August 7, 2025 • 22 mins
Ever feel like you read your Bible...but don't really understand it? In this episode, we explore the second step of the EASY Bible Study Method: Assess the Main Idea. Whether you have just 10 minutes or a full hour for Bible study, you’ll learn a simple, flexible approach to understanding Scripture that meets you right where you are: and grows with you over time.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Ellen Krause (00:04):
At the Coffee and Bible Time podcast.
Our goal is to help you delightin God's Word and thrive in
Christian living.
Each week we talk to subjectmatter experts who broaden your
biblical understanding,encourage you in hard times and
provide life-building tips toenhance your Christian walk.
We are so glad you have joinedus.
(00:25):
Welcome back to the Coffee andBible Time podcast.
Today we're diving into steptwo of our four-part series on
the easy Bible study method, andthat's the letter A, which
stands for assess the main idea.
In this step.
(00:45):
We're going to talk about howyou need to slow down, break up
the scriptures, paraphrase, askthoughtful questions, all of
these things to help us reallymove past the goal of just
reading the Bible but to trulyunderstanding it.
The goal of just reading theBible, but to truly
(01:07):
understanding it and assessingthe main idea helps us move past
surface level reading into realdiscovery.
When you take the time toassess the main idea, you begin
to uncover the heart of thepassage, what the author was
really saying to the originalaudience and what God wants you
to see today.
So grab your Bible, yourjournal and, of course, your
(01:27):
coffee and let's explore howthis can transform the way you
engage with scripture.
Joining me today is Ashley,part of the Coffee and Bible
Time team here.
Thank you for joining.
Ashley Armijo (01:44):
Ash, thanks for having me again.
Ellen Krause (01:47):
Also my wonderful daughter, not gonna lie, I'm
grateful for you.
So, ashley, as we mentioned,this is the part of the study
where we're going to start todigest the text.
You've already spent timelearning about the context.
We have examined questionsabout the passage and now we're
(02:09):
putting together the details.
We're moving towards the bigpicture.
So, for any of our listenerswho maybe missed the first
episode, need just a tinyrefresh.
What would you want them toknow in a snapshot about
entering into the story?
That sets us up for being ableto assess the main idea.
Ashley Armijo (02:31):
I would first want them to know that.
So this is the easy Bible studymethod and it's a four-part
Bible study system where youmake Bible study super easy by
going through the acronym EASY.
So we already did E enter intothe story, and that's really
where you just slow down, readthe text and ask context
(02:54):
questions so who is the author,who is the audience, what's
going on in this Bible passage?
And really what you do is youenter into the story and you put
yourself in the story and youread it slowly and intentionally
, and it is a great way to juststart your Bible study time
(03:16):
because you're just kind oftaking the pressure off and
slowly entering into the text.
So, yeah, that was a goodpodcast session and I would
highly encourage anyone if youmissed that one to go watch that
first and then to come back tothis one?
Ellen Krause (03:31):
Yes, definitely, all right.
So, as we step into assessingthe main idea, tell us what that
really means.
Ashley Armijo (03:38):
So, as we assess the main idea, really what we're
trying to do is figure out themeaning of the text and one
thing we really like toemphasize and we learned this in
Bible college and a lot ofprofessors and theologians
really emphasize this as wellbut just remembering that the
Bible wasn't originally writtento us, so you know the book, the
(04:03):
gospel writer John wasn'tthinking, oh, I'm going to write
this to Ellen 2000 years fromnow.
It's going to be specificallyfor her.
It wasn't written to us.
It was written by a specificauthor to a very specific
audience.
But what's really encouragingabout scripture is that,
although it wasn't written to us, it's for us still.
(04:24):
So it's still God-intendedscripture to be for all
believers in any generation, atany period of time.
So we can still learn a lot andglean a lot and come closer to
God through his word, eventhough we might not be the
specific original audience ofthe text.
(04:46):
But as you're reading it, it'simportant to keep in mind okay,
there was an original author,there was original audience and
what did he mean for them, whatwas their meaning?
And then, once we find, okay,what did this mean for them, we
can then kind of cross thebridge over.
Okay, I figured out what thismeant for them.
(05:07):
Now what does that mean for ustoday?
