Say What? What Do I See?

Step one in having devotions is to gain observations skills. Rather than reading the passage and asking how does that apply to my life, identify what you see in the text. We need to learn how to be a private investigators.

You simply need to read the passage and begin by asking questions that will help you determine what was communicated. The better you become at asking questions, the easier it is to understand what God has communicated. There are all kinds of questions you can ask. Here are some examples of questions you could ask in any passage that you read.

Who? Who are the people in this passage? What is said about them? What kinds of things are said of them? Why are they asking a specific question, making a statement, or behaving in a certain way?

What? What is happening in this passage? What events take place? In what order do they happen? What happens to the characters? What responses are there to these events?

Where? Where is this taking place? Where are the people in the story? Where are they coming from or going to?

When? When are these events taking place? What other events are going on about the same time? When was this written?

Why? Why is this story included in the Bible? Why did the people respond the way they did? Why are the people where they are? Why do the events unfold the way they do?

You might even choose one of the examples below and practice creating questions that begin with the words below.

All you are doing is gathering as much information as you can about what you are reading. You are the investigator working to determine what God intends for us to see in this passage. Let’s go to a passage and practice. Take out a blank sheet of paper and then read Matthew 26:6-13. Now, go back to the types of questions we just used as examples and see what questions you can come up with. Here are some examples I found.

Examples:

What questions did you come up with? Are they similar to the ones above? Observation is just learning how to ask questions which help to determine what the context is of the passage. One could come up with many questions for a passage. That is what makes the Bible an amazing book. We can never find it all or learn everything there is to learn from a passage.

OnTrack is designed to assist you in the development of this skill. Each of the devotional thoughts is based on questions asked about the passage. Further, you will notice that on some days we ask a few questions after the thought to help you think through how you can further apply what you have just read. Then, the next day, there is a place in your guide for you to write down the questions you are coming up with. The goal is to help you get to the point where you can walk through a passage of Scripture and create your own devotional thoughts based on the questions you come up with. But to be able to determine what God is saying through Scripture, we must begin with observation skills.

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