How To Study God's Word

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Davy

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1. Pay attention in school.
If you slack off in your school studies you will decrease your ability to study the things you want to study later in life, because you will not have disciplined yourself. In school, especially at the college level, you'll find a lot of different courses of study are required for your degree that have little to do with your actual chosen field (like an Art History, or Humanities requirement for an engineering major). You have to do those courses if you want to finish your degree, so you are forced... to learn how to discipline yourself to do it, and that... is one of the things that helps you to be more accomplished, i.e., disciplining yourself. And it will help greatly with your ability to stay focused in study of God's Word.

2. Become teachers of The Word.
Be careful of the example of how many preachers cover The Bible today. The seminaries tell them to stay on the 'milk' of The Word to their congregations, so as to keep controversy to a minimum, preaching of The Gospel being the main duty. Some of the lucky Churches that can afford more than one preacher also have a Bible scholar in one or more Bible languages that teaches Bible only. This was the job of the Hebrew priest, to read God's Word to the people, and then give the meaning. This duty is about the teaching to God's people the "strong meat" of Hebrews 5:12-14. Once one believes on Jesus Christ, they will be on the "milk" of God's Word for a while, and then it becomes time for them to progress to the "strong meat" of God's Word, themselves becoming teachers. Following preachers that preach The Gospel only is the "milk", and most Churches do that more than covering all of God's Word line upon line, chapter by chapter. Thus there are many in those type Churches that have been on the "milk" for most of their lives, and don't know the "strong meat", not having learned to become Bible teachers themselves. Those were the types Apostle Paul was rebuking in Hebrews 5:12-14 for not having come to the "strong meat" of God's Word.

3. Follow God's Word, not man's word.
Even though there have been many good Bible scholars, what God has said in His Word always trumps over what man says. If you turn to men's Bible commentaries on a Bible passage because you're not sure of the meaning, and you discover many opposing commentary views, what do you think that means? It means those commentators don't have much more of a clue of the real meaning of the Bible passage than you do. Ultimately then, it means you're looking in the wrong place for the answer. Turn to God and pray, which is how we all, including Bible scholars, receive understanding of His Word by The Holy Spirit.

4. Set aside a Bible study period for yourself.
Do this in privacy, just you and your wife or husband, and God. Always pray at the beginning asking our Heavenly Father for understanding in His Word, in Christ's name. Until you can get focused for yourself, disciplining yourself with study periods, you will constantly be scattered in your attempt to learn all of God's Word line upon line. And study by precept upon precept, line upon line, here a little and there a little, is... the way God showed to study His Word, so as to NOT to fall backward, and NOT to be broken, NOT to be snared, and NOT to be taken (Isaiah 28:9-13). Those who constantly 'stumble' at God's Word do so because of not covering it line upon line, chapter by chapter. Pulling out a verse here, and a verse there, is NOT how to come to an understanding in all of God's Word. Doing that is not even the tip of the iceberg, so to speak.

5. Get some good Bible study tools.
Those living today really have it good, because there's good Bible study tools out there which can help you greatly in your disciplined Bible study sessions. I'm not speaking of Bible commentaries, I'm mainly speaking of Bible concordances and Bible dictionaries. One of the best Bible concordances is the Strong's Exhaustive Concordance created by Dr. James Strong based on the manuscript words used for the KJV Bible. He assigned a number to each language word, and included a Hebrew-Greek Lexicon (dictionary) in the back. This has been a long held staple of Bible study for many, many years. Another excellent tool is the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge, a type of concordance that when you look up a particular verse, it will point to other Bible Scriptures about that same topic. The study software I use is created by the company called BibleSoft. You can add separate modules onto the basic program as you may later want more resources. But I find it has plenty enough resources as is, including the above ones I just mentioned. Using a resource like BibleSoft will make your studies go a whole lot faster, instead of having to fumble with turning literal pages.