Ellen Krause (05:11):
Okay, that makes a lot of sense.
So what would be the first stepthen someone would take in this
process?
Ashley Armijo (05:19):
So the first step we have in the easy Bible study
method for this process isparaphrasing the passage.
I've done this for yearshonestly, probably gosh, almost
you know eight to ten years ofdoing this, where I'll read the
passage and then I will simplysummarize it in my own words.
(05:42):
It in my own words, and I likestarting here because a lot of
times you can read through apassage kind of we talked about
this last time mindlessly, andyou can close your Bible and
walk away and you never reallyunderstood, okay, what does this
mean?
And what does this mean for metoday?
You just close your Bible andwalk away.
I'm guilty of doing that all thetime, but a lot of times, if I
(06:05):
slow down and read it and then Isummarize it in my own words,
it forces me to kind of take thetext and think to myself okay,
what does this mean and how canI summarize this into two
sentences?
(06:28):
Summarize this into twosentences.
So if it's a big chunk of text,like, let's say, a whole chapter
, what you can do is take it bylittle chunks and so, like maybe
the first three verses of thatchapter, I can say, oh, this is
what this means, the next threethis is what this means, the
next three this is what thismeans, and then at the end I can
put all of those littlesummaries together and say, oh,
okay, this is kind of what theoverall meaning of this text is,
(06:52):
summarized in my own words.
And I like doing that becausethere are certain times when
you're reading scripturepassages where it's a lot and
they've packed so much into onechapter and they go from topic
to topic, to theme to theme, andso it's just like, okay, how
(07:12):
can I break this down a littlebit more simply so that I can
understand it and maybe take itin smaller chunks and then
process each chunk so I can getthen the whole big picture of
kind of what it's saying.
So that's the first step welike to do, and it's super
simple because I mean, all of ushave done this in school
growing up, where we've had tosummarize books or whatever an
(07:37):
English class or history classand so it's kind of something
we've a lot of us have learnedand, honestly, the teachers were
so smart because even now as anadult, it forces your brain to
think okay, because we just didthe James chapter one in our
community Bible study group andwe did one verse at a time.
Ellen Krause (08:00):
That was really effective for me actually having
to think like, okay, what iswhat is this verse trying to say
in a way that I can understand.
And the other side of that islater.
I would do that first and then,after I would go through more
steps to look at the verse inmore depth, I would end up so
(08:23):
many times with such a greater,deeper or even a different
understanding than what Ioriginally thought.
So how do you tell us how youthink that happens?
Ashley Armijo (08:44):
I think, the more that you study a passage,
especially if you're opening thedoor to okay, like I just read
this passage, holy Spirit,please open my eyes, please
teach me.
And then, as you study itdeeper, if you're getting more
into in-depth study, you'recomparing it to other scripture
passages you're learning about,you're looking into the deeper
Greek or Hebrew translations ofit, you're reading into
(09:07):
scholars' points of views of thepassage.
And I think, after doing allthat deeper study which, of
course, in the Easy Bible StudyMethod, we have the option to
dig deeper.
So if you have more time and ifyou want to dig deeper, you
absolutely can.
But I think that the more timeyou spend in the passage, the
more that you open your heart toGod being able to reveal to you
(09:32):
what that passage means.
And so I mean even you can findout more about one word.
So, like in passages about like, let's say, love, like you
could do a word study on lovethroughout the entire Bible and
you can learn all about justthat one little word, right, and
become like oh okay, god, thisis what love means.
(09:52):
It's selfless, it's.
You know Christ showed his lovewhen he sacrificed himself on
the cross for us.
You know, he gave his wholelife to us.
Oh, love might not always be afeeling, it's an action word,
right, and that's just one word.
You know what I mean.
So I love the easy Bible studymethod because you can just
(10:14):
stick to it being very easy andsimple.
So, like, let's say, I'm doingthe easy Bible study method and
I'm on A assess the main ideaand today I just don't have all
the time to dig deeper.
All I have to do is write downa quick summary and then I can
go on to S seek God and hischaracter, right, especially if
I'm like, okay, I have 10minutes right now while the
(10:36):
baby's napping or something, butif I have extra time, I can
really, within the section,there's so much more.
