SOAP – What it means

Starting in January, we as a church, will be starting to read through the Bible in a year. We want this to be a life-giving experience, not one that only adds to your to-do list or to your guilt level. To help make this happen, I am going to encourage that we keep individual journals of what God says to us each time that we sit down to read. When you complete the reading plan and journal along with it, you will have over 300 gems – times when God has spoken, prayers you have prayed. What a gift that will be!

SOAP is an acronym for Scripture, Observation, Application, Prayer. Here’s how it works:

Scripture As you begin to look over the scheduled reading for that day, ask God to raise up one portion of text for you. This is a prayer that the Holy Spirit loves to answer! After reading the day’s assigned portion of the Bible, copy down in your journal that verse, or verses, or even just a portion of a verse that you feel God highlighting for you.

Observation When the Spirit impresses that one single thought, carefully observe what the verse says. Think about the original context of the passage – who was it first written to, what was the situation. Ponder it; meditate on it; marinate in it; let the verse soak into your heart. Write out what you observe. It may be only a paragraph, or even a few sentences. The important thing is to actually put pen to paper. This will increase your understanding and improve your observation skills.

Application After you’ve carefully observed what the text is saying, take some time to write out how you plan to act on what God has just revealed to you. The question is, “How will you be different today because of this passage that God is impressing on you?” Application is crucial to our growth as disciples; without it, we are only amassing trivia, facts, bits of knowledge. Remember Jesus’s words from Matthew 7: “Therefore everyone who hears these words of mine and puts them into practice is like a wise man who built his house on the rock…”

Prayer The last step in each day’s reading and journaling is recording a prayer. Finish your time in the word with a thoughtful prayer to God, asking him to help you apply what he has just been teaching you, and don’t forget to thank God for the power of his word!

If you would like a fuller explanation of the SOAP process please read The Divine Mentor, by Wayne Cordeiro. This book gives a great explanation of SOAP – as well as being a fantastic book on the importance of Scripture – our reading and internalizing of it.