Step 5: Become a Christian Author

This is meditating on paper!

I also call this the “pull it apart and put it back together” method. We touched on this method a little in Step 4, but I want to adapt this to paper. You do learn things a lot quicker if you write them down, so this is what I call meditating on paper.

Start of with a piece of paper (or if you are like me, a blank computer screen), have your concordance and dictionary handy, and, of course, a pen. Next, chose a Scripture that you want to study and get revelation. As you will see later, I have done this with a passage from Mark 5.

Once you have your passage, write the whole passage out on your piece of paper. If you have several different Bible versions, you can write them opposite. Writing the passage out will familiarise yourself with the Scripture and the context that it is in. Read it through several times until you become extremely familiar with it. You will find revelations are starting to already come!

Meditate on the passage as a whole a little bit.

Once you have become familiar with the passage, take the first verse of that passage and write it at the top of a clean piece of paper.

Underneath that verse, take each word and phrase and then write it out. Next to that begin to write commentary as it comes to you, even if it doesn’t make sense. What you are doing is becoming a Christian author – you are writing your own commentary on the passage as you read them.

I am not saying that anyone will read your work (that is up to you). The thoughts and revelations that come to you are extremely private and precious between you and God. However, although no one may actually see them, write the commentary as if someone may read it. This may not initially make sense, but I have found that the easiest way I learn something is to learn it in such a way that I can teach it to someone else.

When you learn something, your mind will understand what is going on, and agree. It will say something like, “Great, understand that”. This is probably because it does. However, when you try to understand something to teach it, your mind will then say, “Great, understand that, but what does it mean in real terms? How do I explain what I have just understood? Why is this principle true?” etc. The mind, and also your spirit, will begin to probe a lot deeper.

When you start to probe deeper, you may ask all sorts of questions. Write your questions down – you’ll eventually get the answered – but write them down. Questions can make great sub-headings in your book!

To recap, write the passage, then at the top of another piece of paper – write the first verse out. Meditate on it, take every word and phrase in that verse and write down any and all commentary that comes to you as you write, even if doesn’t make sense right then to you. Write the commentary in such a way that if someone read it, they could understand your train of thought and ideas (even if no one will ever read it).

Once you have exhausted that verse, move onto the next one. Don’t forget to add quotes that you know, other Scriptures and references that you think appropriate – this is why the concordance is good. You may latch onto a word that requires further exploration in the Bible, do it all under this verse.

It may seem strange at first, and on your first attempt you may have only a few lines for each verse – but that is OK. Stick with it! Soon you will have a whole book! In the next chapter of this book, I have written out what I have done with the Scripture from Mark chapter 5, and you will see how this worked for me, and you will see how this quickly became a “book” for me. This is why I say “become a Christian author”, even if you are the only one who will read your work!

Be warned though, there will be times when you can’t stop. Prepare for frustration because you can’t write or type fast enough. You may even stay up all night writing!  I hope you do! You’ll enjoy “pulling a verse apart then putting it back together again” in your conclusion.