Bible Study Tool 2: Make Your Own Paragraph Titles

“I wait for the Lord, my soul waits, and in his word I hope.“ Psalm 130:5

In a fast-paced world, we want to be time efficient, do things quickly and in the easiest possible way. If we can get someone else to do the work, why not delegate or pay someone to do it?

However, there are some areas where delegating and taking the quick and easy road will not be beneficial for us. Bible Study is one of them. When it comes to spending time with God and with His Word, you will not find any scripture about being time efficient. Quite the opposite! It’s all about waiting on Him and meditating on His Word.

So if you are trying to find tools that make your Bible study more time efficient and quicker, you have come to the wrong place. In fact, the tools that you get here are about slowing down. It’s not about getting through the Bible in a year the fastest way possible but how to get the most out of it -through your personal study.

If you haven’t changed your mind and still want to proceed…this is the next Bible Study tool to study your Bible: MAKE YOUR OWN PARAGRAPH TITLES

When the books of the Bible were originally written, they did not contain chapter or verse references or titles. They are not inspired by God! As great as chapters and verses are for us to find things (I mean, it is much easier to find “1 Corinthians 13:4” than it is to find “Love is patient and kind…”), when it comes to titles, it is actually helpful to not rely on what others have created but make your own. It’s an amazing way to actually see what is going on in each part of the text. You are forced to think about the text!

This is what you do:

1. Identify the paragraph. Usually the beginning of a new paragraph comes with a bigger verse number or with an indention of the sentence. There are some tricky parts where the paragraph ends in a middle of a verse but that’s rather the exception (one example is below).
2. Make a title that contains the main idea of the paragraph. That can sometimes be difficult but the title should help you remember what the text is about.
3. Use 4 words or less to make the title. You can use commas, hyphens etc but try to stick to the 4 or less rule.
4. Only use words from the particular paragraph. So instead of “salutation”, use “Paul to …”
5. And to make it even more difficult, use words in the order as they appear in the paragraph, i.e. in sequence!

Don’t get discouraged if it feels difficult at the start. It’s get so much easier after practice! And if it gets too hard, drop the last rule! This tool is supposed to serve YOU!

Got it? Well, then why not get started!

What kind of paragraph titles would you put for any of the following 4 paragraphs from Philemon…any suggestions? There are different possible answers! Would love to see what you have come up with (comment below)!

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Paragraph 1: 1 Paul, a prisoner for Christ Jesus, and Timothy our brother,

Paragraph 2: 1b To Philemon our beloved fellow worker 2 and Apphia our sister and Archippus our fellow soldier, and the church in your house:

Paragraph 3: 3 Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.

Paragraph 4: 4 I thank my God always when I remember you in my prayers, because I hear of your love and of the faith that you have towards the Lord Jesus and for all the saints, and I pray that the sharing of your faith may become effective for the full knowledge of every good thing that is in us for the sake of Christ. For I have derived much joy and comfort from your love, my brother, because the hears of the saints have been refreshed through you.