How to Study the Bible

On my desktop computer I have a file titled Biblical Books. In that file is another file titled Amos, a biblical book I am currently studying. In my Amos file I have individual files for each chapter in the book of Amos, so Amos 1, 2, 3, 4, etc. I have additional files titled Background Stories of the Nations (that are mentioned in Amos 1 & 2). Another file is simply titled Exile, wherein I have placed a few documents I created while exploring the notion of Israel’s Assyrian exile. Another file is titled Key Words in Amos; another: Mourning in ...

Romans 10:17 So faith comes from what is heard, and what is heard comes through the word of Christ. In 1978 I finally chose to attend college. I was then 22 years old. I was a bit anxious, knowing that I had not been in an academic program in four years! But I had spent the last two of those four years studying the Bible for myself. For 2-3 hours a day I had used an exhaustive concordance, my Bible, and any other religious books I had, cross-referencing as much stuff as I could. I also made notes on 4x6 ...

In 1988 Margaret Becker wrote a song titled Pico Boulevard. In it she expressed her failure to find the balance between need and desire, and thus fell right into line, this line: “Let me be somebody someone else wants to be;”lost my joy and humility down on Pico Boulevard. This is a problem most of us have—we fail to find the balance between need and desire. More pointedly, we want to be somebody someone else wants to be! This was not only the gist of the Lucifer’s original sin: Isaiah 14:12-14 How you are fallen from heaven, O Day Star, son of ...

Several books on my bookshelves wrestle with the idea of “a hidden God.” My Amazon wish list contains a few as well. So here we will put the big question earlier than normal: Question How can we understand the character of God, who is both the single most important character in the Hebrew Bible and yet absent from the majority of it? As we read Scripture, we note that God often uses stand-ins for Himself. Why? Stand-Ins for God: Angels Humans Judges Kings Prophets Humans speak about God: God’s friends God’s foes Narrator Nature Animate Inanimate Absence Additional Questions How many of these stand-ins are created, sin-damaged, or sin-traumatized? The reliability of their witness for/about God is what ...

The Bible tells us that our world is infected with evil. Where did evil come from? Why did sin arise in the first place, and why has it continued to exist for so long? Matt. 13:24-27 Here is another story Jesus told: “The Kingdom of Heaven is like a farmer who planted good seed in his field. 25 But that night as the workers slept, his enemy came and planted weeds among the wheat, then slipped away. 26 When the crop began to grow and produce grain, the weeds also grew. 27 “The farmer’s workers went to him and said, ...

Memory Text: “In everything give thanks; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you” (1 Thessalonians 5:18, NKJV). INTRO:As we arrive at this final lesson in our Good Word study series on how Christ “unites” heaven and earth, we address one final important aspect of the unity Christ longs for among his followers. As believers learn to treasure and defend their love for God and their life with one another their unity grows. This final lesson is entitled, “Standing All in the Will of God.” Memory Text: “In everything give thanks; for this is the will ...

Memory Text: “Let your speech always be with grace, seasoned with salt, that you may know how you ought to answer each one” (Colossians 4:6, NKJV). INTRO: Last week’s Good Word lesson focused on our new life in Christ. This week we focus “living with others,” which seems to include many and different challenges from our life in Christ. While baptism alone does not perfect our characters, Paul describes how followers of Jesus and “clothe” themselves with the “new self” received in Christ. Colossians 3:1-17 clearly describes these changes which we are to “put away” and other with which we ...

Memory Verse: “Above all, clothe yourselves with love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony.” (Colossians 3:14, NRSVue). INTRO: Admittedly, there is much in the Christian life that defies explanation. How can a person really “die” and be “raised to life” when, to all appearances, he or she is the same person and has had no such physical life-and-death experience? How can a growing believer effectively explain to someone how a living person dies spiritually and why “spiritual death” is essential to receiving and living an “eternal life?” Q: What is the connection between “love” and “death” that Paul speaks so ...

Memory Verse: “So let no one judge you in food or in drink, or regarding a festival or a new moon or sabbaths, which are a shadow of things to come, but the substance is of Christ” (Colossians 2:16, 17, NKJV). INTRO: Let’s begin our Bible lesson discussion this week on the Good Word program about what “completeness” in Christ means. Often, Bible Sabbath-keepers are confronted by well-meaning Sunday keepers with the idea that seventh-day Sabbath worship of Jesus Christ is perpetuating Jewish ceremonial practices. Would you agree or disagree? How can Bible Sabbath keepers, like Adventists and Seventh-day Baptists, ...

Memory Verse: “For he hath made him to be sin for us, who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in him” (2 Corinthians 5:21). INTRO: There is an unsurpassable greatness the “gospel” of Jesus, which Paul describes as a “mystery.” Notice in chapter 1 of Colossians, beginning at verse 26 and concluding in verse 28. Let’s read this passage and see how it connects to our memory verse this week. (READ from Bible, Colossians 1:26-28). Paul talks to believers about “the mystery which has been hidden from ages and from generations.” Q: What is this ...