Chapter Ten:
One of the most accurate and primary ways God speaks to
mankind is through the Bible. One cannot
ever say "God doesn't speak to me!", because God does...through the
Scriptures. The Bible is God speaking to
us. There are several ways you can study
your Bible and we will look at what some of those different ways are.
Let's look at three ways that you can get the Word of God
into your life:
First: Hearing
(Luke 11:28 says, "He replied, 'Blessed rather are those who hear the word
of God and obey it'".)
Second:
Reading (Deuteronomy 17: 18-20 says, "When he takes the throne of
his kingdom, he is to write for himself on a scroll a copy of this law, taken
from that of the priests, who are Levites.
It is to be with him, and he is to read it all the days of his life so
that he may learn to revere the Lord his God and follow carefully all the words
of this law and these decrees and not consider himself better than his brothers
and turn from the law to the right or to the left. Then he and his descendants will reign a long
time over his kingdom in Israel".)
Third: Studying
(Acts 17:11 says, " Now the Bereans were of more noble character than the
Thessalonians, for they received the message with great eagerness and examined
the Scriptures every day to see if what Paul said was true." Second Timothy 2:15 says, "Do your best
to present yourself to God as one approved, a workman who does not need to be
ashamed and who correctly handles the word of truth.")
It's not only important that you become a person of prayer,
but also an avid studier of the Bible.
Remember that the Bible is arranged by subject, not
chronologically. If you do read it
chronologically you may understand it better.
I believe you can go on the internet and find how the Bible can be read
chronologically if that's how you'd like to read it. Remember the most important point as you read
and study your Bible...all Scripture was inspired by God to equip us for
living our lives and becoming more like Christ.
People choose different ways to study their Bible. Here are examples of three ways:
A) Studying one chapter of a book at a time. First, read the whole book through one time
to get an overview and then focus on that particular chapter. As you do:
1. Pick out key words
and phrases of the chapter
2. List principle
people who are in the chapter
3. Write a summary of
the chapter, capturing it's central lesson
4. List principle
subjects in the chapter
5. Look for key
verses of the chapter
6. Make a list of
questions you may have that come to mind as you read the chapter
7. Look specifically
for what the chapter says about God and Christ
8. Ask the Lord how
He wants this chapter applied to your life
B) Topical study is where you decide on a
specific topic you'd like to study in the Bible.
1. Decide upon your
topic of interest (ie, sin, marriage, prayer)
2. Gather your Bible
and other references you may want to use (ie, some people use a "Strong's
Concordance", which is a Biblical reference book that provides an index to
the Bible. It is not going to give you
content or commentary about the Bible.
It allows you to find words where they appear in the Bible. It can help you re-find a phrase or passage that you're having
a difficult time finding. It also lets
you directly compare how the same word may be used elsewhere in the Bible. It offers a more accurate understanding of
text. If you look at one, you will
notice that it has the 8,674 Hebrew root words used in the Old Testament, and
the 5,624 Greek root words used in the New Testament. Some people enjoy looking into the meaning of
a particular word in Scripture as it can give better understanding of what the
word really meant in the original language.)
Other references you can use can be commentary's written by
other authors, such as Matthew Henry's "Concise Commentary on the Whole
Bible". Some people enjoy using the
"Vine's Complete Expository Dictionary of Old and New Testament
Words" as it helps you study the meaning of over 6,000 biblical words in
the original languages, without have to learn Greek or Hebrew.
3. Study every
reference and write out what it has to say about the subject you're studying
4. Write out any
questions you may have
5. Go back through
and look over your notes and write out your conclusions
6. Ask the Lord how He
wants you to apply this to your life
C) The life of a
person. This can be very meaningful to
you as you begin to understand how the individual lived, what they had to deal
with, how the Lord worked in their life and how they were changed because of
it.
1. Decide on what
person you want to study (ie, Christ, David, Moses, or maybe one of the
disciples of Christ)
2. Do the same steps
as you would do if you were doing a topical study, but this time instead of
studying a topic, you're studying the life of a particular person.
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