In my opinion, still the best KJV study Bible on the market is The Companion Bible put together by the 19th century British Bible scholar E.W. Bullinger. Now I do not agree with everything Bullinger believed (he believed the false pre-trib rapture theory that had become popular in his day in Britain). Yet I have to admit, the amount and level of his research and the side margin content being of a scholarly nature, and not mostly opinion like most other study Bibles, makes Bullinger's Companion Bible he put together as the best one in my opinion. No other KJV Bible contains many of the Massorah notes from the Old Testament scribe system like The Companion Bible does. This was included from the compiled Hebrew manuscripts of Christian David Ginsberg who researched the Massorah Hebrew text manuscripts, a resource which the 1611 KJV translators didn't even have. It is worth having just for the research Bullinger did in the Appendixes of The Companion Bible (Appendixes to The Companion Bible).

6. Understanding timelines in God's Word.
God's written Word is unlike any other known literature of man. It contains prophetic references of the future that are written in a style that seem to point to the past or present, when they are actually still future. The way to understand this is by understanding the 'event'. Also a timeline period can change very fast in God's Word, even between two phrases in a single verse. Once this is understood, then it should be obvious why God showed His Way to study is precept upon precept, line upon line, here a little, and there a little. That was Apostle Paul's point too when he told Timothy about 'rightly dividing' The Word of Truth per 2 Timothy 2:15. God often compacted a whole... lot of information in a single verse or phrase.

7. At least 2 or 3 Bible Scripture witnesses for a matter.
Only by study of ALL... of God's Word line upon line will become even a little familiar with where God put the clues to a matter scattered through the various Books of The Bible. Not until you cover all possible Bible witnesses for a matter, and put them together in deciphering His Message, will you come to a 'proper' interpretation per His Word.

Continued...
 

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Davy

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Continued...

I have seen those who have an idea and go looking for a single verse to try and back it up in God's Word, and totally leave the Scripture context where that single verse was written. Their doing this reveals a gross lack of Bible study, because it is most important to keep to the Chapter's contextual flow, and not just remove a single verse tied to a subject flow out of its subject. Again, The Companion Bible is a great help in preventing this, because in the side margin Bullinger lists the Holy Spirit's subject and object outlines so you can always refer to what the subject is at any one verse in a Chapter. And these subject outlines are not his opinion, but are proven "structures" by The Holy Spirit...


From the Preface of The Companion Bible:

"The Structures...

... referred to on p.vii make The Companion Bible an unique edition, and require a special notice.
They give, not a mere Analysis evolved from the Text by human ingenuity, but a Symmetrical Exhibition of the Word itself, which may be discerned by the humblest reader of the Sacred Text, and see to be one of the most important evidences of the Divine Inspiration of its words.
For these structures constitute a remarkable phenomenon peculiar to Divine Revelation; and are not found outside it in any other form of known literature.
This distinguishing feature is caused by the repetition of subjects which reappear, either in alternation or introversion, or a combination of both in many divers manners.
This repetition is called "Correspondence", which may be by way of similarity of contrast; synthetic or antithetic.
The subjects of the various Members are indicated by letters, which are quite arbitrary and are used only for convenience. The subject of one Member is marked by a letter in Roman type, which the repetition of it is marked by the same letter in Italic type. These are always in line (vertically), one with the other.
When the alphabet is exhausted, it is repeated, as often as may be necessary.
The Structure of the whole book is given at the commencement of each book; and all the succeeding Structures are the expansion of this.
Each Structure is referred back to the page containing the larger Member, of which it is an expansion or development.
The large Members forming a telescopic view of the whole book are thus expanded, divided, and subdivided, until chapters and paragraphs, and even verses and sentences, are seen to form part of a wondrous whole, giving a microscopic view of its manifold details, and showing forth the fact, that while the works of the LORD are great and perfect, the Word of the LORD is the greatest of His works, and is "perfect" also (Psalm 19,7)."
(The Companion Bible, Preface, p.x)

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