You can make annotations inyour Bible and pick out
different themes, looking atdifferent words, like we just
talked about, and then you canreally get into figuring out
okay, what did this mean for theoriginal audience?
(10:59):
And then what does it mean forus today?
And in our Dig Deeper section itliterally says look into
commentaries, look into whatscholars say about this, because
scholars spend their entirelife doing this as a living and
that's why I love looking attheir perspective and it's good
(11:21):
to get multiple perspectives,but I just love looking at their
perspective because it's like,okay, they went to school right,
they got their undergrad degree, they got a lot of them got
their master's, their PhDs, theyknow how to study the Bible
inside and out, they know how tolook at the historical context,
they know how to figure out theinterpretation of these
(11:42):
passages.
So if you're feeling stuck, Iwould say don't feel any guilt
or shame looking into acommentary.
I think that's a really goodthing.
Ellen Krause (11:52):
Yeah, absolutely.
What was kind of cool, ash, waslast night in our community
Bible study night.
In our community Bible studythe Coffee and Bible Time
community we had the opportunityto watch the video that you
made for the Bible Study Academythat was on highlighting and
(12:12):
annotating, which is the digdeeper portion of assessing the
main idea, and it was soincredible.
The women in there were justblown away by all of the
different things that you canhighlight and annotate to help
you understand the passage.
(12:34):
I thought maybe you could justshare a little bit about some of
those things that if people dohave more time, what does that
look like?
Ashley Armijo (12:47):
Yeah.
So I mean I would suggest goinginto the academy and looking at
the course, but I'll give you asmall little overview, honestly
for me, because it can start tofeel overwhelming when you get
this whole long list of thingsyou can annotate in the Bible,
right?
So I always start with, everytime I read the Bible,
highlighting God's character inpurple, and so that is whenever
(13:11):
God shows up in the passage,whether it's God the Father, god
the Son or God the Spirit I'llhave my purple highlighter with
me and I will highlight that andand sometimes I'll make notes
off into the side like thisshows a lot more about Jesus's
character or this is the HolySpirit, specifically about a
character quality about him.
(13:32):
And I love doing that becausethen I can go back in my Bible
and see all the times the purpleshowed up and really like that
helps draw my attention to whoGod is in the passage.
So that's the first thing Ialways do, but then other things
I like to do is it depends whatpart of the Bible you're
reading, but a lot of times inthe narrative sections they will
(13:54):
highlight a specific person,like I just did the easy Bible
study method on Matthew 14, 22through 33 about Jesus walking
on water.
But the specific person theyhighlighted is Peter.
And so in in green, Ihighlighted Peter because I'm
like OK, the author biblicalauthor is obviously trying to
(14:18):
show us Peter in this passageand highlight how, you know, he
did have faith at the beginningto step out, but then he kind of
looked around at the waves andsunk under.
And so I really do think thebiblical author wants us to see
ourselves in that, like our weakfaith.
(14:39):
We have that weak faith too.
We have that doubt, but who isright there to lift us out of
that when we are sinking underJesus, right?
And so as I read through thatpassage, I'm also thinking, okay
, what themes are standing outto me in this passage?
Well, faith is a big theme.
That's something I can circleand highlight and annotate.
(15:00):
Doubt was a theme in thatpassage.
There were so many.
Another thing I highlighted inthis passage and noted was
certain emotions, because itsaid over and over again they
were afraid, they were terrified, they cried out.
You know, at the end it talkedabout how they were in awe, they
(15:23):
were worshiping Jesus becauseof what they saw in him.
So I noted the emotions becauseI mean, we're all human and we
all experience those emotionsthat you know they've
experienced.
We all know what it's like tofeel afraid and fear and and
just seeing, okay, how did Peterreact with that fear?
And and just seeing, okay, howdid Peter react with that fear,
(15:44):
and how do I sometimes reactwith that?
And how do I need to give thatover to the Lord and trust and
look at him directly rather thanlooking around at the waves
around me.
So I mean, those are just a fewthings.
Ellen Krause (15:53):
Obviously there's so much more, I mean in the
annotation section of ouracademy.
