BITEs for Lent by Amanda Dablemont

The season of COVID has turned me into a podcast listener.  If you haven’t gotten into podcasts, I encourage you to start.  I have discovered a whole new way of interacting with God’s Word throughout my day.  When I exercise, while I make dinner, and of course, in the car.  

For the last year and a half, I have been listening to a podcast called “More Than A Song” by Michelle Nezat.  She uses a popular Christian radio song to inspire her into God’s Word and then she uses B.I.T.E.s (Bible Interaction Tool Exercises) to help listeners interact with the scripture.  In each episode she will use a different B.I.T.E. to help readers remember, understand, reflect and react to what they’re reading.  In different settings, I have found each of these tools below helpful in my personal time in God’s Word, so I thought I would share them with you!

Now, we have always mentioned the S.O.A.P. method around Alive In Christ.  Read the Scripture, make an Observation, see the Application, and then Pray for God to use that and reveal Himself to you.  It is a great acronym of what to do when spending time in God’s Word.  B.I.T.E.s are a little more specific and also provide different ways for you to observe things as you read.

My hope is that as we follow Jesus in 2021 by daily reading the books of Luke, Acts and Revelation, these tools will become powerful ways God speaks directly to YOU. So here we go with just five basic B.I.T.E.s for Lent!

4) Make a list.  Who doesn’t love lists??!?  And you can always find something to make a list about in God’s word. When you read the Psalms, it is easy to make a list of the characteristics of God.  Genesis 1 is a good example of an easy list of days of creation. You might even find some patterns!!  Make a list of characteristics about the person in the story.  Make a list of the numbers used in the story.  Some stories have a lot of numbers!  And sometimes you’ll be able to compare the lists.  For example if you make a list of the Woes in Isaiah 40 and then in Matthew 23, it would be great to compare and contrast Jesus’s Woe’s to the Prophet Isaiah’s Woes (there is a connection by the way!)

5) Draw a picture.  Last month the children were trying to memorize Ephesians 3:18.  So as we were going through this passage, I decided we would try and draw all of things in the scripture to help us remember.  Here is what we came up with: And another time our focus was on Adam, so we drew a picture to help us remember all that the Bible revealed about Him.

Hebrews 4:12 tells us that the Word of God is “living and active.”  That means that every time we read it or listen to it, that it has something for us!  And Psalm 1 tells us that the one who meditates on it day and night is a “tree planted by streamS of water that yields its fruit in its season.”  I don’t know about you, but I want to bear fruit!!!  So I pray that you will try these or other tools as you let God’s Word  speak to and nourish you!

If you have used any of these tools, leave a comment and let us know how you interact with God’s Word and what has worked for you!  

You can check out Michelle Nezat's podcast here.