“Why won’t you attend Bible study?” a man asked me once.

“Do you hate studying the Bible?”

There is an incredible sense of freedom in doing things yourself, and this includes studying the Bible. Spirit of the Canyon, original oil painting by Steve Henderson; licensed open edition print at Great Big Canvas, iCanvasART, and Framed Canvas Art.

Seriously, when you get a question framed like that, it’s best to just talk about the weather. The person asking will never understand the answer, because their eyes are closed.

Bible study, which really means nothing more than reading the Bible, is another one of those activities that has been appropriated, and defined, by the establishment church, so that too many people, when they hear the words, think that they can only do it, successfully, in a group setting.

Bible study is incredibly important, which is why it’s so vital that individual Christians learn to do it on their own. If you must be in a group, so be it, but please do not let group study replace individual reading on your part. Given a choice between the two, it’s always better to forgo potential group think.

Please read the rest at my Belief Net blog, Commonsense, Christianity, in the article, Free Yourself from Bible Study Myths.