Resources for you

Underlining, highlighting, symbols, notes in the margin… Whether you use any or all of those elements, marking or writing in your Bible is great study tool. (And yes, that picture is from my Bible. You can see what a complete nerd I am. 🙂 )

• It aids retention. Spending just those few extra seconds goes a long toward impressing those words in your memory.
• It helps you see the themes and topics in a passage. If I glance at a page with a lot of pink circles and shading I know that “comfort” is the focus of the passage.
• It helps you find the verses again. The visual clues make the search much easier.
• It encourages you on your journey. Seeing evidence of growth is always a boost.

1.   Start small. Don’t start trying to mark every concept or key word in Scripture. It will stretch your reading time into an hours-long marathon and you’ll quickly lose steam. Plus you’ll forget what you’re marking and why. Choose a one or two ideas, or words – hope or healing for example – and mark them consistently. Next year or next time through the Bible, add a few more. My marking list has grown over ten or twelve years.

2.   Use an index card or a bookmark or a blank page in your Bible to keep track of what you mark and how.

3.   Colored ball point pens work great. I also like colored pencils, Crayola Twistables and Micron pens (they don’t bleed through). I keep a small plastic ruler in my Bible to keep my underlines straight, because I’m just that way.