No 10
(How to study and explore the Bible)
A true believer will never cease
studying the Bible because it is the mind of God and who can say that they know
the mind of God entirely? Good Bible
study requires time and the right tools. A concordance and dictionary are good
for starters; lexicons and commentaries can come later; what a person really
needs to have a good Bible study is an ardent desire to know and to experience
God. It is good to have a system of
study such as :
1) Thematic study – a topic such as forgiveness is chosen; the
person searches through the Bible with the aid of a concordance and in no time,
one has a good grasp on the subject. 2)
Outline study – a person can make their own outlines or résumés of each of
the books of the Bible; it is amazing what a person can discover when this type
of analysis is done. 3) Family study
– this is similar to the thematic study; a topic such as obedience that
concerns the whole family is chosen and together, a family can discover what
God wants for them in this area. 4)
Book study – an individual book is chosen and a person can obtain a few
commentaries written by different authors and arrive at a good appreciation of
the book. There are several other kinds
of studies, but these are the main ones.
I saw a study once on the number of words in the Bible (807,361); the
number of letters in the Bible (3,566,480); the longest verse in the Bible
(Esther 8 : 9); the middle verse in the Bible (Psalm 118 : 8) etc, etc. When I saw these statistics, two words came
to my mind : Who cares? This is not Bible study; it is the work of
someone who had a lot of time on his or her hands. The Apostle John in his gospel (John