First let me say, I understand that studying the Bible carefully is probably the best way to study it in an in depth manner but sometimes I struggle with the meaning, understanding, and relavance of the material.
What I would like to find is a book that is similar to many Sunday School Lesson Books.
Not just a single page with a Bible quote and then a paragraph or two about the topic. I'm looking for a book that gives maybe a chapter out of the Bible and then takes a good look at it's meaning and the importance of the verses. And then the next day (or maybe the next chapter) a similar set up to go through another chapter.
Maybe something similar...
What would you suggest?
Thanks for any and all help.
TripleB
There's a few preachers online that cover God's Word line upon line, chapter by chapter, all the way from Genesis through Revelation. But they are 'very few'. I won't list them here, you'll have to search them out for yourself and determine based on what understanding God has given you whether they are credible or not.
So what you're really asking is, where can you find a
credible Bible teacher, a real pastor.
The truth of the matter is that UNTIL 'you' yourself, get into disciplined Bible study daily, asking God's help 'directly', then you'll have trouble determining who is preaching His Truth, and who is not. That's regardless of whether it's in a book form, or by audio media. Assuming you're already doing that discipline, then maybe you just need some better Bible study tools.
One of the best study Bibles on the market in my opinion is
The Companion Bible. It's a 1611 KJV study Bible put together by the 19th century Christian scholar E.W. Bullinger. It is a real pastor level study Bible, not a commentary type study Bible. It's a KJV Bible that will 'force' you to go slow in God's Word line upon line. Bullinger held to some popular Christian doctrines of his day, so I won't lie in saying he was absolutely perfect in his scholarship with everything. Yet at the same time I will say his scolarship was excellent in the margins, a whole lot of 'factual' based info given along the sides of Scripture, including in the over 100 Appendixes in the back.
Something else very unique is that The Companion Bible is the ONLY study Bible that has many of the OT Massorah notes from the oldest and best OT Hebrew manuscripts which emphasize certain points in OT Scripture as to its meaning. Those act as type of anchors in meaning. Bullinger was truly learned in the Biblical languages. Also, the subject and object outlines Bullinger provided is a huge help for seeing the bigger picture.
Here's a link of a PDF of The Companion Bible someone put online:
http://www.heavendwellers.com/hd_complete_companion_bible.htm
Beyond that I recommend Bible study software from the company called BibleSoft. I don't recommend an expensive version with many commentaries and such. You can tailor their software modules according to your needs. The Strong's Exhaustive Concordance goes with a 1611 KJV Bible. A Brown-Driver-Briggs Hebrew Lexicon for OT definitions, Treasury of Scripture Knowledge for topic comparison searches, Englishman's Concordance and a Vine's for word study, and another Greek Lexicon for NT Greek besides the Strong's. That should be the minimum tools.
The difference with Ministers, Evangelists, and Pastors: Most preachers in the Churches today are not real pastors in the Biblical sense. The office of an evangelist is mainly to preach The Gospel of Jesus Christ, not teach the whole Bible. The office of a minister is multi-faceted, and can cover anything from preaching The Gospel to administration, visits, organizational duties, choir, etc. The names are often used interchangeably.
But a real pastor is one called specifically to 'teach', covering the whole Bible, and is on the real scholar level with manuscript study. Mostly only big Churches have a separate pastor function where that's all they do is teach The Bible, and only a few of them cover it chapter by chapter now days. The Biblical meaning of to pastor is from the idea of feeding the sheep.
Hope that helps.
