189: 6 Ways to Enhance Your Scripture Writing Practice
Hey, friend! Last week in episode 188, I discussed why we don’t have to do it all. In that episode, I encouraged you to figure out what tasks or responsibilities you can let go of that are either unnecessary for you to do because someone else can do them or are ones you are doing to please someone or meet someone else’s expectations. The goal is to quit thinking we have to do it all.
I’m taking my own advice and will take a bit of a shortcut with this week’s episode. I’m swamped with finishing up two seminary classes this week as I’m recording this episode. I have two research papers due in a few days, so I need to focus all of my energies on completing those well.
So, I’ve dug into the archives and found an episode that I thought was relevant to where we are in the month. This episode is going live on May 31, 2023, so that means I’ve released a new Scripture Writing Plan for June. I thought it would be helpful to talk about Scripture Writing as we’re moving into the second half of the year. Maybe you’ve been using my Scripture Writing Plans for a while, and you want to uplevel how you are utilizing the plans. Or perhaps you don’t use the plans, but you are looking for a way to go deeper in your personal Bible study.
I’m repeating episode 122, which originally aired in February of 2022. I talked about what Scripture Writing is and six different ways you can enhance your Scripture writing practice.
A few things to note, one is that I mentioned when you click on the Scripture Writing Plans tab on my website, you would be taken to a page where you can see all the blog posts related to them. When you click on that tab, you will be taken to a form to fill out to grab the latest plan.
And two, I mention in the episode about The Planning Woman Community group. That group is no longer active. I now have a new free group called the Live It Out Community, where I house all the past Scripture Writing Plans.
I’ll be back next week with a fresh episode. I hope you enjoy this refresher on the Scripture writing plans.
Today I’m going to talk about scripture writing. Maybe you’ve heard of scripture writing and wondered what it was. Perhaps you’ve seen various scripture writing plans either online or on Pinterest.
Scripture writing is just what it sounds like. It’s writing out scriptures. You could basically just pick out any place in the Bible and start writing out the verses. But as you might guess, I like to have an organized plan. Way back in 2016, I started writing out scriptures because of a need I had to grow deeper in my own relationship with God.
I wanted something that got me in the Word deeper than just reading a few verses from a devotional book. So I saw these scripture writing plans on Pinterest that put different passages together by theme, and they were set up. You’d have 30 days of scripture passages to write on that theme. At that time, I was already blogging and looking for a way to help my readers grow closer to God. So I began producing them for the first time in 2017. The response was so great that I have been producing them ever since.
2022 marks my 6th year of offering them through my website. So some of you may be wondering how you can get a copy of one of my plans. The simplest way is to go to jenniferbooth.com and click on the Scripture Writing Plan tab. You will find a form to sign up for the latest plan on this page.
Some people ask me how I develop the topics and choose verses for each plan. Honestly, I just started by looking at the ones I saw on Pinterest. I found ideas for topics there, and then I just googled to search for related verses. I’m super picky, though, about the verses I choose. Sometimes when I research a topic, the verses that are suggested, in my opinion, don’t really go with that topic. It seems like they are a stretch to be related to that topic, or they don’t relate to that topic at all. So I try my best to ensure the verses follow the topic. Some of the plans I used that year before I started creating my own often had passages that made no sense in relation to the topic. So I do try my best to provide verses that truly fit the topic and expand your knowledge about that topic.
I don’t have any rhyme or reason for assigning the topics to the months, except for November and December. I try to focus on gratitude in November and Christmas in December, but for the rest of the year, I randomly choose which topic goes in each month. So I’ve got to share something with you, something cool that usually happens every year. It never fails that either something happens personally to me where the topic I’ve picked for a particular month coincides with what I’m going through at that time, or I get an email saying how timely a specific topic was for that person.
A good example will be from 2020. Most of the plans during the early part of the pandemic were topics everyone needed during that time. And again, I had picked those topics back in November or December of 2019, before we knew what was going on before we even had an inkling of a clue that a pandemic was headed our way. So I think God used these topics in a tremendous way for the people who were writing out Scripture during that time.
Writing out Scripture is super simple. All you need is paper, a pen, and your Bible. Many people just start using a simple notebook, but others choose something like a nice bound journal. I’ve seen others use planners where they write out the verses on each day. I say use what you have to get started, then shop around to find what works best for you.
Scripture writing in its basic format of just writing out the scriptures for that day usually takes 15 minutes or less. You can incorporate it into your morning quiet time, or you may want to do it in the evening as you are winding down for the day. Let me caution you not to write out the verses, then close your Bible and move on. Take some time to read through what you’ve written, especially in the context of the month’s theme.
Pray and ask God to show you what he wants you to learn from that passage. And doing this will enrich your quiet time with God and help you learn more about Him, his character, and what he would have you do with what you’ve written out. If you’ve been doing these plans for a while, you may be ready to step things up for 2022. So I’ve got you covered. There are several things you can do to go deeper with each passage. I’ve devised six ways to let Scripture writing take you deeper into God’s Word.
Write the verses on one side of the page, then journal what you learned from them on the other side of the page.
Or write a prayer based on the verses, asking God to help you apply what you learned. So imagine your journal or notebook open where you write the verses on the left-hand page. Then on the right-hand page. You either journal about what you learned or write a prayer. It’s a super simple way to do Scripture writing, but adding in the journaling or prayer will help you look at the verses in a deeper way.
Write out the verses, then use highlighters to color code them.
You can set up a simple color-coding system to see when God is speaking, attributes of God, when Jesus is speaking, Jesus’characteristics, and things you should do as a believer or something you shouldn’t do. There are so many ways you can color code the verses. I advise you to keep it simple starting and use an index card or note paper to write out the color coding system you come up with. Maybe keep it to six colors or less. You can always add more later as you get more confident in your Bible study skills or as you start wanting to know more about different topics in the Bible. But start out keeping it simple.
Write the verses using a translation you don’t normally use.
Doing this will give you a different perspective of what you’re reading. But I have another caution here. Some verses or versions are not literal translations. So you must be careful about thinking what you’re writing is absolute truth. Often these versions make the Bible easier to read, but they don’t always give the accurate translation and meaning of a particular word or phrase.
Do a word study.
Pick out a word from the passage, maybe one that seems to repeat itself, and use apps like Bible Gateway or Blue Letter Bible to discover more about what the word means. As suggested in the first method, write the verses on one side of the page. Then do your word study on the other page. Learning more about words or phrases in the Bible will also help deepen your understanding of what you’ve read.
Read through the verses aloud after you have written them.
Read them several times, emphasizing a different word each time. There’s just something about hearing the word of God spoken out loud. I tend to notice other things when I read aloud than when I read silently. So this is a great way to ensure you understand what you are reading.
Pick a verse to memorize.
Now, I’m not saying pick one verse from each passage daily for the month. No, that would be a whole lot. I would choose one or two verses to memorize for the month. Or maybe one of the passages one day speaks to you, and you want to memorize it so you can internalize it and remember it forever.
