30 Days to Understanding the Bible By Max Anders

I am so excited to bring you a review on the book 30 Days to Understanding the Bible by Max Anders. Where you can unlock the Scriptures in 15 minutes a day.

Can I just say WOW! It has been one of my favorite books in a long time. I have to admit, I am a knowledge junkie. I don’t read a book unless it appears to be worth my time and by “worth my time”, I mean, I must gain some knowledge from it. If not, it goes to the stack on the nightstand. That stack is getting bigger all the time.

This book goes hand in hand with my other passion for studying God’s Word.

Full disclosure – I was given a copy of this book in exchange for my honest review. I only give my honest review because I think you’re worth it.

Memorization Strategies

When I was in college, I gave a speech on the brain and how to master memorization. Knowing that the brain can store up to seven bits of information at once, I gave tips and tricks to using different types of memorization processes and how to use them best.

For example, all throughout my speech, I repeated the line, “All dogs pee on trees.” Don’t ask me why. Obviously, it worked, I remember it to this day 20 years later.

Repetition is a great way to gain mastery of facts.

You can also use things like chunking. Where you learn chunks of information to make up a whole piece of information.

Another option may be using mnemonic devices. An example of that is EGBDF. Every Good Boy Does Fine. Some of you may have learned that as part of the musical scale. Something I learned in 1st grade and still remember.

Using devices to gain knowledge, and not for short term but to apply it to longer-term memory helps when it is in bits of 7 or less. Like phone numbers. These are often easy to remember because they are 7 digits long unless you chunk some of the numbers together like saying “56” instead of “5” “6” or learning chunks like the area code or first three digits separately.

Finally, using images or icons to represent a piece of information like keywords or phrases.

There are other methods, but since this author focused primarily on these, we will stop there and learn why this book is so valuable.

15 minutes a day?

This is a total sidenote and my biased opinion. The tagline of this book is Unlock the Scriptures in 15 minutes a day. I can not make that claim or verify that I have gained any significant treasures in reading this text at that rate. I actually, for the sake of this review, read through parts of the book quite quickly and felt a total loss.

Full disclosure, I am not a speed reader. I read for detail and not to just finish a book. I spent one hour on memorizing 12 pages. But my heart was opened to the possibility of grasping Scriptures in a whole new way. I was able to memorize overarching themes of Scriptures that I have known for years but couldn’t quite put them together so seamlessly.

If you truly want to get the most out of this book, I would recommend you take the time you need on it. Don’t limit yourself to 15 minutes. Learning the Bible and memorizing the big picture is worth every minute of your time.

While studying the Scripture in Bible Studies with many people over the years, the number one thing I have heard people say is, “I just can’t remember how that goes.”

This book will change all that!

Do you think you can have a better understanding of the Bible in just 15 minutes a day? Let Author Max Anders break it down for you. Share on X

Breakdown of 30 Days to Understanding the Bible.

30 Days to Understanding the Bible is broken down into 7 sections.

• The Story of the Old Testament
• The Story of the New Testament
• Ten Great Doctrines of the Bible
• How to Master the Bible so Well that the Bible Masters You.
• NanoSummary of the Bible
• Teaching Plan
• Bonus Chapters

A couple of the sections are self-explanatory. So, I will be brief. Teaching Plan. If you would like to use this for teaching a class or group, the details on how to best prepare are all laid out. You will feel confident with the guidance of these plans.

NanoSummary of the Bible. This is a 3000 word expose or super fly-by of the Bible covering the story in a nutshell or summarizing all that you have learned up to this point.

The bonus chapters are also brief studies of different topics from the Bible. They include such topics as the Parables of Jesus, Miracles in the Bible, Messianic Prophecies, Passover and the Last Supper, and The Resurrection of Jesus.

There is also a section of great encouragement and instruction on How to master the Bible so well that the Bible masters you.  In this section, you will be encouraged to go beyond reading the Bible. You will be encouraged to study the Bible, memorize the Bible, and meditate on the Bible. All things we are instructed to do in God’s Word but so often overlook. Max Anders draws out the benefits of doing this as Bible mastery so the Bible can master you.

