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Sunday, August 2, 2009

Bible study: ACCURATELY INTERPRETING THE SCRIPTURES

Helpful basic steps:
• Read the text
• Look up definitions/meanings of key words from original language tools
• Determine context of the passage
• Cross-reference: let Scripture interpret Scripture
• Determine if word/passage is figurative or literal

Exercises:

1. According to the Bible, should we hate people?

Read more here…

Inductive Bible Study method: the basics

1. OBSERVE IT
• Read and re-read the entire book you are studying — chapter by chapter, verse by verse
• Read the introduction to the book to understand more about the book’s author, recipients, historical context & date, etc.
• Outline the structure of the book: identifying overarching themes and ideas; note general divisions and sections without relying on the man-made chapter divisions too much; answer the question: How is the book organized?
• Find, note and mark repeated words and phrases

2. DETERMINE ORIGINAL MEANING

Read the rest here…

Bird’s eye view of the Bible

Main purpose of the Bible: for God to reveal Himself , His glory, and His redemptive plan to mankind.

List 4 major events of the Bible

1. CREATION

2. THE FALL

3. CHRIST’S DEATH, BURRIAL & RESURRECTION & subsequent REDEMPTION of mankind

4. THE RE-CREATION OF THE HEAVENS & EARTH

List 5 Key verses/passages:
1. Genesis 3:15 – Declares that the Messiah will come!

see all the rest…

Birds-eye view: Bible summaries

Getting a birds-eye view of the Bible helps us to see the major themes, ideas, etc. that connect from Genesis to Revelation. The Bible is ONE story in 66 books!

In a word:
Jesus

In a thought: God’s amazing love-relationship with mankind through Jesus Christ (The greatest love-story ever told!)

In a complete sentence:
God loved mankind so much that he began working out a plan of redemption (Genesis through John), culminating in the shed blood of Jesus Christ, to bring them (us) back into a love-relationship with Himself.

In several sentences:
God created Adam & Eve (and mankind) to be in relationship with Him. But they disobeyed God and sin & death came into the world corrupting everything. But God loved mankind and…

more…

Birds-eye videw of the Bible: Chronological order chart


Some parts of this chart based on these sources:
http://www.biblestudyplanet.com/f7.htm
http://rosemck1.tripod.com/bible.html

Click here for chart split up into (2) 8.5X11 pages

Bible translations: my top 8 pics


Links for further study:
• Compare English Bible Translations
• http://www.cob-net.org/compare.htm
• http://www.apbrown2.net/web/TranslationComparisonChart.htm

• Translations of the Bible Into English
• The Holman Christian Standard Bible
• http://www.bible-researcher.com/csb.html

Bible Study: name of Messiah in the Old Testament

Bible Study — Going deeper with words studies and Greek & Hebrew tools
Jesus and Joshua word study continued from last week

This study will help you find the Messiah's name (Jesus!) in the Old Testament!

Background:
Written about 500 years before Christ, this book was written by the prophet Zechariah. The Israelites who had been exiled in Babylon, were released by Cyrus to go back to their homeland and rebuild the temple of the Lord. The people were apathetic and disheartened in their pursuit to finish the Lord’s temple and basically disobedient to the Lord. So God prophesies through Zechariah a message of repentance and consolation. God wants them to know that their work on the temple has a plan stretching into the future and connects with God’s plan to establish His kingdom through the coming Messiah. Zechariah’s prophesies of the Messiah are probably the most extensive of all the Minor Prophets.

The rest of the study…

Jesus and Joshua word study

Read Acts 7:44-45 in context, then vs 45 in these parallel translations

KJV NKJV NASB NIV


Q. What’s going on here? Why is the KJV different?
Q. How does the CONTEXT help us figure this out?
• Let’s explore the Strong’s number for this word and see what we find…

Strong’s number: G2424

Greek word: Iesous

Definition: Jesus = "Jehovah is salvation"

See the rest of the study…

Bible study tools and links

Excellent Bible study reference works
1. The Complete Wordstudy New Testment with Greek Parallel — KJV — Strong’s Dictionary, Lexical Aids, Greek Concordance, Translational Reference Index: by Spiros Zodhiates; AMG Publishers.
This gives Bible text, Strong’s numbers, and more expanded definitions (not exhaustive).
Easier to use than a regular, old fashioned Strong’s Concordance.

2. The Complete Wordstudy Old Testment — with Strong’s numbers and expanded definitions. AMG publishers.

3. The New Strong’s Expanded Dictionary of Bible Words — Nelson publishers.
This has great Greek and Hebrew word dictionaries, better than the normal Strong’s definitions. If you decide to use this, you will need the Bible text with Strong’s numbers to work along side it.

Online Bible tools:
http://www.searchgodsword.org/
http://www.blueletterbible.org/
http://www.biblegateway.com/
http://www.studylight.org/enc/isb/

Click here for the rest…

John 21 Using a concordance Bible study

Read 21: 15-19

Use a concordance to:
1. Find and define key Bible words with Hebrew and Greek definitions
2. Find multiple occurrences of the same word (not necessarily the English word equivalent, but the original word)

Why?
Because getting back to some of the original words and meanings brings out nuances of the text that are lost with word-for-word translations.

See rest of the study here…

General Structure of the Bible

Click here for a general overview of the Bible and its structure.