Back to basics

Jeremiah 15:16 - "Your words were found, and I ate them, And Your word was to me the joy and rejoicing of my heart; For I am called by Your name, O LORD God of hosts." - NKJV

Blessings saints!

I'm back again with another post. I hoping that this one will be a blessing and will prayerfully help someone in their walk with God.

This post is going to be about reading the Bible and specifically about how I used to read the Bible before lock down and how I go about studying it now. Reading and studying are two different things (I'm sure we all know that)

(storytime)

At the start of lock-down I felt like I lacked a personal understanding of doctrine. Even though I was learning, I felt like I never digested what I was being taught. Now Pastor David always tells us to STUDY the word. I thought what I was doing was studying but whew......... I most certainly wasn't.

I would literally read a chapter, write down my thoughts and then that's me done for the day. Now if that is what you do and you feel content, by all means please continue to do so. All I know is that I, John-Paul didn't feel content with that method and I was really searching for a way to deepen my study of the Bible. What I find funny know is that I genuinely used to read the Old Testament like it was a story book. Some people read the Old Testament JUST to find baby names.... 

But that isn't any of my business.

 I used the New Testament for motivational scriptures and for eisegesis (unknowingly of course) LMAO.

Eisegesis - is the process of interpreting text in such a way as to introduce one's own presuppositions, agendas or biases. It is commonly referred to as reading into the text.

 We don't eisegete around here at all. 

So yeah, I felt like I hit a wall so then I took it up in prayer. I asked the Spirit to help, guide and direct me into new ways of studying the scripture. In a nutshell, the Spirit answered me and led me to amazing brothers in Christ who have helped me so much this quarantine season. We began chopping together  sharing tips and tricks on what works for best for them. I then picked up a few, messed around a bit and I now have what I call my own personal bible study method. It's probably similar to a lot of methods that other people have adopted so it may not be as personal as I think. Again, this is what works for me but I really pray it blesses someone.

Here it is.

I ALWAYS start off with a prayer :

- For a fresh mind without bias when approaching scripture

- For God to reveal anything that's been hidden in my heart (any burdens, past pains etc etc) through scripture and for Him to help me walk in my healing.

- For the Spirit, Master of Truth to teach, guide and walk me through the study.

Sometimes I add a dash of worship if there is a song on my heart or I just play a nice instrumental in the background and worship Him in my own words.

Then I open scripture in various Bibles. God is actually my Provider because I got a Dakes (NKJV) AND a side-by-side linear Bible (NKJV,NLT,NIV and MSG) for my 20th Birthday. GOD BLESS MY FRIENDS x 200000000. This has made my study much more exciting. I open up a website called BlueLetterBible which is a Bible Study website. I use it to find the Greek and Hebrew translations of words so I see what they REALLY meant in the context of the verse. To use this you can either type in the scripture reference in the search bar OR type in a word from the KJV translation (very important or else you won't find what you're looking for) and then you can for what you were looking for. This is very important because some meanings of words are lost in English translation. Let's look at an example

 

John 14:16 - And I will pray the Father, and he shall give you another Comforter, that he may abide with you for ever (KJV)

Now I bet you guys know what comforter means - someone you makes you feel better when you're down etc etc to help you and comfort you.

However, if we look at the Greek translation of Comforter - paraklētos -  meaning intercessor,comforter and advocate. 

All those three words have completely different meanings however if you never bother to look it up and see which one fits the context, you may end up interpreting the scripture wrongly (in this context all 3 fit and it helps us understand the role of the Holy Spirit even more). So I would advise that you fiddle around with this site. It has a lot of other things that are very  for studying the word.

Another thing I do is look at context. Lack of context is killing my people. To be quite frank if you bring me a scripture and use it out of context, I will correct you (with love of course). You need to ask yourself questions- Who was the author talking to? Why did they write to them? What were the sociological norms back then? Remember, the Bible was written FOR us but not TO us. It's obviously very relevant to the times now but you have to appreciate that the times the authors were living in back then are very different to the times now.

For context for the Epistles, I watch Bible Project. Those guys always have a nice overview and it allows me know what I'm diving into. When Paul was writing to the Romans, he was dealing with 'Jewish' Christians (Jewish converts) and Gentile Christians. There was a divide between them in the Roman church because long story short, the Jewish converts were telling the Gentiles that they need to follow the Law again (eg get circumsized and eat Kosher etc etc) in order to 'get' to God. Paul had to give them Christian doctrine review and remind the Jews of why the Law can't and will not bring us Salvation and he then had to remind them of what Christ has done for us. That's why Romans is very juicy and contains a lot of doctrine. He's also writing to them to get them to love one another and to unite again hence why the last few Chapters are about relations with neighbors. 

These are the types of things you need to research. It really opens your eyes in my opinion and allows you to understand what was actually going on. I sometimes just type in "Romans context" in Google and have a surf through and see. If you want to be on job, I'd suggest getting a Cultural Backgrounds Study Bible. I haven't got it yet but I'm certainly going to invest in one because it's fantastic for context. Shop around for other resources too and see what works best for you.

I've learnt that my short posts are usually the best so I'm gonna leave it here for now.

Stay blessed and never stress because in Christ we have eternal rest :) (that was cheesy I know)