Ashley Armijo (16:00):
We talk about, you know, looking at specific,
what's it called grammar right?
Ellen Krause (16:05):
Yes, right, right, in addition to themes, you've
got repeating words andcomparisons and clauses that
have consequences, and figuresof speech.
Yes, it just goes on and on andon.
And figures of speech yes, itjust goes on and on and on.
So, yes, and we cover that aswell in the book.
(16:35):
In this assess the main idea,which is really, I would say,
kind of the meat and potatoes.
Ashley Armijo (16:40):
Wouldn't you, ashley, of like all of the work
that you're going to pour intounderstanding a passage?
Yes, yes, it is intounderstanding a passage.
Yes, yes, it is.
If you really do the easy Biblestudy method, with all of the
dig deepers with each letter,you will be getting into
in-depth Bible study.
That's what's so flexible aboutthis method is I could really
do it and just do a very simple10, 15 minute Bible study.
(17:00):
Or if I do all of the digdeepers, yes, I'm going to be
doing an in-depth Bible study.
So there's so much flexibilitythere and I really really like
that.
Ellen Krause (17:11):
Yeah, well, as we wrap this part up, I just want
to ask you what bit ofencouragement would you give
someone who's listening to this,who's, you know, maybe afraid
to even start or feels like theydon't have time to do Bible
study?
(17:31):
What would you encourage themwith today?
Ashley Armijo (17:39):
I would say, if you're to this point of the
podcast and you're feeling a bitoverwhelmed, yes, there's a lot
, and I think that's a normalfeeling to have, Like someone in
our Bible study community, evenshared honestly.
Hey, I'm overwhelmed by all ofthis and I told her.
I said you know what?
Thank you so much for sharingthat, because I can guarantee
(18:02):
you you are not the only onefeeling that, and I think a lot
of other women are like oh okay,good, I'm not the only one
feeling overwhelmed by all this.
You know, but I would say to thewoman feeling overwhelmed or
like it feels daunting, to juststart very simple, right?
(18:23):
So for E, when you enter intothe story, simply do that.
Just say you know what.
I'm going to read this passageand I'm going to put myself in
the passage and I'm going toread it slowly today.
Okay, great, I did that.
Okay, now I'm going to go to Aand all I'm going to do is read
through it and write a smalllittle two-sentence summary.
Done, okay, now I'm going to goto S and I'm going to seek God
(18:47):
and his character.
All I'm going to do is grab mypurple highlighter and highlight
whenever God shows up, right,and then why I'm going to close
my time in prayer.
I'm going to close my time inprayer, so it can be that simple
, and so I think that you shouldjust take off any pressure of
(19:07):
perfection or any pressure of Ihave to do it a perfect, certain
way or I have to completeeverything on the checklist.
When we get into that type ofmode of thinking, then we're
missing the point of Bible study.
So just come back to the heart.
Okay, what is the heart ofBible study and why am I doing
this?
If it's to know Jesus more anddeeper and to love him more than
(19:28):
you're right on track.
So yeah, I mean just ask theLord.
Lord, give me a pure heart andhelp me the Lord.
Ellen Krause (19:42):
Lord, give me a pure heart and help me, teach me
, grow me.
I love that you pointed thatout, because one of my friends,
who I just love Rachel, you know, in a busy mothering season in
her life, I think was so wiseand being realistic during the
weekdays because she also is ateacher.
Like she does do what youtalked about, just very easy and
(20:05):
things that she can get done ina limited amount of time.
But then she also builds intoher schedule maybe an hour on
Saturday mornings that she'sgoing to say OK, I'm going to
take one hour of my week and I'mreally going to devote it more
to digging deeper.
(20:25):
And so I would just say there'sdifferent seasons of life
everyone's going through.
Sometimes you have more time,less time Don't beat yourself up
about that, but you can beintentional about finding a
little bit of time here andthere to do that.
So thank you so much, ashley,for helping us understand why we
(20:47):
need to jump in, how we canjump in, and we just hope and
pray that for those of you thatare listening, if you are
interested at all in learninghow to study the Bible for
yourselves, please get a copy ofour book, the Easy Bible Study
Method, a four-step process thatwill literally hold you by the
(21:11):
hand, walk you step by stepthrough a process to make it
easy to study and read yourBible.
