105 lines
8.9 KiB
Org Mode
105 lines
8.9 KiB
Org Mode
:PROPERTIES:
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:ID: 20211021T104516.946618
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:ROAM_ALIASES: "God's Word" bible scripture
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:END:
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#+TITLE: Word of God
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#+AUTHOR: Chris Cochrun
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#+filetags: :TFC:leadership:TFC Leadership:
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* Importance of God's Word
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* Breathe In
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Today you'll be learning a lot about God's Word, what it is, why we need it, and how to study it. But one of the most important things is to simply learn how to do some of that yourself without needing someone to guide you along. That's why at TFC we always have devotions that we do at every camp, mission trip, and leadership retreat. We want you to gain a hunger for the Word. And help you be able to study it on your own.
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Whenever I think about God's Word, I think about the 2nd Bible I ever purchased for myself. It's a little Bible, but it has always had my favorite design on it. It's got an opening quotation mark on the front and a closing quotation mark on the back and the verse 2 Timothy 3:16 captioned underneath. This entire thing, is the WORD of God. Just think about that for a moment, these are God's words He is speaking to you! How cool is that?
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Take a moment to thank God for those words and ask Him to help you better understand them today.
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* Getting the Right Image
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Let's go read Psalm 1. The very first psalm in your Bible.
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- What kinds of things stuck out to you in this psalm?
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- What two kinds of people are being compared in Psalm 1?
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- This blessed or righteous person, what kinds of things in verse 1 is he to avoid?
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- What kinds of things is he supposed to do in verse 2?
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- What do you think the law means here?
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The Hebrew word for law is, torah. In it's basic meaning it means law or instruction, but throughout history, Hebrews and Christians have called the first 5 books of the Bible the Torah. For whoever was writing this psalm, they only had the first 5 books as their "Bible", so for them, meditating on the Word is a meditation on just a fraction of the scriptures we have now, and yet they see this as something very deep. Let's unpack this.
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* Treasuring God's Word
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- Have you ever meditated before? What is meditating like? Or how do you imagine it's like?
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- How do you think we should meditate on the word? What do you think that means we should do?
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- According to verse 2, how often are you supposed to meditate on God's Word?
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Meditation is a very unique thing, but the word meditation in Hebrew is "הָגָה" or ha-gah, which means to mutter, mull over, or quietly repeat. It's like saying in order to meditate on the law, you are supposed to quietly say it to yourself over and over.
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- What does that make you think of?
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This is why we talk about how memorization is so important to your Christian walk!
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Let's keep reading through this passage and unpack it further.
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- Why do you think the psalmist imagines this person who meditates on the law like a tree? What's the point in calling them a tree?
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- What kinds of things can a healthy strong tree withstand?
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- Do you think you could withstand similar things?
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Now we are going to try our hand at being trees that are planted by a stream of water by meditating on the Word a bit.
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* Learning to Love Scripture
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When I was in college, I was given an assignment to do an in depth study on the Gospel of John. This study meant that I had to read through it nearly 20 times, come up with some literary structure that it followed and create a diagram that resembled that. Then I had to organize all of the observations about it's structure and try to make interpretations out of that. It was for my final project in a class called Hermeneutics, which is a fancy word for bible study and it was A LOT of work. The point was to help us be able to see the literary structure of the Bible. Out of all of that work, what struck me the most was simply reading the same things over and over and over and over again. Repetition is an extremely powerful thing. That's why in SO many places you'll see repetition in your Bible.
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Let's see if we can't find some places of repetition in the Bible.
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Read Matthew 2:7-18 - Keep you finger in this place we'll come back
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- What is happening in this story?
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- Who did Herod kill?
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- Have you ever read another story where a king killed baby boys in order to stop God's plan?
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Read Exodus 1:15-22
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Do you see how these stories are connected?
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But there is an even more powerful way that the Bible uses repetition if we pay close enough attention.
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- In the Exodus story, where are the Israelites?
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When the Israelites finally flee Egypt, they make their way to what is now Israel.
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- Where was Jesus when Herod began to kill baby boys? Where did Jesus flee to?
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- Why do you think God reverses things here?
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In a lot of ways, repetition is powerful because the repeated parts are tweaked to give us new insight into these themes we read throughout scripture. All of these we miss unless we meditate on the Word day and night.
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Let's wrap up our time by doing one other look at why meditating on the Word is SO important. This time, see if you can't slowly mutter your way through the passage. Say it out loud, slowly and quietly to yourself and allow yourself to dwell on what it might mean.
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Read Romans 10:8-17
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- What sticks out to you most from this passage?
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- Why is the Word so important?
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If you still have time, read through all of chapter 10 in the same way. Meditate on it, let it sink in.
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The Word is THE key place where it all starts. God speaks to us over and over through the Word and without it for guidance we wouldn't have faith.
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* Wrapping it Together
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Often times we like to treat the Bible like a theological handbook or a reference to moral dilemmas, but in reality, that's not what the Bible is. It's not meant to be used to find a verse that answers our moral situations. Unfortunately, the Bible is something that is radically different from all other things we read in our lives.
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You may be used to reading:
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- Novels (books that are fun to read i.e. Percy Jackson)
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- News Articles
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- Blogs
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- Newsletters
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- Emails
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- Text Messages
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- Even Textbooks
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But the Bible is meant to be story that shapes us. It DOES do all those things we want it to. It does help us make good moral decisions, and it does help us to understand theologically the world around us and more about God, but it does all of this in a very different way from everything we are used to reading. That's why it's most important to not give up in reading the Bible and to keep trying.
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The next time you read the Bible, don't worry about GETTING something out of it. Although it has all the theological truth we need, it isn't a grab-bag of theological truth to get something out of. Simply read it, and allow the Holy Spirit to work in you. Think on it, pray on it, and if you don't think it's given any new insight, no worries. The Holy Spirit will still use that to work on you. It may come in time, but MEDITATE on it, slowly and carefully.
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Wrap up your time thanking God for His Word and asking Him to help you to meditate on it better every day and every night.
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* Tools to Help
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There are a lot of great tools out there to help you study the Bible. Get a good study Bible! Seriously, this is one of the best tools you can get. This is also the simplest to use because you for sure know how to open a Bible and start reading, but they can be costly, the good thing about it is you are making an investment for a lifetime. Take care of it and it'll take care of you!
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The next is pretty easy too, the Bible app on your phone! There are a lot of them, but the YouVersion one is simple and easy to use. Plus it has a LOT of plans to help you get started! I would say after using the plans for a while, try longer ones, like reading through the entire New Testament, or the Old Testament!
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Another great tool is the Olive Tree Bible app. It, like the YouVersion one, lets you read through plans and such, but it also has a lot of other study resources you can add to it like commentaries and maps! Those are a bit harder to use and take more time to get into, but the benefit is that folks have spent a lot of time making the Bible understandable to others and this is a powerful tool to add to your belt!
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A good website, biblegateway.com is an awesome tool to use if you want to look up verses and commentaries online as well. This tool only works if you have an internet connection, but is free and easy to use!
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One of my other favorite tools is stepbible.org, although it too requires an internet connection. This site will work pretty darn good on your phone as well. The best part about it is that every cross-reference and word is hyperlinked to help you see how the Bible connects together and help you learn the meaning behind the words of the Bible. It's really an incredible tool that I use a lot.
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Lastly, another tool I've found helpful is just journaling a lot with your Bible study. If you have a good notebook. Write out your thoughts over and over as you read. It's incredibly powerful to write as you study because it reinforces your thoughts and creates a lot of meaningful connections. If you really like journaling while reading, try a Journaling Bible. These are seriously cool!
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