The most underrated Bible study skill

Recently, Emerson and I took her bike down to a park with a long, wooded path. She is learning to ride her bike. In fact, at 3 1/2 years old, she is learning about so many different things at the same time!

Halfway through our bike ride, she got off her bike to take a look at the creek by the path. She’s stooped down low, and I could see in her eyes 1,000 questions she had yet to voice. One at a time they came flooding from her lips: What is that sound? What are those frogs doing? Why does the creek air smell the way that it does? What made that splash? 

I have been told nearly 1,000 times that curiosity is my child’s greatest learning asset. And so, as a mom, I seek to foster her curiosity! I seek to encourage her to be curious about the world around her, because I know it is how she will learn. 

It was by that creekside that I was reminded that curiosity is also one of our greatest assets as adults, specifically, as we seek to be students of God‘s Word. It is curiosity that will foster delight in our quiet times, as we read the pages of scripture. Curiosity is going to prompt us to ask good questions about what we’re reading. When we are confused about some thing that we’ve read, rather than giving up, curiosity, compels us to dig deeper, to ask, better questions, to move beyond confusion into exploration. Curiosity prompts us to ask about the cultural setting when a book was written, to wonder about the biblical genre, to ask why a certain word is being used where it is being used, to think well about application. 

If you are feeling stuck in your daily Bible study rhythm, ask the Lord to foster curiosity in your heart! Curiosity will serve you as a propels you into meaningful study, and as it turns confusion into exploration. Not all of our questions need to be answered, but they need to be asked if we want to be students of God’s Word.