I just stumbled on a new practice that I didn’t believe was actually happening until I researched it. It seems that today women have taken to the notion that it’s OK to color in their Bibles, even drawing or sometimes painting complete pictures right over the words! While I’ve known for several years that women have begun journaling using coloring books, this totally blew my mind!

The first point I want to make about it seems like a no brainer: If you color or paint over top of the words in your Bible, it’s quite possible you are going to have a hard time reading it. Even if the pictures you’ve drawn are to the side, isn’t this going to be a distraction? The Bible is meant for us to read, study, and understand! If you color over the words and you can’t read them, then how are you going to study and understand it? The Holy Spirit works in you, convicting you of sin, transforming you and applying Scripture to you as you read and hear the Word. So, let’s make sure we can do that!

The second point I want to make is that if you think studying your Bible involves one or two verses that you think about and mediate on and come up with your own meaning for, even if you’re doing it while you’re coloring all over your Bible, then you don’t know how to study your Bible! The Bible was written by authors who had specific reasons for text. Therefore, there can only be one possible meaning for the original text, and from there, we look at the text in light of the historical context, and the grammatical structure. The point is, you don’t meditate on it waiting for God to whisper some new revelation in your ear “just for you” that is divorced from the original meaning. There may be something you’ve never seen or noticed in the text before that shines more light on it, but not a new meaning. The precise application may be different, but not the meaning of the text. And nowhere are we told that coloring helps us understand what the text means.

In addition to that, you need to read chunks of the Bible at a time, at least a whole section, preferably a whole chapter, and even better a whole book, eventually reading the whole Bible over and over. One or two verses is not going to give you the understanding that you need in any way, shape, or form! If “I don’t have time for that!” is what popped into your head when you read that, yet your Bible has pretty pictures drawn all over it, then maybe you should stop wasting time coloring and drawing!

If you color in a journaling book, meditating on some scripture in addition to solid reading and study as I’ve mentioned above, then this article isn’t meant for you. But if making pictures over the words of your Bible is what you’re considering your ‘daily devotions’ then you’re kidding yourself! Let’s be honest, ladies, this coloring thing is about YOU. This is not about God, this is not about studying His word and getting to know Him better, this is not about meditating on His word. This is about spending time doing something you enjoy and watching your own creativeness make a pretty picture all the while doing it with your Bible open so it seems like a “spiritual” endeavor! If this is what Bible study “teachers” or Christian bookstores have led you to believe is truly Bible study and devotion time, you’ve been fed a lie. This is not Bible study.