. They'll understand where his word is coming from and the motive and true purpose and intention behind his word. And they're going to have the ability to discern the activity of God in the world around them.

It trades on mercy according to Jesus in this particular passage. You all still with me? You good? You see how this study works so far? Okay, good. Because here's where things start to get interesting.

So the lesson for the original audience on day three now must also be our lesson in day four. The lesson for the original audience must also be our lesson. Why? Because the way God's word continues to speak to us today and apply to our lives today is through lessons that are universal.

Lessons that apply both to the original audience and to us. It doesn't matter that thousands of years stand between us and the original audience. The same lesson applies. So watch this. Day three, what's the lesson for the original audience?

Day four, what's the lesson for me today? If the lesson for them was lacking mercy leads to condemning what they do not understand, then the lesson for me is when I lack mercy, it leads to my condemning what I do not understand, to my becoming blind to the activity of God.

And boy, is this a warning as well as a clarion call to me in terms of ministry. You know, the Lord has been doing an interesting work on me in this area for the last several years. I mean, in the lead up to this YouTube channel taking off, the Lord had already been doing a work in my heart and stirring in me and just dealing with various aspects, particularly pride, you know, and boy, there have just been some painful moments and hard applications of this lesson in my life.

You know, praise God, there is a stark difference between the man I was when I first became a pastor and the man I am today. And I have been so grateful that God has changed my heart in this journey to keep my mind tough, but to make my heart tender because what the lost desperately need is the wonderful mercy of God.

And they need to see that mercy displayed in the lives of his children as we engage the lost for Christ. It's one thing to say that God is merciful. It's another thing to show them the same mercy that flows through your life because you received it from God, because it truly changed you in the process.

You know what I mean? And when the lost see it in us, right, then, and then they hear the gospel message, you know, and then the Holy Spirit is doing a work. They give glory to God in heaven and they repent and they follow after Jesus.

Amen. That's what that looks like. That's the lesson on day four has to be my lesson today. And finally, day five, what am I going to do about it? Right? Day five is all about action steps. Now that I've identified the lesson for me, right, day four, which is the same lesson for the original audience, what am I going to do about it?

That's, that's kind of a hard question to answer, right? Like what, what can I do to make myself more merciful? Well, first I need to acknowledge I can't do that. I can't, I can't develop Christ like behaviors in my own strength.

You know, Galatians 2 .20 says, it's not me that does anything. It's Christ in me that does it, right? So in other words, you know, like I just, I can't sanctify myself. This is a work that only the Lord can do in and through me.

So what I need to do is I need to ask, I need to pray to the Lord and ask him to give me his mercy. That as I spend time with him, where the focus is on him, that he will allow me to, to receive his mercy as it overflows through my relationship with him.

And as I receive his mercy as a gift, that I can then in turn, give it out to everybody else. Right? And then as I pray this prayer, I just need to trust him that he's going to do it, that he's going to answer my prayer, particularly during moments when I need them the most, you know, when I need to extend mercy to others the most.