A strong relationship with God is so important for our lives. It truly changes everything. But, all too often, we go to church – to Sunday School or our small group – and feel like we have checked off: “Spend time with God” on our weekly to-do list. Church and having a community of believers is crucial for becoming a mature believer. But, it is not the only way that we get closer to God. Or even the primary way. As Lysa TerKeurst says, “We must exchange whispers with God before shouts with the world.” Our time studying the Bible at home and meeting with God personally is so important. But, how can we have a thriving bible study at home? In this article, you’ll get some practical tips for how to cultivate your quiet times with devotional practices, prayer tips, and scripture memorization. If you’ve never had a consistent quiet time, don’t worry this will address ways for you to get started. If you’ve been waking up and reading your Bible every day for 30 years, this might give you some ideas to add to your time with God. Whatever your situation, I hope you are encouraged to make Bible study at home a daily habit. 

The Purpose of Bible Study at Home

Ecclesiastes 12:13 says that the sole purpose of man is to glorify God and keep his commandments. The Westminster Catechism adds that we should enjoy God in addition to glorifying him. Desiring God, the book and ministry created by John Piper, focuses on this aspect of the Christian walk. To be a Christian is not simply following a set of rules. Yes, following God must change how we live, but we desire to change because we desire to please God. One of the beautiful things about the Christian walk is the joy and peace we find in God. “The joy of the Lord is our strength” (Neh. 8:10). 

Delighting in the Lord doesn’t just occur though. If our hearts are not set on God, the delight that we felt when we first decided to follow Jesus begins to wane. I’ve heard it likened to someone drifting in a car. When we turn our focus off of God – the best direction that we want to go, we start to veer off of the road and onto treacherous territory. Discipline leads to delight. This is why our habits are so important. When we set up habits through self-discipline to cultivate a relationship with God, we begin to truly delight in him more and more. 

It seems counterintuitive. I think in modern times we focus on our feelings. We think that feelings should lead to the right action. In fact, we are almost skeptical of things that require us to ‘just do it’ based on discipline rather than motivation (with exercise being probably the only exception). When we hear about people doing something for their sense of duty, like staying with a spouse, sacrificing for their kids, or showing up at church every week, we think that sounds okay for them, but it doesn’t really work for me right now. Why wouldn’t it work? Well, the answer boils down to them not feeling like they need to do that thing. My pastor says our feelings are a gauge, not a guide. They show us if something might be off in us, but they shouldn’t be the thing that determines what we do and who we are. We can make changes to make things better if we have negative feelings about something, but we shouldn’t let feelings rule our lives. 

So, if you find yourself not feeling motivated to study the word, that doesn’t mean that studying the word isn’t important. Instead, it should just alert you to the fact that there might be something off in your relationship with God. Our time spent pursuing God is a direct reflection of the health of our relationship with him. This time will look different in our varying seasons of life. Sometimes we are doing our pursuing on the go as we chase after toddlers. Or during our commutes to work in the morning. Or by the bedside of a sick relative. It doesn’t always look like the perfect quiet time, the perfect Bible study at home. But if you are not pursuing God at all, then there is something off. 

Here are some reasons why your time spent pursuing God might be faltering:  

1. You have unconfessed sin. 

Let’s start with the most difficult one first. One of the things that will ruin quality time with God is when we have unconfessed sin. We shut out the voice of God because we don’t want to listen to what he wants to teach us. If we have sin in our lives that we’ve felt a prodding to address, but we don’t  – that is going to lead to a hardening of our hearts. We won’t desire God because we don’t want to listen to what he has to say. We have to repent and return to God. 

2. You aren’t prioritizing it.

Sometimes we know what we need to do, but we simply don’t want to do it. So, we wait until we feel like we have the desire to pursue that thing. As we’ve already talked about, we will never have that desire just spontaneously pop up. It requires discipline to change our habits.  

3. You are just too busy. 

Sometimes, we might even have the desire to prioritize pursuing God, but we don’t have the margin in our lives to make it doable. It seems like there are not enough hours available in a day. Though creating a life-changing morning routine will help you to accomplish your goals, we need to make sure we are not burning the candle at both ends in an attempt to get it all done. We need margin and rest in our lives to truly make space to spend time with God. 

4. You don’t know where to start. 

Lastly, we may have a right heart with God and we desire to spend time with him. We even have the space and routine to really start pursuing him, but we may simply not know where to start. This post is going to give you some actionable steps to start pursuing God in your life regularly. We are going to talk about some habits and methods to spend time with God that will lead to a rich relationship with him. You are going to learn how to have a thriving bible study at home.