So thank you so much forjoining us on our podcast today.
We love you all.
Have a blessed day, thank you.
At the Coffee and Bible Time podcast.
Our goal is to help you delightin God's Word and thrive in
Christian living.
Each week we talk to subjectmatter experts who broaden your
biblical understanding,encourage you in hard times and
provide life-building tips toenhance your Christian walk.
We are so glad you have joinedus.
(00:25):
Welcome back to the Coffee andBible Time podcast.
Today we're diving into steptwo of our four-part series on
the easy Bible study method, andthat's the letter A, which
stands for assess the main idea.
In this step.
(00:45):
We're going to talk about howyou need to slow down, break up
the scriptures, paraphrase, askthoughtful questions, all of
these things to help us reallymove past the goal of just
reading the Bible but to trulyunderstanding it.
The goal of just reading theBible, but to truly
(01:07):
understanding it and assessingthe main idea helps us move past
surface level reading into realdiscovery.
When you take the time toassess the main idea, you begin
to uncover the heart of thepassage, what the author was
really saying to the originalaudience and what God wants you
to see today.
So grab your Bible, yourjournal and, of course, your
(01:27):
coffee and let's explore howthis can transform the way you
engage with scripture.
Joining me today is Ashley,part of the Coffee and Bible
Time team here.
Thank you for joining.
Ashley Armijo (01:44):
Ash, thanks for having me again.
Ellen Krause (01:47):
Also my wonderful daughter, not gonna lie, I'm
grateful for you.
So, ashley, as we mentioned,this is the part of the study
where we're going to start todigest the text.
You've already spent timelearning about the context.
We have examined questionsabout the passage and now we're
(02:09):
putting together the details.
We're moving towards the bigpicture.
So, for any of our listenerswho maybe missed the first
episode, need just a tinyrefresh.
What would you want them toknow in a snapshot about
entering into the story?
That sets us up for being ableto assess the main idea.
Ashley Armijo (02:31):
I would first want them to know that.
So this is the easy Bible studymethod and it's a four-part
Bible study system where youmake Bible study super easy by
going through the acronym EASY.
So we already did E enter intothe story, and that's really
where you just slow down, readthe text and ask context
(02:54):
questions so who is the author,who is the audience, what's
going on in this Bible passage?
And really what you do is youenter into the story and you put
yourself in the story and youread it slowly and intentionally
, and it is a great way to juststart your Bible study time
(03:16):
because you're just kind oftaking the pressure off and
slowly entering into the text.
So, yeah, that was a goodpodcast session and I would
highly encourage anyone if youmissed that one to go watch that
first and then to come back tothis one?
Ellen Krause (03:31):
Yes, definitely, all right.
So, as we step into assessingthe main idea, tell us what that
really means.
Ashley Armijo (03:38):
So, as we assess the main idea, really what we're
trying to do is figure out themeaning of the text and one
thing we really like toemphasize and we learned this in
Bible college and a lot ofprofessors and theologians
really emphasize this as wellbut just remembering that the
Bible wasn't originally writtento us, so you know the book, the
(04:03):
gospel writer John wasn'tthinking, oh, I'm going to write
this to Ellen 2000 years fromnow.
It's going to be specificallyfor her.
It wasn't written to us.
It was written by a specificauthor to a very specific
audience.
But what's really encouragingabout scripture is that,
although it wasn't written to us, it's for us still.
(04:24):
So it's still God-intendedscripture to be for all
believers in any generation, atany period of time.
So we can still learn a lot andglean a lot and come closer to
God through his word, eventhough we might not be the
specific original audience ofthe text.
(04:46):
But as you're reading it, it'simportant to keep in mind okay,
there was an original author,there was original audience and
what did he mean for them, whatwas their meaning?
And then, once we find, okay,what did this mean for them, we
can then kind of cross thebridge over.
Okay, I figured out what thismeant for them.
(05:07):
Now what does that mean for ustoday?
Ellen Krause (05:11):
Okay, that makes a lot of sense.
So what would be the first stepthen someone would take in this
process?
