Story Sessions: Nanette's Bible Interaction Roadmap

In my novel A Seat at the Table, a mentor character, Nanette, shares some tips to help Joy pick up her Bible and start reading it again. Inspired by the novel, I'll take Nanette's tips and walk you through six ways to read and interact with God's Word.

Note: Reading the novel is not necessary to follow this roadmap...and there are no spoilers either. I promise. ;-)

By completing these sessions, you will:

• Gain confidence in your interactions with the Bible (Once we do this thing together, I'm sure you'll be able to branch out on your own.)

• Increase comprehension (I mean, who wants to spend time reading something they don't understand.)

• Shore up your ability to recall what you've read (This is especially helpful when you're sharing what you've learned with a friend!)

We live in a one-verse-at-a-time society. We post one verse at a time on social media. We read one verse at the top of our devotionals. Our favorite topical preachers use a verse here and there. But the best way to engage with God's Word (and to read more) is to read and study in context. This session will describe the benefits and walk you through the process.

There are many benefits to reading Scripture aloud and even more examples in the Bible. In this session, we explore the benefits and biblical examples before offering the challenge of reading our focus text aloud.

In this session, we move from reading to interacting with the text. The best place to start is with our eyes firmly fixed on the Author of the text, and the One Who the whole story is about anyway.

The Bible is written in Hebrew, Greek, and a little Aramaic. Translators take the original text and do their best to choose English words that reflect the meaning and intent of the original words. To truly understand the Bible, we need to understand the English words the translators used and the meaning of the original words. In this session, I will show you how to do this and what online tools I use.

In this session, we move from passive to active learning by marking up the text. I discuss the benefits of annotating in Bible study and show various options to fit your needs and personality. Oh, and, of course, you'll practice.

In this session, you'll improve your prayer life by learning how to turn the Scripture you've studied into prayer. Whether you're just learning how to pray or want to transform your communication with God, this Bible Interaction Tool Exercise is invaluable.

Take what you learned in these sessions and implement the knowledge you gained in future interactions with God's Word.

Jesus loved to teach through stories. Parables make up 35% of Jesus' teaching in the synoptic gospels. He used stories to ask big questions and then speak to those questions. I want to do the same. With Story Sessions, we'll read great books with emotion-touching themes that can point us back to Scripture—God's ultimate standard of truth. Then, we'll use the stories we've read as pegs to hang future knowledge through studying God's Word.