If you’ve been reading ArrowUp for a while now, then you’ve most likely seen my posts on how to study the Bible. The first one, titled “How to Study the Bible - Part One - Individual Book Study“, gives you simple steps for studing individual books of the Bible. The second, “How to Study the Bible - Part Two - Topical Study“, is a thorough description of how to study the Bible topically.
Apart from the articles I’ve written on the subject, there are many, many other websites and resources that you can read and use to learn how to study the Bible on your own. Below, I’ve put together a list of …
As we grow in our Christian walks and delve deep into God’s Word, we are guaranteed to find problems. God’s Word is a perfectly unified body of Truth, but it doesn’t always seem like it to our eyes. There are some difficult issues that are not easily resolved.
I have the privilege of taking a course called Omnibus (published by Veritas Press) as part of my homeschooling curriculum. It is a conglomeration of literature, history, and theology. In it I have run into several perplexing issues in the Bible, such as the morality of revenge. It sometimes seems that God contradicts Himself in His Word, but that cannot be the case. So how do we, as finite human beings, understand the difficult issues? I have a list of 5 steps (we seem to like 5-point lists here, don’t we) that will hopefully serve as useful guidelines.
1. …
A while ago I wrote an article titled “How to Study the Bible - Part One - Individual Book Study”. It describes the steps that you should take if you want to study a single book of the Bible very thoroughly and get the most out of it as possible. It was met with some good feedback, and that encouraged me to continue on the Bible study topic and write this article - how to study the Bible topically.
Before we dive in, I want to say one thing. That is, there’s no “one right way” to study the Bible. Whatever works for you is best. I’m just trying to give you some ideas and suggestions that you might be able to use to get more out of your studies. Without further ado…
How to Study the Bible - Part Two - Topical Study
Studying the Bible …
Last week, I went down to the Dominican Republic on a missions trip. I went with an organization called Meeting God in Missions (www.meetinggodinmissions.com). I’ve gone down twice before (each trip is in January), and each time has been a real blessing. The “leader” of MGM is Jim McDonald - a retired basketball coach and an amazing preacher. Each day of the trip he teaches on something new and practical, and he helps all of the people on the trip to really understand what he talks about. He really gets into the lessons, and he is known for certain “quotes” that he says all the time.
One of his famous sayings is, “Don’t read your Bible…study it.” He pauses for a while in the middle of it, and everyone laughs. But it has such a true lesson - you and I shouldn’t be simply reading our Bibles, we should be studying them.
But what does it mean to study the Bible? How do you study the Bible? In this post, I hope to outline one of many popular ways that people study the Bible, and how you can do it too.