Discover 4 Yourself Bible Studies

A couple of years ago now my eldest said that he really loved reading the Bible every day to get us going. But what he really wanted to do was study it and understand everything inside. Of course his words warmed my heart, but they also set me off to look for something that would accommodate our needs.

I wanted something that would guide my kids, not just spoon feed them answers. I wanted something reasonably free of any particular denomination so that it would be more focused on the Bible. Basically I wanted a guide that would allow my children to find out what God had to say to them directly. Not to me, not to the author of the Bible study, but directly to them.

After a bit of hunting around, I found the Discover 4 Yourself Bible studies which appealed to me on a lot of levels. For one thing their objective is not to spoon feed you someone else’s truths and discoveries but to guide you on finding the answers. In fact, there are no answer keys for the children’s versions and there’s no coaxing of answers in the adults study guides either.

The bend on wanting people to find the answers for themselves was the biggest seller for me, but I was also excited to see how they encouraged the children to mark the passages they were studying in ways that would help them, at a glance understand exactly what they’d learned.

Now, before I go any further I’m going to add a note here. We are not one of those families who opposes writing in our Bibles. I’ve always explained to my children that their Bibles are one way to hear God and that jotting things down that He speaks to them, highlighting things that really cry out, and so forth is totally acceptable. I even opened my Bible to show them places I had marked, verses that brought comfort after the loss of my father, verses I’ve prayed for them, and so forth.

How I Use It:

Each book in the Discover 4 Yourself series is broken down into 5-7 days worth of studies per week. The first week tends to be the heaviest in the book. During this time you will become very familiar with the scripture you are studying, apply many marks to this portion of the scriptures, and become truly aware of what you’re study will be about.

When we first used these books we tried to do them as written with a lot of other things on our plate too. I found that while we still loved the books it was easy to put off a day of study if we knew it was going to take a large chunk of time. Not a great example for the children either.

So now we look at our upcoming Bible study for the week and days that will take longer we break up over several days. If there’s a lot of marking in our scriptures we may only do that in a day and then reread it the following day and answer questions based on what we marked. Using this method has created a habit for us that means Bible study gets done each day.

I’ll also add that while it is our aim to generally do our study 5x a week, it doesn’t always happen. We’ve learned not to panic about it. Dr’s appointments, outings, and other things can creep up in our week that we have little control over. Rather then panicking about it, we do our daily readings and pick up our firm studies the following day.

While the author does have specific ways for one to mark the scripture being studied, we’re not super strict on marking it exactly as stated in the book. For instance, when I’m marking directly in my Bible, I can assure you I’m not going to be successful at marking a megaphone shape over the print. So I come up with my own thing, my eldest tends to do that too. We just keep track of how we chooses to mark a certain thing and carry on with that.

One final thing we do a little differently is that the author often tells the students to flip to page 161 or there about to read the daily reading and mark the scriptures. That’s right, while you can use your own Bible for this study she’s actually included the text from the NASB in the back of the book! It’s a bit cumbersome to flip back and forth without losing your place so I go to www.biblegateway.com & select the NASB version, the chapter{s} we’ll need for marking and I copy that into a Word/Pages file. I delete any notes that were included so as not to distract the kids and allow them to find the truths themselves. I also enlarge the font, especially for my SSS boy and then I skip at least 1 line between each verse, also super helpful for my SSS boy. Then the kids mark directly on those, and  transfer anything they want directly into their Bible. The papers with the scripture we are working on are folded in half and fit nicely inside our Bible Study books as place markers too.

What I love about it:

• I love that my kids get excited about doing Bible Study. This is big, because if they find it a drag they aren’t going to be keen to doing the work, much less making habits they’ll take off on their own eventually.
• I love that the books guide the children with clear instructions, but not specific answers. For instance, after marking specific words their are questions asked about that and if you read the verses you will find the answers. There are also times, though, when a person is going ot have to answer what’s in their own heart. I always give my children the freedom to answer that privately on their own.
• I love the marking method! I seriously love colour and I quite enjoy seeing my Bible fill up with the different markings and colours that help me distinguish what I’m up to. I have one child who is neither here nor there about the variety of colours, and one who equally loves seeing his paper fill in with them.
• I love that it’s very very open and go. While your child could/should totally use a Bible with this, the author understands that not everyone uses the same version. These studies use the NASB version and she’s included the major scriptures in the back of the book. If you did not own an NASB version you’d still be completely capable of doing the study.
• I love that each book has a catchy theme. I’m not just talking about the objective of the study either. For instance, in How To Study Your Bible the theme is being a detective. In Becoming God’s Champion the theme is Olympics, and in Wrong Way Jonah the theme is being a newspaper reporter.
• I love the ease of being able to obtain these overseas. This is a huge plus for us! Not only will Precept Ministries ship internationally, you can find these studies at many local Christian Book stores, Book Depository {free international shipping!!}, Amazon {also in Kindle format}, & Christian Book Depository.

What I Don’t Love:

• Okay, so this is going to be a silly complaint, but seriously it would be so much nicer if the books were spiral bound! Yes, I know I can have that done at my local office supply store, but..
• I don’t love that my local Christian Book store is always out of stock! Yep, true story which is not the fault of the book at all!
• I’m not generally an ebook fan, but I’d so love if these were available as pdfs. When we purchased Lord Teach Me How To Pray for kids we were able to obtain it as a PDF from CBD. What a treat that was! We’ve not been able to find any of the other books in that form. I’d say for people with multiple children wanting to do this study it would be more economical to have them in PDF format.

Bottom Line:

We really love these studies and the consistency in which it’s helped form a regular routine for Bible study in our home. I love that I can use this with both of my children and that each of them can gain exactly what they need at their own level. I love that we can do this as a family!

~ To find out more about how Kendra and her family use the Discover 4 Yourself! series hop on over to: blog.aussiepumpkinpatch.com