Let the Memorization Unfold

In this last section, I am going to explain the benefits of taking your time with the first few sections, which happen to be the first 30 chapters of the book.

Before you begin the study of the Old Testament, you will walk through memorizing basic geographical locations of the Bible. It is amazing what a frame of reference you have for the stories when you are able to memorize just a few locations and landmarks. My frame of reference is completely changed now that I know these few basic things.

Now I can base my new knowledge on the new frame of references I memorized in the first section. I can better put the pieces of the Bible together.

2 weeks later and I can still name them all. By the way, there are 7 cities and 8 landmarks, but I combined two rivers so I could remember them all. This was totally accidental but just so happened to work.

The Old Testament is broken down into 9 sections. These are the overarching major themes of the Old Testament. From Creation to Kings to the Silence God has between His rebellious children in the end of Malachi.

As the story unfolds, you learn and memorize the era, the major figure of that era, the location, and the summary of the storyline.

For example. The era of creation is the first. The major figure is Adam and the location is Eden. After memorizing all 9 eras, figures, and locations, You begin to dissect the story a bit more leaning and memorizing more details about it and putting it all into a summary statement.

By the end of the 14 chapters, you have repeated all the information so many times, you could probably write the Bible story timeline in your sleep.

Have trouble memorizing?

For those that have trouble remembering if Abraham came before David and if the judges came before the exile or David, or was it the prophets?

If you have to continuously search your memory bank then this book is for you. If you think you can’t memorize the Bible, after reading this, you will prove yourself very wrong.

Now with my geographical frames of reference, I am ready to get into the New Testament and more of the same goodness.

The story continues to unfold with more geographical information, building on what we already learned and digging in deeper to the church, the epistles, and the gospel era.

Finally, we are taken on a journey through doctrines of the Bible. Each doctrine, such as the doctrine of angels and the doctrine of salvation and future things are dug into a bit deeper as you memorize the key points and scriptures that discuss such topics.

My Recommendation and Final Thoughts on 30 Days to Understanding the Bible

Overall, I would highly recommend this book to just about anyone. I have been studying the Bible for a really long time and I have gotten so much from this book. One of the biggest things I have is a proper reference of time, the people and locations of that time to pack in the knowledge that I already have.

Like I said, in studying with people over the years, the thing I hear the most is, “I just can’t remember that stuff.” That doesn’t have to be true.

We can learn and memorize something as gigantic as the Bible. With a little practice, we gain a fantastic frame of reference. Now we can put all of our detailed knowledge into this frame once we get a grasp of this big picture.

If you love to study the Bible or if you feel overwhelmed by the immense information in the Bible, then this book is for you!

Want to Find out More about 30 Days to Understanding the Bible?

Giveaway!

I have one copy of 30 Days to Understanding the Bible to giveaway to one reader. You must live in the United States, be 18 years or older and qualify under the additional disclosure by FLYBY promotions. Winner will be contacted January 28. 

For a chance to win, comment below. Make sure to enter your email when commenting or leave a way for me to contact you if we are not already connected on Social Media.

Do you have any memorization techniques you use to further memorize the Bible?

What is something that strikes you about this book that is different than most books you have studied or the methods you have used so far?

Do you feel like have a frame of reference for Bible stories? Do you feel like you’ll never have that in your grasp?

How likely are you to use a tool, such as 30 Days to Understanding the Bible, to begin the process of understanding God Word in a whole new way?

 

Want to join us for this week’s Sitting Among Friends Blog Party. You can hop over to last week’s post! 

 

“Disclosure (in accordance with the FTC’s 16 CFR, Part 255:  “Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising”):  Many thanks to Propeller Consulting, LLC for providing this prize for the giveaway.  Choice of winners and opinions are 100% my own and NOT influenced by monetary compensation.  I did receive a sample of the product in exchange for this review and post. Only one entrant per mailing address, per giveaway.  If you have won a prize from our sponsor Propeller /FlyBy Promotions in the last 30 days on the same blog, you are not eligible to win.  Or if you have won the same prize on another blog, you are not eligible to win it again.  Winner is subject to eligibility verification.”

 

 

 

 

 

30 Days to Understanding the Bible