John MacArthur Bible Study Method

The MacArthur Bible Study Method

In late 2009 I began searching for a better way to study my Bible. Looking at at my life and level of spiritual growth, I determined that I was very happy with where I was in my relationship with God. One thing I thought might be the reason was that old fashioned “devotion” method of Bible study just wasn’t going to cut it.

Simply picking a passage and reading through it at a set time every day for a set number of minutes had brought me to the point where I had gone through 22 years of being a Christian, but only 5 years of spiritual growth. The other 17 years were pretty much the same year over and over again and translated into a complete stall in my life where my relationship with Christ was concerned. I determined that I needed to “get serious” about my Bible study, both the amount of time invested, and the method in which it was approached.

I found that there are a lot of methods out there, but I happened on a simple yet powerful Bible study guide by John MacArthur where he shared how he studied his own Bible. You can download the original seven part series for free here: How To Get The Most from God’s Word

He said that his approach to studying the New Testament was to take a section of 7 Chapters, and read them over again and again for a full 30 days. The benefits of this method is that the constant repetition enables the believer to become very, very familiar with the passage. At the end of 30 days, he’ll know what is contained in the text and will forever be able to reference it in the future. The believer will not have “memorized” the section, but he’ll always know the key verses, people, places and concepts taught in those chapters and will not forever be a slave to the concordance.

Following this pattern of study, it would take one about 2 and 1/2 years to study your way through the entire New Testament. If you are of the faith and you’re going to purpose to read the Bible every day anyway, it might be best that you can become intimately familiar with what is in it instead of simply being able to hold up the book and say “I’ve done it! Read it through cover to cover in a year!”. Bible study is not a race and there is no “higher” virtue in reading the Bible through in a year vs. other study methods.

He then advised that reading the Old Testament be more on the lines of reading it through from beginning to end in a more traditional manner. After extensive study of the New Testament, this grand tour of the first part of The Bible will be fuller and come across richly as the reader quickly is able to connect the concepts that are finished out in the New Testament have their foundation and beginning in the Old Testament.

I’ve decided to adopt this same model for Bible Study. Since beginning, I’ve added two elements to the program in an effort to tap into the wonderful riches and fullness of God’s mercy and His wisdom. I have a deep love for the Psalms as they have calming and refreshing words that I need to be built up with on a daily basis. Because of that I’m following the same pattern of repeat reading style of bible study, selecting a single Chapter from Psalms each month to dive deep into.

I also know, being surrounded by all kinds of humanistic philosophies, that I need to develop wisdom and discretion, so I am also selecting a new chapter from Proverbs to read each day in similar fashion. My plan is to continue on this path until I’ve read the entire new Testament through, and then go back and do it again by reading it all in Spanish.

I’m thinking that my own travels through God’s Word might be helpful to others, so here is how I’ll handle this online Bible Study guide. I’ll be creating a new entry on this section of the site for each 7-chapter slice of The Bible that I intend to study each month. I’ll kick off each post by providing a summary of the study section at the beginning of the entry. From there I’ll add comments to the entry relating to spiritual truths or questions that I’m working through as I study the text. If you have some additional insight, please feel free to add a comment to any of the entries, you can also feel free to answer the questions of others. The list of studies currently working on can be found by clicking on Bible Study in the navigation bar at the top of this page.