“And be not conformed to this world: but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God.” (Romans 12:2, KJV)

As Christians we are called to renew our minds. The mind isn’t talked about a lot in Christian circles, we talk about our hearts and having love and empathy, or we talk about our spirit and our spiritual growth, or our soul and its morality. But our minds are rarely touched on. If you look at the Greek translation for the Holy Spirit, it translates to ‘a spirit of God’ and ‘a mental disposition’- the Holy Spirit aka- the mind of God.

Therefore, the renewing of our minds is extremely important, as that reflects the mind of God and His purpose for it. The point of this post, however, isn’t to go into another Holy Spirit rant, however, but I want to recommend some books and practices I’ve been doing lately to ‘renew my mind’. Hope y’all enjoy!

First, my Bible. I got a journaling Bible with HUGE margins for writing notes, and I have been using it for a new Bible studying method. Kudos to my mom for this method. She taught me to take a few verses at a time, slowly working through a book of the Bible. As she goes through and highlights which words she wanted to learn more about- and then she went to the Greek. She has whole notebook pages devoted to one verse and the Greek meaning she pulls from it. This method allowed me to go deeper into the text, challenging me to put together definitions into the coherent meaning God is trying to give you.  Which speaking of Greek…

My second recommendation, the Blue Letter Bible app is perfect for looking up Greek words. You can use a Greek concordance, but this app is so much easier. You go straight to the verse and click on it, leading you to a concordance. Highly, highly recommended. It also has spaces to take notes, leave bookmarks, highlight verses, and it has attached sermons to go along with each passage. I’ve found sermons and outside commentary extremely helpful, especially books.

So thirdly, books to supplement my Bible study is always good. My current read is Gods At War by Kyle Idleman, a book gifted from my mentor. It is all about the idols in our life, and what forms they can take on. The writing is smooth, and his points hit deep. (Other books I would recommend are Joy Marie Clarkson’s books, and N. D. Wilson’s books.)

And lastly, journals. I use four specifically: One for prayer journaling, prayer requests, prayers answered, praises, benedictions, etc. One for my Bible Study, writing down my Greek studies and thoughts on passages. Another for Bible questions, tracking all the big questions and debates I’ve had that require more than a simple Bible study, and call for a full on investigation including commentaries and talks with mentors. And finally, one for spiritual growth journaling. That journal contains revelations I’ve had, thoughts on life and the Bible, my life at church, and journaling about spiritual trials I’ve gone through. It is a quite private journal, but I find writing to be a perfect outlet.

So if you need a new Bible study method, or a new book, I hope this short list helped you. It has helped me! Comment below ways you go about renewing your mind.

❤ Grace