Ashley Armijo (05:19):
So the first step we have in the easy Bible study
method for this process isparaphrasing the passage.
I've done this for yearshonestly, probably gosh, almost
you know eight to ten years ofdoing this, where I'll read the
passage and then I will simplysummarize it in my own words.
(05:42):
It in my own words, and I likestarting here because a lot of
times you can read through apassage kind of we talked about
this last time mindlessly, andyou can close your Bible and
walk away and you never reallyunderstood, okay, what does this
mean?
And what does this mean for metoday?
You just close your Bible andwalk away.
I'm guilty of doing that all thetime, but a lot of times, if I
(06:05):
slow down and read it and then Isummarize it in my own words,
it forces me to kind of take thetext and think to myself okay,
what does this mean and how canI summarize this into two
sentences?
(06:28):
Summarize this into twosentences.
So if it's a big chunk of text,like, let's say, a whole chapter
, what you can do is take it bylittle chunks and so, like maybe
the first three verses of thatchapter, I can say, oh, this is
what this means, the next threethis is what this means, the
next three this is what thismeans, and then at the end I can
put all of those littlesummaries together and say, oh,
okay, this is kind of what theoverall meaning of this text is,
(06:52):
summarized in my own words.
And I like doing that becausethere are certain times when
you're reading scripturepassages where it's a lot and
they've packed so much into onechapter and they go from topic
to topic, to theme to theme, andso it's just like, okay, how
(07:12):
can I break this down a littlebit more simply so that I can
understand it and maybe take itin smaller chunks and then
process each chunk so I can getthen the whole big picture of
kind of what it's saying.
So that's the first step welike to do, and it's super
simple because I mean, all of ushave done this in school
growing up, where we've had tosummarize books or whatever an
(07:37):
English class or history classand so it's kind of something
we've a lot of us have learnedand, honestly, the teachers were
so smart because even now as anadult, it forces your brain to
think okay, because we just didthe James chapter one in our
community Bible study group andwe did one verse at a time.
Ellen Krause (08:00):
That was really effective for me actually having
to think like, okay, what iswhat is this verse trying to say
in a way that I can understand.
And the other side of that islater.
I would do that first and then,after I would go through more
steps to look at the verse inmore depth, I would end up so
(08:23):
many times with such a greater,deeper or even a different
understanding than what Ioriginally thought.
So how do you tell us how youthink that happens?
Ashley Armijo (08:44):
I think, the more that you study a passage,
especially if you're opening thedoor to okay, like I just read
this passage, holy Spirit,please open my eyes, please
teach me.
And then, as you study itdeeper, if you're getting more
into in-depth study, you'recomparing it to other scripture
passages you're learning about,you're looking into the deeper
Greek or Hebrew translations ofit, you're reading into
(09:07):
scholars' points of views of thepassage.
And I think, after doing allthat deeper study which, of
course, in the Easy Bible StudyMethod, we have the option to
dig deeper.
So if you have more time and ifyou want to dig deeper, you
absolutely can.
But I think that the more timeyou spend in the passage, the
more that you open your heart toGod being able to reveal to you
(09:32):
what that passage means.
And so I mean even you can findout more about one word.
So, like in passages about like, let's say, love, like you
could do a word study on lovethroughout the entire Bible and
you can learn all about justthat one little word, right, and
become like oh okay, god, thisis what love means.
(09:52):
It's selfless, it's.
You know Christ showed his lovewhen he sacrificed himself on
the cross for us.
You know, he gave his wholelife to us.
Oh, love might not always be afeeling, it's an action word,
right, and that's just one word.
You know what I mean.
So I love the easy Bible studymethod because you can just
(10:14):
stick to it being very easy andsimple.
So, like, let's say, I'm doingthe easy Bible study method and
I'm on A assess the main ideaand today I just don't have all
the time to dig deeper.
All I have to do is write downa quick summary and then I can
go on to S seek God and hischaracter, right, especially if
I'm like, okay, I have 10minutes right now while the
(10:36):
baby's napping or something, butif I have extra time, I can
really, within the section,there's so much more.
You can make annotations inyour Bible and pick out
different themes, looking atdifferent words, like we just
talked about, and then you canreally get into figuring out
okay, what did this mean for theoriginal audience?
