How to Get Nothing at All Out of Your Bible Study!

How to Get Nothing at All out of your Bible Study:

Have you given your life to Jesus? Are you now concerned that your times of bible study will result in life changing revelations which could interrupt your appreciation of Love Island or Strictly?

Well have no fear. With our guide to ‘getting nothing at all out of your bible study’ you will be able to read the bible every day for many hours without it having any perceivable effect on you. Your friends and relatives will marvel at the complete lack of change in your attitude and lifestyle as you put these simple steps into action.

1)      Just don’t even bother to Open it.

Lets face it, the bible is full of life transforming amazing information hidden away like an Easter egg hunt with just enough poking out to spark your interest. If you are new to bible study then Holy Spirit will be falling over himself to unlock passages for you even if you show only the most shallow and cursory amount of discipline & devotion initially.

Because of this, perhaps the best overall strategy is just to leave the bible alone. Don’t open it, don’t put it anywhere that you will have to see it. Remind yourself that it is an old and heavy book that is very hard to understand.  Tell yourself that you are reading the bible even though this is not the case the case. You  are exposed to bible verses right? You saw someone mention a bible passage on facebook  today (over a picture of a sunset beach). That is surely enough bible study for one day. No need to open your actual bible at all. After all doesn’t the bible itself say that 'too much study wearies the body'.?I don’t know. I never open mine.

2)      Never ask for Help from the Holy Spirit

If you absolutely can’t avoid opening your bible then for heaven’s sake make sure that you don’t  ask Holy Spirit to read along with you. This is a terrible mistake as even the most basic verse can become dangerously relevant if you have taken a moment to pray. 
 ‘ Holy Spirit, this book can be really hard going but I know that you are all across it. Please right now come and give me something to eat from it. Something that will be from Your heart that speaks into my life. I’m just gonna start reading right now and trust that You are gonna start talking to me. Amen’

 No no no no no! This sort of  prayer is poison if you want your life to just remain basically the same but to go to heaven at the  end of it (what I like to think of as ‘fire insurance Christianity’). When you open the bible, you should have absolutely no expectation of it enabling you to hear messages from God. Try to think of it as a religious callisthenic. Just something that God requires you to go though in order to keep Him happy (like prayer). Remember that many very intelligent people have had to spend years of study to understand this stuff & even they can’t agree with each other on what it all means. You shouldn’t expect to be impacted or to understand anything that you read.

Ready…Feeling disappointed, inadequate and under pressure to measure up?
Good…now you are in a great frame of mind to read the bible and get nothing at all out of it.  And remember ‘Keep on not praying’!

3)Expect Instant Progress & Results: Every area of life shows us that there is a wait period between action and results. Whether it’s taking a pill consistently for a period of time before experiencing therapeutic effect or having to water a seed every day for a week before the first green shoots appear.
Despite knowing this, you should approach bible study as if it somehow does not conform to this rule that governs literally every other aspect of your life. Expect instant results. Flop the bible open and stick your finger in at random. If the verse you find does not immediately speak into your situation, become discouraged and tell yourself that bible study is not for you. Certainly don’t invest in easily available study aids or free resources like ‘The Bible Project’ on You Tube to help you. If God wanted to speak to you through the bible then he would have been able to do it in the first six seconds of you reading right?

4)      Don’t Ask for Help and Advice: If you are in a church (and I strongly advise you to not be…it will only strengthen your faith & make you a gentler more rounded person); definitely do not approach anyone for help.

Your church will be full of believers who have been on their own journey into reading the bible for many years. They will be delighted to offer you support and advice on how to get started. They will probably offer to study along with you through the week on messenger or whatever. So avoid that pit trap & don’t tell anyone about your struggles. Tell yourself that they will think badly of you for being so stupid and finding it hard to even open the bible in the first place. Remember that your goal here is a completely apathetic and ineffective Christian witness where you are no different at all from your unsaved neighbours. 

 

5)      Make everything metaphorical: The bible excels at practical life changing advice, but you’re not interested in that. Also, if you are confronted by verses saying that you will do even greater things than Jesus if you believe in Him then it might drive you into the prayer closet as you wrestle with how to become a vessel for the outpouring of His Kingdom. But that sounds like a lot of hard work doesn't it?

In order to not be affected in any way by these very clear ‘calls to action’, make everything you read metaphorical. Jesus didn’t really mean these things to be taken literally, that’s ridiculous. He is just speaking metaphorically. He probably didn’t literally make the earth in six days only. That’s just a helpful myth…and so on.

In this way you can more or less side step any challenge to your personal life or faith and water down the intention of the gospel and the whole word of God. Say things like 'God moves in mysterious ways' when talking about the bible. (This is not true...God has clearly gone out of his way to be very frank and straightforward with us but it sounds vaguely spiritual).

For extra impotence, try taking verses that are very clearly meant to be figurative and insisting on a literal interpretation; ‘I just can’t take the bible seriously. It talks about the trees of the field clapping their hands but trees don’t have hands. Maybe there used to be trees with hands though. Who knows right?’

 

6)      Insist on reading the bible from start to finish: Refuse to accept that the bible is a library of 66 different books,  and just start at the beginning and plough straight through. This will maximise your boredom and discouragement whilst hopefully minimising your understanding and empowerment (remember never to read in a prayerful or open minded way).  Don’t take time to pause and reflect prayerfully on any passages that particularly challenge or speak to you. Just tell yourself that you need to plough remorselessly on and get to the end of whichever boring bit you are on. In this way you can read the bible for ages (thus feeling superior to lesser believers) but actually never run into the word of God at all.

I hope that this guide has been helpful in enabling you to get as little as possible out of your bible study times. I have personally been applying these principles for many decades and am happy to report that I have barely grown at all.  Look out for my future guides on 'How to Ensure that you Never receive healing' and 'How to ensure that none of your prayers are answered'.