Welcome To Boot Camp: What's The Word??

Let’s Be Honest

Many people live their whole life defending a belief based on a book they never tried to understand.

For many the idea of studying the Bible is enough to make you want to meet Jesus ASAP!

The truth is that Bible study is simple, but can be extremely complex.

Put simply the Bible is story of humanity and the God that made us.

You are in the Bible’s story whether you realize it or not.

Before You Begin Studying The Bible You Must Pray.

“Without the spirit of God, there is no great explanation possible.”

If we have accepted the Holy Spirit in our hearts then we have the opportunity to have Him work through us and help us to interpret the Bible and know God’s will.

Only by learning to love and obey God more, can we discover how to love and serve other people.

Think About Like You Are In A Major League Game

You don’t know the history of the game, dont know the rules of the game, dont know any of the greats that ever played the game, and dont even know how you got there…

But now your supposed to play in the game...

Lets take it up a notch and the being that created you is now watching you play in the game for the first time.

Let’s face it, if you dont know what your doing it feels like at any moment you are going to let God and the rest of the the team of Christians down.

But imagine if there was all you need to know behind the scenes almanac that showed you all of the history and major moments of that sport, combined with some of the greatest (and worst) to do it.

Thats the Bible and soooo much more!

If you simply want to be a more careful reader of the Bible, perhaps begin by reading a small portion of the text daily with a Bible reading plan. If you want to put serious effort into learning the Bible, more commitment is needed.

One thing that you must remember is that the Bible was not written to you, but it is written for you.

There are things that only God knows, but the Bible is not one of them.

At the center of Bible study should be conversation—with God and others. The Bible is one of the primary ways that God speaks to us. And it was intended to be read in community, with other Christians.

The Bible is Centered on God.

Let’s Get To Work

Valuable resources include a Bible dictionary, a one-volume Bible commentary, and Bible concordance.

What Are Those???

Bible Dictionary- The combination of definitions and proper names for Biblical words with online verse reference, allows users to define and analyze Scripture. Discover the meaning of words and study them in context to the theological concepts of that specific verse or passage. Many word searches also include the original Greek and Hebrew word with meaning.

Bible Commentaries- aid in the study of Scripture by providing explanation and interpretation of Biblical text. They offer greater understanding with background information on authorship, history, setting, and theme

Bible Concordance- is an alphabetical listings of words and phrases found in the Holy Bible and shows where the terms occur throughout all books of Scripture. With cross-references for verses, concordances make it easy to understand the meaning of terms and the context in which those words are used.

Bible lexicons- provide definitions and meaning of Biblical words found in the original New Testament Greek and Old Testament Hebrew languages of the Holy Bible. This study resource helps in understanding the origins and root meaning of the ancient language. Additional, lexicons give the context and cultural meaning intended by the authors.

Important Facts

Bible literally means book. So the Holy Bible translated is Holy Book.

The Bible is more than just a book.

Over 40 writers including scribes, fishermen, kings, royal officials, musicians, prophets, poets, farmers and others are believed to have contributed to the texts of the Bible.

There are 66 books in the Protestant Bible. (Yes, there are other versions of the Bible)

The Bible was written in Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek, and brought together as a collection of writings, over more than 1,000 years. Notice the Bible was not written in English.

Exegesis - the act or explaining or interpreting a text.

Today, it has been translated to over 2,500 spoken and written languages around the world. By far, it is the best-selling book of all time with an estimated 6 billion copies from 1816 until 1992.

Bible Study 101: Where To Start?

The Big Picture

Let’s be honest most of us are not coming into this with no knowledge at all of Christianity, even if you only know that Jesus died on a piece of wood shaped like a lower case “t’.

With this in mind I think it is better that instead of just jumping in anywhere we sit back and look at a birds eye view of the entire Bible.

You wont get everything you need, but like getting the trailer of a movie you will get a gist of the overarching story of the Bible.

Biblical Story Outline

My hope with this lesson is to jumpstart you on this journey to reading the Bible.

This will be a good guide that you too can use to help others start their journey through the Bible.

The entire Bible is important.

But I do believe that studying the Biblical Narrative is the best place to start since hands down across the board if you asked Christians where they think a new Bible reader should start it is in the Gospels.

Which is why this 2 part lesson will deal with how to study Bible Narrative.

Studying Biblical Narrative

The portions that are considered Biblical Narrative are the Pentateuch, the Historical Books, the Gospels, the Book of Acts.

What Are Those???

The Pentateuch - The First 5 books of the Bible, also called “the Law”.

What books are considered part of the pentateuch?

These books get us from creation all the way to God’s people living outside the promised land, about to enter it.

The History Books include:

Joshua

Judges

Ruth

1 & 2 Samuel

1 & 2 Kings

1 & 2 Chronicles

Ezra & Nehemiah

Esther

The Gospels

What Books Make up the Gospels?

The Gospels are comprised of:

Matthew

Mark

Luke

John

Matthew, Mark, and Luke are called the Synoptic Gospels.

Synoptic Gospels - all 3 books share a relatively similar or parallel accounts of the life of Jesus.

The book of John takes a different approach entirely to the life of Jesus taking on more of a theological perspective.

Book of Acts

Tells the 30 years period after the ressurection of Jesus. Also leaves us with the idea that we are to continue to be the living reflection and continuation of the word of God.

Biblical narratives seem straight forward when you read them right?

Since they are written to a different people and a different time it is important that we use the right tool and ask the right questions when reading.

The Process

Observation- What are the details of the story?

Interpretation- what was being taught or shared in the original passage?

Application- How does God want me to apply this in my life today?

Who is Involved?

What is Happening?

Where and when is this happening in the narrative (place and time)?

Why are these actions occuring?

How does this section change the narrative?

What does this passage mean today?