(10:59):
And then what does it mean forus today?
And in our Dig Deeper section itliterally says look into
commentaries, look into whatscholars say about this, because
scholars spend their entirelife doing this as a living and
that's why I love looking attheir perspective and it's good
(11:21):
to get multiple perspectives,but I just love looking at their
perspective because it's like,okay, they went to school right,
they got their undergrad degree, they got a lot of them got
their master's, their PhDs, theyknow how to study the Bible
inside and out, they know how tolook at the historical context,
they know how to figure out theinterpretation of these
(11:42):
passages.
So if you're feeling stuck, Iwould say don't feel any guilt
or shame looking into acommentary.
I think that's a really goodthing.
Ellen Krause (11:52):
Yeah, absolutely.
What was kind of cool, ash, waslast night in our community
Bible study night.
In our community Bible studythe Coffee and Bible Time
community we had the opportunityto watch the video that you
made for the Bible Study Academythat was on highlighting and
(12:12):
annotating, which is the digdeeper portion of assessing the
main idea, and it was soincredible.
The women in there were justblown away by all of the
different things that you canhighlight and annotate to help
you understand the passage.
(12:34):
I thought maybe you could justshare a little bit about some of
those things that if people dohave more time, what does that
look like?
Ashley Armijo (12:47):
Yeah.
So I mean I would suggest goinginto the academy and looking at
the course, but I'll give you asmall little overview, honestly
for me, because it can start tofeel overwhelming when you get
this whole long list of thingsyou can annotate in the Bible,
right?
So I always start with, everytime I read the Bible,
highlighting God's character inpurple, and so that is whenever
(13:11):
God shows up in the passage,whether it's God the Father, god
the Son or God the Spirit I'llhave my purple highlighter with
me and I will highlight that andand sometimes I'll make notes
off into the side like thisshows a lot more about Jesus's
character or this is the HolySpirit, specifically about a
character quality about him.
(13:32):
And I love doing that becausethen I can go back in my Bible
and see all the times the purpleshowed up and really like that
helps draw my attention to whoGod is in the passage.
So that's the first thing Ialways do, but then other things
I like to do is it depends whatpart of the Bible you're
reading, but a lot of times inthe narrative sections they will
(13:54):
highlight a specific person,like I just did the easy Bible
study method on Matthew 14, 22through 33 about Jesus walking
on water.
But the specific person theyhighlighted is Peter.
And so in in green, Ihighlighted Peter because I'm
like OK, the author biblicalauthor is obviously trying to
(14:18):
show us Peter in this passageand highlight how, you know, he
did have faith at the beginningto step out, but then he kind of
looked around at the waves andsunk under.
And so I really do think thebiblical author wants us to see
ourselves in that, like our weakfaith.
(14:39):
We have that weak faith too.
We have that doubt, but who isright there to lift us out of
that when we are sinking underJesus, right?
And so as I read through thatpassage, I'm also thinking, okay
, what themes are standing outto me in this passage?
Well, faith is a big theme.
That's something I can circleand highlight and annotate.
(15:00):
Doubt was a theme in thatpassage.
There were so many.
Another thing I highlighted inthis passage and noted was
certain emotions, because itsaid over and over again they
were afraid, they were terrified, they cried out.
You know, at the end it talkedabout how they were in awe, they
(15:23):
were worshiping Jesus becauseof what they saw in him.
So I noted the emotions becauseI mean, we're all human and we
all experience those emotionsthat you know they've
experienced.
We all know what it's like tofeel afraid and fear and and
just seeing, okay, how did Peterreact with that fear?
And and just seeing, okay, howdid Peter react with that fear,
(15:44):
and how do I sometimes reactwith that?
And how do I need to give thatover to the Lord and trust and
look at him directly rather thanlooking around at the waves
around me.
So I mean, those are just a fewthings.
Ellen Krause (15:53):
Obviously there's so much more, I mean in the
annotation section of ouracademy.
Ashley Armijo (16:00):
We talk about, you know, looking at specific,
what's it called grammar right?
Ellen Krause (16:05):
Yes, right, right, in addition to themes, you've
got repeating words andcomparisons and clauses that
have consequences, and figuresof speech.
