Study the Bible for Growth

The goal of this class is to be more than just a class on personal Bible study.

It is my prayer that the class will help individuals study the Bible better personally AND learn how to study it better with others.

Don't let the "with others" part scare you.  The class will help you read and study the Bible with your friends, coworkers, and family.  

While the focus will not be on teaching in a class setting, the class could help in fine-tuning your preparation skills.

As it relates to the Bible, an important phrase is "inspired, inerrant, and the final authority". The extended phrase from the Trinity Baptist Church's doctrinal statement is "We believe in the scriptures of the Old and New Testament as verbally inspired of God, and inerrant in the original writings; and that they are of supreme and final authority in faith and life."  Because of these truths, we need to remember that the Bible is a unique book that must be studied in a unique way.  It must be studied humbly with the realization that our Creator and Redeemer gave us this book so that we could know Him more and more and so that we know how to live in response to who He is. 

Another important phrase we talked about in class is related to the Bible study method.  We must use a "historical-grammatical method" of Bible study.  Here is a simple explanation of this phrase.  

The original writings of scripture were written at a specific time in history to specific people.  We must always remember this.  

The Bible was also written in a specific way.  The writers used specific genres (historical/narrative, prophecy, wisdom/poetry, Gospel, Epistles, and apocalyptic), forms of figurative language (hyperbole, metaphor, simile, and others), and other grammatical tools.  

Because of this, Bible study MUST include a heavy dose of observation.  Here are four different ways to remember how to do Bible:

• OIA - Observation, Interpretation, Application
• COMA - Context, Observation, Meaning, Application
• SOAP - Scripture, Observation, Application, Prayer
• Seeing, Understanding, Bridging, Responding

Each of these methods includes observation at the beginning of the process.

During this combined Sunday class, the final part of the time focused on how to study Proverbs.  A couple of specific things to 

• Aphorisms and terseness
• Parallelism
• Imagery such as similes and metaphors
• Sections 1-9 and 10-31.

Next week's post will include the outline for the How to Study the Bible class
Here are the lessons for the Proverbs class. 

• The Choice:  Proverbs 9
• The Simple:  Proverbs 7
• Avoiding the Fool
• Finding Wisdom
• Bad Words
• Good Words
• How to Use Proverbs to Help Others
• The Sluggard
• Wealth and Poverty
• Giving
• Planning the Future

More class resources from tomorrow's class will be posted tomorrow afternoon.

Here are som Bible Study Resources:

One to One Bible Reading resource from Matthias Media (pdf)

Bible Reading with Your Kids from Matthias (book and video)

8 Blessings of Studying Your Bible by Paul Tripp (website)

Powerful Reasons You Need to Study the Bible (website) 

Bible Study Class PPT (click on the image for all the slides)

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