Improve Your Study Habits - PAY ATTENTION TO DETAIL

It is good to read the Bible with a healthy dose of curiosity. Suppose, for example,  that you are reading the 12th chapter of Zechariah's prophecy, which foretells the death of the Messiah. (Zechariah 12:10) When you come to verse 12, you read that "the family of Nathan's house"  would grieve bitterly at the Messiah's death.  Instead of quickly passing  over that detail, you pause and ask yourself:  'What is the connection between the house of Nathan and the Messiah?  Is there any way to get more information? You do a little "detective" work.  A marginal reference leads you to 2 Samuel 5:13, 14, where you learn that Nathan was one of King David's sons.  A second marginal reference, Luke 3:23, 31, reveals that Jesus was a direct descendant of Nathan through Mary.  (See "Joseph son of Heli," study note on  Luke 3:23.)  Suddenly you are intrigued!  You knew that Jesus was foretold to be a descendant of David. (Matthew 22:42)  But David had more  than 20 sons. Is it not amazing that Zechariah pinpoints the household of Nathan in particular as having a reason to mourn the death of Jesus?

Consider another example.  in the first chapter of Luke, we read that the angel Gabriel visited Mary and announced regarding the son she was to bear: "This one will be great and will be called Son of the Most High, and Jehovah God will give him the throne  of David his father, and he will  rule as King over the house of Jacob forever." (Luke 1:32, 33)  We might be inclined  to focus on the first part of Gabriel's message, namely, that Jesus would be called "Son of the Most High." But Gabriel also prophesied that Jesus would rule as "King."  So we ask ourselves what those words of Gabriel might have meant to Mary.  Did she take  Gabriel's words to mean that Jesus would replace King Herod-or one of his successors as the ruler of Israel? If Jesus did become king, Mary would be the queen mother, and her family would live in the royal palace. Yet, there is no record that Mary even raised such a possibility with Gabriel; nor did we ever read that Mary asked for a position of favor in the Kingdom, as two of Jesus' disciples did. (Matthew 20:20-23) This detail reinforces  our picture of Mary as an extremely humble woman.

Let us remember that our ultimate goal in studying God's Word and our Christian publications is to draw closer to Jehovah. We also want to see more clearly "what sort of person" We are and what changes we need to make in  order to please God.  (Read James 1:22-25; 4:8)  At the beginning of each study period, then,  we should ask Jehovah for his spirit.  We should beg him to help us to benefit fully from the material and to see ourselves as he sees us.

May all of us be like the man of God described  by the psalmist: "His delight is in the law of Jehovah, and he reads His law in an undertone day and night. . .. Everything he does will succeed." - PSALM 1:2, 3. 

Next time: HELP FOR THE FAMILY/MARRIAGE - When a Friendship Gets Too Close

From the jw.org publications