How to Avoid the Bible Journaling Mentality

“Let’s open with prayer,” I said.

My sister looked up with a mocking expression. “Oh, this is, like, official? Weird.”

I felt the color seep into my face as I looked from her skeptical face to my friend who was just smiling. “Um, well… kinda.”

I had decided I was going to write a Bible study on Ruth for teen girls. My sister and a friend met with me and we started going through the book of Ruth and tried to draw from it principles about how we should live our lives as Christian girls.

We only met once.

I thought it wouldn’t be very difficult, especially considering that I had once been part of a girls’ Bible study through Ruth a couple years before. But when I started trying to write it, my sister said, “Do you really think you can say that from the passage?”

I didn’t like being challenged, and eventually, the project dropped.

Looking back, I am so glad I never finished that study and never tried to teach girls with it. While I’m sure there was no heresy, I now see some major flaws in how I was approaching the Bible.

I recently read a book by Jen Wilkin titled “Women of the Word: How to Study the Bible with Both Our Hearts and Minds.” It is an incredible book that I recommend to every woman and girl, regardless of age or experience with the Bible. It is reviewed on my blog here. In it, she exposed some very common but misled approaches to God’s Word. I was convicted and have since been praying that the Lord would change how I see, read, and honor His Word.

In the Instagram Bible culture—a place where I see Bibles full of hand lettering, Sharpies, washi tape, and watercolor—there is a common theme of a lack of understanding of how to approach the Bible.

I wrote a blog post for Phylicia Masonheimer that addresses three major pitfalls in how we view and read our Bibles as well as simple ways to remedy them.

I honestly believe that you can have a completely different way of approaching Scripture simply from reading and applying what is in this article. 

Click here to read it!

What are some erroneous ways that you have approached Scripture or seen others approach it?