Knowing God's Word #11

Chapter 11: Soaking

Soak in God's Word through study and meditation.

David invites the Lord to listen to him in Psalm 5:1: Give ear to my words, O Lord, consider my sighing.

David sought God's favor in Psalm 19:14: May the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart, be pleassing in your sight.

Paul encourages us to focus on whatever is excellent and praiseworthy in Philippians 4:8.

This week, we're encouraged to memorize and meditate on a Scripture passage "until it penetrates your heart and soul."

I chose Jonah 2:8: Those who cling to worthless idols forfeit the grace that could be theirs.

Everytime I read this simple verse, my heart lurches at its sadness so I want to dig deeper into it.

What passage are your hiding in your heart?

Knowing God's Word #10

Chapter 10: Themes

Even though the Bible was written by multiple authors over several centuries, the theme of Redemption runs like a scarlet thread from Genesis through Revelation. Other themes weave through the Scriptures, themes of love, atonement, and sacrifice.

The same resources used for word studies can aid us in our search for the themes we wish to study.

Knowing God's Word #9

Chapter 9: Word Studies

Word studies help ensure we know a word's meaning and how it is used throughout Scripture. Online resources such as Bible Gateway, Vine's Expository Dictionary, and Strong's Concordance make it so easy to find out what the meaning of a word and all the places it's found in Scripture.

One of the questions in this chapter asked us to do a word study for "approved" in 2 Timothy 2:15.  First I go to Strong's Concordance and enter the verse's citation in the search box. This takes me to a page that shows the verse and assigns each word or phrase a number.

The number for "approved" is 1384. I click on the number and land on another page that shows the Greek word, it's transliteration, definitions, and the other passages where the same Greek word, dokimos, appears.

The info on dokimos provides fascinating insight on our mundane word "approved." Check it out!

Knowing God's Word #8

Chapter 8: Outlines

Outlining a passage of Scripture may reveal patterns we might otherwise miss. Here's my outline of the Parable of the Sower (Luke 8):

Farmer went out to sow his seed

• Path -- trampled / eaten by birds
• Rock -- withered among thorns / grew and choked
• Good soil -- yielded a bountiful crop

The meaning of the parable: the seed is the word of God

• Path -- Satan takes the word from them
• Rock -- no root among thorns / choked by life’s worries, riches, and pleasures
• Good soil -- noble and good hearts and persevere

Since I don't have access to a tab function, the above outline isn't exactly like I created it in WordPerfect, but you can still get the idea.

Usually, though, I prefer to write out an entire verse or passage, separating and indenting the lines as if creating a poem. This simple exercise helps me pay attention to the prepositions and conjunctions, nouns and verbs.

Knowing God's Word #7

Chapter 7: Back to the Basics

The colored pencils are back again! This time, we looked at the first twenty-four verses of Scripture's longest chapter, Psalm 119. Here's our color code:

Blue: right actions and attitudes
Orange: wrong actions and attitudes
Purple: what God does to/for those who obey Him
Green: what God does to/for those who resist Him
Yellow: the mentions of God's Word

The colors create a visual of this passage that aids our understanding of God's Word.

Knowing God's Word #6

Chapter 6: Pitfalls

When studying Scripture, we need to guard against distorting the truth of God's Word. Neither should we substitute our opinion for truth.

We avoid such pitfalls through careful study of Scripture. Sure, that takes some effort. After all, even Peter said that some of Paul's writings were hard to understand (2 Peter 3:15-16)!

But we have excellent translations, commentaries, and other resources to help us in our studies.

And we're promised that our prayers for wisdom and discernment will not go unanswered.

Knowing God's Word #5

Chapter 5: Dare to Compare

Break out the colored pencils!

In this chapter, we colored-coded the phrases of 1 Peter 1:25 in four different versions. The visual comparisons made it easy to see how different versions translate the same verse.

Which translation is the best?

Generally speaking, scholarly study requires a "formal equivalent" translation, one that translates the original languages practically word-for-word into English. Two popular translations are the New King James Version and the New American Standard Bible.

A "dynamic equivalent" translation, like the New International Version, translates phrase-by-phrase. The NIV is immensely popular because it's easier to read and understand than the NKJV.

Paraphrases, such as The Living Bible, simplify the English language for readers. Even though paraphrases may be easy to understand, they shouldn't be relied upon for theological study.