All the Bible is God’s Word, and is beneficial, but different parts have different purposes. Some parts are more suitable for study than devotional reading and we can get discouraged if we make this mistake. Here is a way of deciding where to read.
Most of Mark’s Gospel is very easy to understand, but here are a couple of passages that give people problems: Jesus' instructions about praying in faith seem confusing, and his predictions about the end of the age are hard to make sense of.
The center of Mark holds the core of Jesus' teachings, but it is not what anyone was expecting. Even today there are many who think they are followers of Jesus but don’t understand this idea. First and foremost the challenge is to us, to follow Jesus in this surprising way.
Does God deliberately harden people’s hearts to stop them repenting? Why did Jesus frequently accuse the disciples of unbelief? These are some of the questions that come up as we read through Mark, and lead to some powerful opportunities of hearing Jesus speak to us.
Begin with prayer that God will bless his Word through the Spirit.
Read through the day’s passage prayerfully, asking God to help you understand as you read.
You should always follow a plan of reading that takes you right through a book, starting each day where you left off the previous day.
Never plan to read too much, or there will not be time for the meditation. Ten to fifteen verses is usually ideal, depending on the kind of book. In the Epistles it may be less because there is so much content; but in narratives such as in the Old Testament it may be more.
