From Starving to Feasting – 5 Scripture Study Tips to Help Feed Your Soul

I’m working on the Exponent lesson plan for 2 Nephi 30-33. When I plan these lessons I use the Come Follow Me manual to make sure I’m not missing anything. The manual has a section about how we should feast on the words of Christ. (2 Nephi 32:3) It asks us to consider how to do that. There’s a side blurb with a few quick examples of how to study the scriptures better. These examples include praying for inspiration before studying or looking up words. I find these examples to be rather incomplete. 

I guess we are either supposed to just inherently know how to feast or maybe the curriculum writers assume we were already taught and we’ve just slacked off lately.

What if we don’t know how to feast? Or we don’t even know where to find the food? Or we can’t tell if something is healthy or not?

I know those feelings. Back in 2021 I was starving spiritually. Covid restrictions combined with the Doctrine and Covenants curriculum for the year added up to a baren spiritual pantry to draw from.

Thankfully, I found a Bible Study group that fed my soul. The group also gave me skills to feed my soul myself. (You can read more about that journey in this post from a few months ago.)

I want to share some of the things I’ve learned that have helped me know how to feast on the words of Christ. 

Many of these practices are from the book Women of the Word by Jen Wilken. My Bible Study leader introduced me to that book a few years ago. It’s full of practical ideas for how to read and understand scripture. I highly recommend the book, and its accompanying podcast. 

Here are five practices that have helped me learn how to study my scriptures in an effective and meaningful way.

1. Give yourself permission to study what you want – If the Come Follow Me schedule isn’t working for you, then feel free to abandon it for something that will work. If you want to spend the rest of the year studying 2 Nephi then go ahead and do that. If you want to skip ahead to Helaman you can do that. If you want to give up on the Book of Mormon for the year and go back to the New Testament – you can do that too. 

To me, the pacing of the Come Follow Me curriculum makes it hard to feast on scripture. It feels more like a food tour where you stop and get little samples, but you never get to sit down to experience a full meal. You just keep moving to the next little nibble. If that isn’t working for you it’s okay to get off the quick tour and prepare a 7 course meal for yourself. 

I’m following the Come Follow Me schedule with my family, but personally I’m doing a deep dive into Mosiah this year. I’m studying one chapter a week with a few breaks built into the schedule. I’ve loved studying all of the theology in King Benjamin’s speech and I’m looking forward to discovering treasures throughout the rest of the book. 

2. Read the passage several times over several days – I’m really good at zoning out while reading scriptures. I think it’s because my parents insisted on family scripture study every morning at 6 am. Back then my brain often kicked into, “just get through this and it will be over soon” mode. 

As an adult that’s what my brain still wants to do as soon as I start reading the scriptures. I’ll read whole passages and then be like “wait, what did I just read?” So it’s helpful to go over the passage several times. The goal here isn’t speed. It’s understanding. I want to read the passage often so I can become familiar with it. Patterns start emerging. I’ll notice repeated words or phrases. I’ll realize how the passage ties into other parts of scripture. It becomes familiar instead of just a block of boring text.

As I’ve prepared the lesson plan for 2 Nephi 31-33 I’ve read over those chapters at least seven times over the course of three weeks. On the seventh time through I was suddenly like, “Oh my goodness, God the Father is speaking directing to Nephi right here.” I hadn’t noticed that any of the other times I’d ever read 2 Nephi 30. 

3. Read from a different translation – I’ve found it very helpful to read from different translations of the Bible. Reading the Old Testament without all those thees, thous, and thines helped me understand what was being said so much better.

Unfortunately, we don’t have a translation of the Book of Mormon into more modern language, but there are a number of different study editions being published. I recently splurged and bought the Annotated Book of Mormon from Oxford University Press. This book is amazing for many reasons. One of the things I like is that quotes and poetry are laid out differently from the narration. Just seeing the text in a different layout has helped me focus on the words better.

4. Read commentaries – Thanks to all those early morning scripture reading sessions with my parents when I was a kid I’m well versed in what happens in the Book of Mormon. But sometimes the deeper level of what it all means escapes me. That’s why I’m glad that we have so many commentaries available these days. 

Here are a few resources that have been helpful to me. This is not an exhaustive list so feel free to leave more suggestions in the comments. 

Brief Theological Introduction Series by the Maxwell Institute. Each book of The Book of Mormon has a small book dedicated to exploring the theology. I purchased the one on Mosiah to help with my study and it has been a valuable resource.Book of Mormon for the Least of These Series by Fatimah Sallah and Margaret Olsen Hemming. These boos look at the Book of Mormon through a social justice lens. These books have been helpful to get me to think about common phrases and passages from different angles. Annotated Book of Mormon – In addition to the helpful text layout, this book has many notes that help explain parts of the text. I also like the introductions to each book.

5. Applying the scriptures to your life as a last step – In our church we are so good at running to “what does this scripture mean to me” as soon as we are done reading. Half of the suggestions in the Come Follow Me manual encourage you to think about what you can do in your life to follow the scriptures that you read in that week’s lesson.

However, my Bible Study leader introduced me to a different concept this year when we started studying Philippians. She explained that as we read the text we should go through four steps. 

A. Read the text and examine what it says. (Sounds simple, but how many Sunday School lessons have you sat through that have only paraphrased the scriptures?)B. Examine what this would have meant to the original audience. What was the context? It’s helpful to ask simple questions like, Who wrote this? Who were they speaking to? Why did they write it? When did they write it? C. Examine how the atonement impacts the message. Is this something you are expected to do on your own? How can the atonement help you with what the text is saying?D. And then finally you can examine how this applies to your life today.

I’ve found it helpful to really take the time to examine scriptures through this framework. Examining the context the scripture was given in and then looking at it with the atonement in mind will often completely change how I think the scripture should be applied to my life.

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I hope these suggestions help you as you are learning to feast on the words of Christ. There really is a whole banquet available to us. It takes time and work to access it, but I promise it is there.

I’m always looking for more ideas for how improve my scripture study. So please leave a comment with things that have been helpful to you as you have learned how to feast on the scriptures.

Photo by Nina Luong on Unsplash