Yes, it just goes on and on andon.
And figures of speech yes, itjust goes on and on and on.
So, yes, and we cover that aswell in the book.
(16:35):
In this assess the main idea,which is really, I would say,
kind of the meat and potatoes.
Ashley Armijo (16:40):
Wouldn't you, ashley, of like all of the work
that you're going to pour intounderstanding a passage?
Yes, yes, it is intounderstanding a passage.
Yes, yes, it is.
If you really do the easy Biblestudy method, with all of the
dig deepers with each letter,you will be getting into
in-depth Bible study.
That's what's so flexible aboutthis method is I could really
do it and just do a very simple10, 15 minute Bible study.
(17:00):
Or if I do all of the digdeepers, yes, I'm going to be
doing an in-depth Bible study.
So there's so much flexibilitythere and I really really like
that.
Ellen Krause (17:11):
Yeah, well, as we wrap this part up, I just want
to ask you what bit ofencouragement would you give
someone who's listening to this,who's, you know, maybe afraid
to even start or feels like theydon't have time to do Bible
study?
(17:31):
What would you encourage themwith today?
Ashley Armijo (17:39):
I would say, if you're to this point of the
podcast and you're feeling a bitoverwhelmed, yes, there's a lot
, and I think that's a normalfeeling to have, Like someone in
our Bible study community, evenshared honestly.
Hey, I'm overwhelmed by all ofthis and I told her.
I said you know what?
Thank you so much for sharingthat, because I can guarantee
(18:02):
you you are not the only onefeeling that, and I think a lot
of other women are like oh okay,good, I'm not the only one
feeling overwhelmed by all this.
You know, but I would say to thewoman feeling overwhelmed or
like it feels daunting, to juststart very simple, right?
(18:23):
So for E, when you enter intothe story, simply do that.
Just say you know what.
I'm going to read this passageand I'm going to put myself in
the passage and I'm going toread it slowly today.
Okay, great, I did that.
Okay, now I'm going to go to Aand all I'm going to do is read
through it and write a smalllittle two-sentence summary.
Done, okay, now I'm going to goto S and I'm going to seek God
(18:47):
and his character.
All I'm going to do is grab mypurple highlighter and highlight
whenever God shows up, right,and then why I'm going to close
my time in prayer.
I'm going to close my time inprayer, so it can be that simple
, and so I think that you shouldjust take off any pressure of
(19:07):
perfection or any pressure of Ihave to do it a perfect, certain
way or I have to completeeverything on the checklist.
When we get into that type ofmode of thinking, then we're
missing the point of Bible study.
So just come back to the heart.
Okay, what is the heart ofBible study and why am I doing
this?
If it's to know Jesus more anddeeper and to love him more than
(19:28):
you're right on track.
So yeah, I mean just ask theLord.
Lord, give me a pure heart andhelp me the Lord.
Ellen Krause (19:42):
Lord, give me a pure heart and help me, teach me
, grow me.
I love that you pointed thatout, because one of my friends,
who I just love Rachel, you know, in a busy mothering season in
her life, I think was so wiseand being realistic during the
weekdays because she also is ateacher.
Like she does do what youtalked about, just very easy and
(20:05):
things that she can get done ina limited amount of time.
But then she also builds intoher schedule maybe an hour on
Saturday mornings that she'sgoing to say OK, I'm going to
take one hour of my week and I'mreally going to devote it more
to digging deeper.
(20:25):
And so I would just say there'sdifferent seasons of life
everyone's going through.
Sometimes you have more time,less time Don't beat yourself up
about that, but you can beintentional about finding a
little bit of time here andthere to do that.
So thank you so much, ashley,for helping us understand why we
(20:47):
need to jump in, how we canjump in, and we just hope and
pray that for those of you thatare listening, if you are
interested at all in learninghow to study the Bible for
yourselves, please get a copy ofour book, the Easy Bible Study
Method, a four-step process thatwill literally hold you by the
(21:11):
hand, walk you step by stepthrough a process to make it
easy to study and read yourBible.
So thank you so much forjoining us on our podcast today.
We love you all.
Have a blessed day, thank you.
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