How to Study the Bible at Home

So where should you start with your study of the Bible at home? If you are regularly going to church – which you should! – You’ve probably already picked up some ways to study the Bible at home without knowing it. As I mentioned before, your time studying the Bible at home may not always look like this, during different seasons of your life you are going to have more time to spend than others. However, I think this is an ideal that you can strive for. Every person will have a unique twist on their time with God, but there are some key elements that every person should try to include in their study of the Bible at home. 

First step: Determine time and place

Again, every person is different. My perfect setup for quiet time is the quintessential coffee first thing in the morning before the sun comes up. I grab a basket where I keep all of my Bible study things and sit down to get started. You may be a morning person or a night person (or a during the kids’ nap person), so that is the best time for you to get your bible study done. I like to plan on doing it in the morning because I think that we should tithe our time just like we tithe our money. God gets the best part of us. For me, the best part is in the morning. I also find that I am more likely to skip my Bible study if I try to wait until a later time in the day. 

Once you’ve figured out the time, try to figure out the best place for you to do your Bible study at home. It could be a chair in the living room, your bedside table, your back porch, your deck. I like to use my kitchen table because I do a lot of writing and journaling during my Bible study time. It wakes me up and gets me thinking when I sit down at the table. I also think it’s easier to sip my coffee when I am at my table. Keeping all of your tools together in a basket or desk is also helpful because you don’t need to go searching. 

Yes, there are times in our lives when we get so busy or overwhelmed that it is difficult to sit down for quiet time in a quiet place. That shouldn’t be a deterrent to your spending time with God. You can spend time with God on the go if that’s really the only option. That being said, I think sometimes we use busyness in life as an excuse that distracts us from really spending time with God. Think about your kids: Yes, there are times with their academics (whether they are homeschooled or go to public school) when you are pushing their reading and homework off to the side for sports or other activities. But, if you never gave your kid quiet time to just read, they would never have a chance to truly get better at reading. (Sidenote: Please give your kids quiet time to read whether you read to them or they read to themselves without screens around!) If we value anything, we make time for it! Make time for God in your life. 

If you decide right now how you are going to develop your habit of bible study at home, then you are going to be able to more easily make the decision tomorrow morning to get up and do your Bible study. Once you read this, go ahead and gather up all the things you need and put those things by the place that you pick. It will reduce the friction that you have getting started and make it easier to make this a daily habit! 

Related: How to Create a Life-changing Morning Routine

Next Step: Determine your plans for Bible Study at Home

So once you’ve figured out when and where you want to do your quiet time, it’s time to talk about what you’ll actually do. The main point of quiet time is to draw closer to God, worship him, learn about him, and learn what his word says. We hope that our time spent with God will allow us to live more fully for him as we go about our days. 

Your Bible Study at home should include: 

1. Prayer
2. Reading the Bible
3. Scripture Memorization
4. Some Elements of Worship (music, prayer, reflection) 

So let’s break each of these elements down and see what they could practically look like in your life. 

Prayer

We should be praying continuously about everything (Phil. 4:6), but I think that there is something special about the time we spend alone with God. In fact, Jesus says that when we pray, we should go into our room and pray in secret (Matthew 6:6). What this looks like in my devotional time is to begin and end my Bible study time with prayer. We need to have specific times in our bible study at home for prayer.

There are a couple of different ways that you can do this. I just finished going through a prayer journal by Beth Moore that was a great tool for writing out different parts of my prayers. Keeping a prayer journal, whether it is part of a devotional book or a separate prayer journal like this one, is an excellent way to begin a habit of prayer. It keeps you focused, reminds you of what you’ve been praying for, and can be a record of God’s faithfulness. It is always surprising and comforting when you read through old prayer requests and see them be answered. 

One way that I incorporate prayer into my quiet time that’s a little unique is through prayer beads. I’m not Catholic, but I actually use a rosary to keep me focused. In the spring of this year, I found my mind wandering while I was praying. My prayers got so especially ‘me-focused’ that I never paused to think about God’s faithfulness or others’ needs. So, I got a set of prayer beads and then wrote a prayer chart in my notebook I used for Bible study. 

On the chart, I wrote out the date plus the request. Then, when I prayed in the morning, I would go through one bead per request that I wrote out. I would always begin my prayer time with praise (on the cross of the rosary) and use the first few beads to do a repeating prayer, for my family, work, and mothering, before moving on to the prayers in my prayer journal for the middle beads. You could probably use any kind of counter, but I found the tactile presence of the prayer beads something that helped remind me to pray on the days I would have forgotten it. You can download a copy of the chart below with our Free Bible Study at Home Guide. 

