My daughter just started her second year of college. She explained to me that part of her coursework would be four book reports. These book reports are different than what I remember from my school days.  I recall reading the book, summarizing it and giving my views on the book.

For my daughter’s class, there is an interesting twist to fulfill the assignment. Since the reading requirements for this class are self-help type books, my daughter and her classmates were asked to find twenty truths from each book. This idea fascinates me. What if we read all books this way? What if we read the Bible this way?

I know the Bible is all truth, and anything you would write down would be true but is that our focus when we read scripture? More importantly what if we put this into practice passage by passage? What if we wrote down the truths we glean from the passage so we can apply them to our lives? After all, that’s why the Bible was written.  It wasn’t written just so we would have something nice to read. It was written as a guide for us to walk out day by day.

Let’s practice this new way of studying with one verse.  Colossians 4:6 says “Let your conversation be always full of grace, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how to answer everyone.” This verse is referring to how we should speak to those outside the faith or non-believers.

Truths

1. Our conversation should always be full of grace.
2. Grace is getting something we don’t deserve.
3. Our conversation should be seasoned with salt.
4. Salt cleanses and preserves.
5. Living in grace will help us know how to answer non-believers who have question about our faith.

Application. If we speak to others with grace, sometimes, being gracious when they don’t deserve it and our conversation is cleansing and preserves their dignity we will have the wisdom to answer them rightly.

Isn’t this a wonderful truth for the argumentative world we are in right now?  This is only one verse. Imagine the wonderful truths that we will uncover as we continue to mine the fields of God’s word.

“The unfolding of your words gives light; it gives understanding to the simple.” (Psalm 119:130) (NIV)