Week 45 Bonus: How I Study
I told my small group I would list the tools I use to dig into scripture and here they are
“The word of God is our only standard, and the Holy Spirit our only teacher.”
George Müller
Links to all my tools are on each question header where applicable. If I’ve missed one your you have questions about them, please put those questions in the comments. Thank you. God bless and Godspeed.
Passage
14Of these things put them in remembrance, charging them before the Lord that they strive not about words to no profit, but to the subverting of the hearers.
15Study to shew thyself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth.
16But shun profane and vain babblings: for they will increase unto more ungodliness.
2 Timothy 2:14–16 (KJV 1900)
Background
Quote-George Müller (born Johann Georg Ferdinand Müller, 27 September 1805 – 10 March 1898) was a Christian evangelist and the director of the Ashley Down orphanage in Bristol, England. He was one of the founders of the Plymouth Brethren movement. Later during the split, his group was called the Open Brethren.
He cared for 10,024 orphans during his lifetime, and provided educational opportunities for the orphans to the point that he was even accused by some of raising the poor above their natural station in British life. He established 117 schools which offered Christian education to more than 120,000.
Passage-The book of 2nd Timothy is a Pastoral Epistle (letter from Paul to a church leader). The author is the Apostle Paul who wrote it approximately 67 A.D. and is probably his last letter. After Paul’s release from his first imprisonment in Rome in AD 61 or 62, and after his final missionary journey (probably into Spain), he was again imprisoned under Emperor Nero c. 66-67. The key personalities are Paul, Timothy, Luke, Mark, and many others.
Its purpose was to give direction to Timothy and urge him to visit one final time. From the somber nature of this letter, it is apparent that Paul knew that his work was done and that his life was nearly at an end (4:6-8).
Lesson Notes
Opening Statement
This week is a bonus lesson as will December 31 be. I thought it valuable to show everyone the tools I use as I write these lessons. These are the tools I currently use in all my studies. These aren’t some secrets I keep tightly locked away. I encourage everyone to use them to dig into God’s Word.
The King James Version: I start in the KJV, always. There are a lot of reasons to start there but most notably the King James has been used, or it’s founding documents, by most of the notable greats in biblical history.
Point: The King James has been proven to me to be the most trustworthy vehicle to carry what was said by Jesus and God’s chosen spokes people.
The Greek Interlinear: Words matter. The original New Testament letters and documents were written in Greek. Those documents were faithfully used to translate into English what was said or commnicated so long ago.
Point: Other, more “modern translations” have taken liberties with what was said for spurious and untrustworthy reasons. God and the Holy Spirit are of course the final guardians of what is communicated so use the translation you like the best.
Internet Search Engines, DuckDuckGo: I got tired of my data being used to feed ads, etc. I switched to DuckDuckGo and am very happy I did. The question you want to ask that trusted person, type it into the search engine and filter the answers.
Point: Specifically, it routinely tells me when it stopped Facebook from using my data.
How to know what to trust: It is up to the reader to filter what they see, hear, and read through the filter of their understanding using the Holy Spirit and the Lord as their guide through prayer.
Point: Please see the Definitions page for the word Discernment.
Biblehub.com: All the summaries I use for the books of the Bible come from Jay Smith on Biblehub.com used with permission.
Point: I see no reason to reinvent the wheel when others have already done the work and are willing to share it freely.
Logos Desktop Software: What is today called Logos Bible Study started life as a much different application distributed on CDs. My wife purchased a copy for me those many years ago and I have been using it ever since.
(Logos home is found HERE. You can download the desktop app HERE.)
Point: Today, Logos integrates many Bible translations along with other books in a digital library making them all searchable, indexable, and linked one to the other. When looking at a piece of scripture you can see where it is mentioned in all the books in your library if you so choose. It has both a free and a paid version. I currently use the free version.
OpenBible.info: Specifically I use the Topical Bible tool at OpenBible.info (and that is a correct web address.)
