[Darris McNeely] I like to live by a saying that goes like this, "Take notes on the world, there will be a test." As I go through my life, I take notes, I keep a journal. I have for a number of years in my young life and in my adult life. This is a current notebook, just a simple spiral notebook that I use and I take notes daily about what's going on, my thoughts. And I think that it's a good principle for life, but also for Bible study. We're going through a series here on BT Dailies about having successful Bible study. And the next one that we want to talk about is the ability to take notes on your Bible study as you go through.

Get in the habit of using a notebook like this or some other form of paper that you might take and write notes about what you study. Write the scripture out if you want to. Write a short thought commentary, how it is affecting your life, what it means to you, in either the margins of your Bible if you wish, or in a separate notebook.

But taking notes is going to help you to understand and to retain a lot of the information, the experience that you're having as you're having Bible study. I found this to be especially helpful, certainly, as a speaker and teacher of the Bible that I take my notes and use them to process ideas and thoughts that are going through. Sometimes, people take their Bibles and will write into the margins, they will seek and use different colors of my topics to help them understand and how to find various passages. But the principle of taking notes is a tested principle that even comes from the scriptures.

In Deuteronomy 17:18, God says to those who would have a king over them that Israel, "And the day would come they would have a king and he sits on his throne," he says, "Have him write to himself a copy of this book of the law from the one that was before the priests and the Levites, so that he would have his own personal copy, so he would know the word of God and he would also rule and reign justly as a result of that." But it says, "All the days of his life, by doing so, he will learn to fear God and he will be careful to observe the words of this law and the statutes."

I think this principle, out of Deuteronomy, of a king to take notes, his own notes on the Bible, whether writing it out and whatever else he may have written into it is an effective principle for us to learn and helping us to gain and to obtain a better, more effective study of the Bible and processing it. And literally, writing it into our Bible, into our notes, and thereby letting God write upon our hearts. It can be an effective tool for you.

That's BT Daily. Join us next time.