In this week’s blog, I want to cover something that is near and dear to my heart. It’s a simple approach to Scripture that I’ve developed for personal use and taught others to use for discipleship purposes. In other words, you can use this approach on your own and when helping others to follow Jesus. It’s called the AAA Approach to Scripture. Let’s go over it and then explore how you can use it with others in the context of discipleship.
ATTEND
The first A stands for attend. To “attend” to something or something can mean “to be present to,” “to listen to,” or “to give heed to.” This can be difficult to do in our digitally-distracted world. So, the first task is to get to a place personally where we can attend to God in His word.
These are some helpful habits in preparing to attend to God’s word: Take a minute to calm your mind and heart, being silent before God. Take deep breathes in and out while you do this. Place your palms up and picture everything that is on your mind and heart. Turn your palms over and visualize yourself giving these things over to God.
It’s important to keep in mind that Scriptures were not written to us, but for us. The Scriptures are God’s word for God’s people. But we must keep in mind that we are not its first readers. There is distance between us and these ancient documents. Because of the gaps of language, culture, geography, and history, we need to attend to the human words in which God’s word comes to us. This means reading slowly, observing, and asking good questions.
ABSORB
The point of engaging with God’s word is to live it out. Before you live out Scripture, you have to truly understand it. This is where the second A comes into play – absorb. We are not talking here about merely understanding facts. Instead, the ultimate goal is to take in God’s word, so we can see our little life story within God’s Big Story. You could say that we get absorbed by God’s word.
Here are good questions to prayerfully ask in seeking to absorb God’s word:
1. What do we learn about God and people?
2. What do we learn about relating to God and people?
ACT
Then, having attended to God in His word and absorbing what God has for us, our attention turns to the last A – act. The word “act” was chosen because our response to God’s word is to be active. It is to involve our whole person. What we learn should not just stay in our heads – it should move to our hearts and hands.
Here are some good questions to prayerfully ask in acting on God’s word:
1. What does God want me to understand and believe?
2. What does God want me to desire and do?
These questions are great because they involve our whole person in responding to the God who is present and speaking to us through His word. (The absorb and act questions are adapted from Matthew S. Harman’s Asking the Right Questions: A Practical Guide to Understanding and Applying the Bible.) A really good passage to practice this discipleship tool on is Ephesians 2:1-10.
GOOD CULTIVATION PRACTICES FOR ENGAGING IN SCRIPTURE WITH OTHERS
Now that we’ve gone over the AAA Approach to Scripture, I’d like to share with you some good cultivation practices for engaging in Scripture with others:
- Practice engaging with Scripture on your own. We cannot lead others to meaningful engagement with God’s word unless we are doing this ourselves. Learn the ins and outs of the AAA Approach to Scripture. You can teach this to other people, especially if you are practicing this.
- Invite those seeking or following Jesus to engage Scripture with you, one-on-one or in a small group. If this is not possible to do this together, then at least meet to talk about readings, questions, learnings, encouragement, etc. Take 20 minutes to read and 20 to share. You don’t have to teach. Search the Scriptures together and let God’s Spirit work.
- Utilize a resource that both you and others can benefit from. A good resource I recently discovered is the “ReadScripture” app. It has Scripture within the app, putting the Bible into the context of the Biblical story and providing resources for your reading. (I encourage you to go check it out on your phone or tablet after reading this post.)
- Pray together for God’s help in understanding and living out Scripture. Do this at the beginning and end of your meetings. Also, pray on your own for those you are discipling (e.g., pray for them Ephesians 1:15-23).
Let’s seek to engage with Scripture on our own and with others. Give this discipleship tool a try and see what God might do. God’s word is powerful and active!
Blessings,
Dean Bobar
Year in the Bible 