Bible Study

After I have my prayer time, I do my Bible study. There are two methods of Bible study: inductive and deductive. The names are taken from types of research and basically talk about where we start our bible study. Inductive Bible Study starts with a topic that we want to study and then seeks answers from across the Bible based on that topic. Deductive Bible Study starts with the passage and then determines our conclusion about a topic directly from there. You really need both to have a solid understanding of scripture and application of scripture. 

Some of the best Bible studies I’ve done recently are from The Daily Grace Co. They have Bible Studies on the old testament and new testament, and they do a great job of communicating Bible Truths based on scripture. They also have a variety of content from book studies to topical studies. Proverbs 31 Ministries also does a great job with their First5 app. This is a free online bible study that is available through an app. They also have a website that has devotions. I read through the Bible with them a few years ago and learned so much! They also do an online bible study and have a great podcast. Another highly recommended bible study is The Bible Recap. I haven’t done this one yet, but I’ve heard it is great! It’s on my list. You can also read the SeekGrowLove devotions which are written by a variety of authors and cover the Bible in a year every year. There are articles on their site from 2016 (including articles written by me)! 

All of these Bible studies are great first steps for having a daily practice of getting in the word. Because they are planned out, there is minimal thinking for you to do in the morning. You just have to wake up and turn to the page for that day, and it tells you what to do. 

As you mature and desire to learn more, you may want to read through the Bible on your own. You can access a free printable version of different Bible reading plans below that comes with a color in the bible worksheet to keep track of your progress! 

If you are looking for topical studies, you can access bible study lessons for your home bible study that I’ve written in the subscriber library. You’ll get access to that library once you subscribe to this site! Plus, you’ll get access to a weekly newsletter from the blog for updates and news about everything that is happening here! 

I like to keep a notebook that I use daily to keep track of what I’m learning during my Bible study time. Generally, I’ll write down the scripture that I’m studying and then write down a few takeaways. (The Purpose Planner has a section to do that for you.) I also write in my Bible! I think that writing and jotting down notes in my Bible has been the way that I’ve kept track of what I’ve learned over the years. My first Bible was the HSCB Women’s Bible (which is now just CSB) which was a great study bible. I now use the ESV journaling bible. I also use these great highlighters and bible tabs! (I get a small commission if you purchase something using an affiliate link at no cost to you. It’s a win-win for me and you!) I also love to read books during my quiet time that I can discuss with a group. If you are looking for help in how to study the bible, there are several free online bible study courses that give the basics of how to study the bible, like this one from The Bible Project.

Scripture Memorization

One of the overlooked components of bible study is scripture memorization. When we meet together at church, we may read scripture, but we generally do not memorize it. Memorizing Scripture is one of the things we really only do in our bible study at home. Memorizing Scripture is important because it (1) focuses us to slow down and hide God’s word in our hearts and (2) can be a reminder as we go out and live everyday life. These are the truths we need to live by. We can easily forget what we’ve learned during our Bible study time, but memorizing scripture can be a way to fight against the forgetting. The Daily Grace studies have a section for bible memorization. There are also specific studies that focus on bible memorization. In addition to this, you can do the low-cost, low-tech version of simple memorization cards. I have written verses on index cards that I use. I try to highlight prepositions and box different sections to chunk the text to help me remember it better. I’ve created some scripture memory cards that you can download here along with a free bible reading plan. 

I try to take 5 minutes or so every day to study scripture and focus on memorizing it. 

Worship

Another overlooked area is worshiping God. Of course, we do this at church and throughout our day, so this is not something we should try to limit to only our quiet time. But, if one of the purposes of studying scripture and spending time with God is delighting in him as we mentioned before, we need to make it a point to actually delight in him. We need to incorporate worship in our bible study at home.

One way that you can include worship in your Bible study at home is to play worship music in the background. Music has a great way of setting the tone and can even be transcendent, leading us to God. Additionally, we can look at the setting of our bible study. Every morning, I light a candle at my table. I’m normally sitting down around 5:30 a.m., so the world is still dark outside. The candle reminds me of the light God’s word is to me and the light I can be to the world. I also make a point to sit looking out the window at my backyard. At certain times of the year, I can see the sun break across the tops of the trees with the sunrise reflecting on the pond beneath. Pausing to look out across creation helps to get us out of our heads and our worries and reminds us that God is the creator of the universe and can deal with the small worries of today and so much more. 

Our Bible Study at Home 

Our Bible Study at home is a small daily habit that helps us to meet with God, to commune with our creator. It is something small – 15-30 minutes of time devoted to prayer, study, and quiet reflection. But, these small actions lead to something pretty amazing. Discipline leads to desire. Focus on devoting yourself to discipline by setting time aside today for the only thing that really matters: your relationship with God. 

Are you ready to start incorporating some of these elements into your life now? Download our free resource below to access our Bible Study at Home Guide PDF.