Noise

Hope everyone has been doing ok at school. Recently, I've been trying to devote more time studying God's word. And I mean really studying. How many of you guys actually spend time reading the Bible. Not just random verses here and there, but purposefully reading it chapter by chapter?

I've been going for this new Bible study class. I'm really thankful to God that I got to know of the place because there's not many other places that I can go to to get in dept teachings on the Bible. The teacher's name is Cecilia Perh and she started this ministry to teach the word of God for free. On the website, she writes" My heart has always been to pass on whatever good things that I've learnt and so this ministry, 2Tim2-2.com, is a realization of that heart's desire to pass on to others what our gracious Lord has taught me through the many years of studying His precious Word inductively."

The class that I went for (and will be going for) for is on Colossians, but after the first lesson, I was so inspired by how she explained the scriptures to us that I decided to buy her MP3 series on the book of Hebrews. I counted the number of tracks and it amounts to 55 hours in total! I'm working on that bit by bit now.

On reading the Bible

There were certain things she mentioned that I thought was really important. Many of us are not used to reading the Bible as a whole. Instead, we simply take a few random verses, "meditate" on it and assume our job's done. We cannot expect to truly understand and interpret God's word accurately if we don't read His word in context.

As we read the different verses in the Bible, we need to understand how they fit in with the rest of the book, and even how it fits into the entire Bible. For example, if we are reading the New Testament, we need to know who the writers were, who they were addressing, what their purpose was, and what they were saying etc. As we read, we need to keep asking ourselves questions.

There are 3 basics to interpreting the Bible:

Observation teaches you to see precisely what the passage says. It is the basis for accurate interpretation and correct application. Observation answers the question: What does the passage say?

Interpretation answers the question: What does the passage mean?

Application answers the question: What does God want me to do now with this knowledge?

The problem with us is that we usually read a passage and try to apply it straight away without first understanding the real context and how God intended for it to be read. Of course the explanation above is just very brief and hopefully, we can all go for a Bible Study equipping class together to better learn how to accurately understand and interpret the Bible.

For now, let's dilligently read the scriptures, not just random verses but book by book.

In his love,
Germs