Point: The Topical Bible tool is invaluable when you want to find scripture on a specific subject, word, or concept. (You can find the Topical Bible tool HERE.)
Halley’s Bible Handbook: I can think of no other resource short of the Bible and Logos I have used as long as I have used Halley’s Bible Handbook.
Point: Before I had Logos and its linked library I had Halley’s as my immediate go-to source for additional information on any specific scripture.
Dictionary.com: There are a lot of words in the King James Version I don’t know or because I don’t use them regularly forget what they mean.
Point: I have found the least installation of political and agenda-driven definitions at this location.
Prayer and listening: When confusion and doubt creep in I try to go to the Father in the name of the Son and ask my questions.
Point: He has always answered. Always. I have not always liked His answers and I have not always been listening when He has answered but He has answered. Sometimes, I only see His answers in hindsight after I have followed my own course of action. That usually entails clean up to a greater or lesser degree.
Closing Statement
There are other tools, other reasons, and other ways of studying. This is but a summary of what I do today. I wrote a series of eight lessons titled How to Study the Bible detailing the how’s and why’s of my process. They are not published anywhere. Perhaps I will do that and post them in 2024. The point of this bonus lesson is that each of us is responsible for their own understanding of God’s Word. We do not get to blame someone else for what we think. Your opinion is your own, just like mine is my own. We will not stand before the judgment seat of the Lord and be held to account for any other person’s beliefs or actions, just our own. Shouldn’t we then know what we believe and why we think that way? I think so.
6Therefore, being always of good courage, and knowing that while we are at home in the body we are absent from the Lord—
7for we walk by faith, not by sight—
8we are of good courage, I say, and prefer rather to be absent from the body and to be at home with the Lord.
9Therefore we also have as our ambition, whether at home or absent, to be pleasing to Him.
10For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, so that each one may be recompensed for his deeds in the body, according to what he has done, whether good or bad.
2 Corinthians 5:6–10 (NASB95)
Questions for the Week
Question 1 How often do you study the Bible because you decided to do it rather than as an assigned task from someone else?
Question 2 Do you think you should study scripture more on your own?
Question 3 Why don’t you study more on your own?
Question 4 List all the reasons for not studying more on your own and make a plan to overcome one or more reasons causing more study of scripture at your own direction, for your own purposes.
Definitions
discern
dih-surn
verb (used with object)
1. to perceive by the sight or some other sense or by the intellect; see, recognize, or apprehend:They discerned a sail on the horizon.
2. to distinguish mentally; recognize as distinct or different; discriminate:He is incapable of discerning right from wrong.
verb (used without object)
3. to distinguish or discriminate.
1For every high priest taken from among men is appointed on behalf of men in things pertaining to God, in order to offer both gifts and sacrifices for sins;
2he can deal gently with the ignorant and misguided, since he himself also is beset with weakness;
3and because of it he is obligated to offer sacrifices for sins, as for the people, so also for himself.
4And no one takes the honor to himself, but receives it when he is called by God, even as Aaron was.
5So also Christ did not glorify Himself so as to become a high priest, but He who said to Him, “You are My Son, Today I have begotten You”;
6just as He says also in another passage, “You are a priest forever According to the order of Melchizedek.”
7In the days of His flesh, He offered up both prayers and supplications with loud crying and tears to the One able to save Him from death, and He was heard because of His piety.
8Although He was a Son, He learned obedience from the things which He suffered.
9And having been made perfect, He became to all those who obey Him the source of eternal salvation,
10being designated by God as a high priest according to the order of Melchizedek.
11Concerning him we have much to say, and it is hard to explain, since you have become dull of hearing.
12For though by this time you ought to be teachers, you have need again for someone to teach you the elementary principles of the oracles of God, and you have come to need milk and not solid food.
13For everyone who partakes only of milk is not accustomed to the word of righteousness, for he is an infant.
14But solid food is for the mature, who because of practice have their senses trained to discern good and evil.
Hebrews 5:1–14 (NASB95)