Pick up a quick tip to get more out of your Bible study

I've taught for over twenty years and I can help you go deeper when you open up the Word.

Study Tip: Complete Sentences

I posted Tuesday and nine o’clock or so last night, I realized Tuesday… should’ve been a Study Tip Tuesday! So… Here it is on Thursday (still starts with a ‘T’- that counts for something, right?)

The previous tip dealt with how chapter breaks sometimes interrupt the flow. Today we’ll consider the fact that occasionally the verse ends before the sentence does. In 2 Corinthians 1:3, we read “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and God of all comfort,”. The verse ends with a comma telling us the thought isn’t complete even though it may sound that way.

If we consider verse 4 alone, it’s even more obvious that something is missing. “who comforts us in all our tribulation, that we may be able to comfort those who are in any trouble, with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God.” Not only does the verse start with a lowercase letter, but reading it, we know we’re in the middle of something.

Taken all together, we get the complete thought-
Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our tribulation, that we may be able to comfort those who are in any trouble, with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God.

Another example is in Ephesians 1:3-6.
Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ, just as He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before Him in love, having predestined us to adoption as sons by Jesus Christ to Himself, according to the good pleasure of His will, to the praise of the glory of His grace, by which He made us accepted in the Beloved.

Paul writes a sentence/paragraph that is divided into 4 verses in our Bible. Granted the sentence is packed, and the verse divisions may help us digest it, but they also may cause us to lose the interconnectedness of the ideas.

Watch for this especially in the New Testament epistles. (And especially in Ephesians!)

Study Tip: Chapter Breaks

By Paula

When God inspired men to write His words, divisions for chapters and verses were NOT included in that divine revelation. In fact, it was hundreds of years before those were added. I’ve heard one story that a monk rode his donkey while he copied the Scripture. Whenever the donkey’s gait caused the monk’s pen to jerk, that became a new verse. Whatever method was used, the man-made system is sometimes less than perfect. Sometimes, if we get away from the chapter divisions, we see some fresh connections.For example, my Sunday school kids have studied these verses in the last couple of weeks-

When He had been baptized, Jesus came up immediately from the water; and behold, the heavens were opened to Him, and He saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and alighting upon Him. And suddenly a voice came from heaven, saying, “This is My beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.” Then Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil.

(That’s Matthew 3:16-17 and 4:1) Of course, we studied the baptism of Jesus one week and the temptation the following week. And of course, these are two separate incidents, but the chapter break may prevent us from realizing the connection between the two events. God the Father had identified Jesus as the Messiah, the sacrifice for sins. Now the Lamb was going to be examined to ensure that He was without any blemish or defect. He would be tested to prove He was an acceptable sacrifice. Matthew’s whole point in writing a gospel was to demonstrate that Jesus of Nazareth was the Messiah prophesied in the Old Testament, that He fulfilled all of God’s law.

Matthew 4 into 5 is another example of a bad break. Chapter 5 begins “And seeing the multitudes…” And? You can’t start a chapter with ‘and’… What multitudes? Where’d they come from? The end of chapter 4 tells you that Jesus healed a bunch of folks and so huge crowds were following Him from Galilee, Decapolis, Jerusalem, Judea and beyond Jordan…” (We’ll save the geography lesson for some other time.)

As you study, watch the words at the beginning of a chapter and notice how they connect to what precedes them.

Study Tip: Repeat, Repeat

By Paula

One way to improve your Bible study is to be an active reader, notice what’s in the text. One of the first things you’ll notice are repeated words and phrases. For instance, Psalm 26:1 says ‘I have walked in my integrity’. Verse 3 says ‘I have walked in Your truth’. Verse 11- the next to last- says ‘I will walk in my integrity’. The Psalm begins and ends with walking in integrity.

From the dictionary (and last week’s tip) integrity means a strict adherence to a moral code; genuineness, and your walk is how you conduct yourself through this life. ‘Your truth’ from verse 3 tips us off as to what that code is.

So a key idea God wants to teach us in Psalm 26 is to live day by day with an honest, genuine commitment to His truth. (His truth is the ONLY truth, but that’s another topic altogether.)

If God says something in His word, it’s important. If He repeats Himself, then we should take notice.

Study Tip: Use a Dictionary

By Paula

In yesterday’s post, I mentioned I got sidetracked in the dictionary while I was studying Psalm 23. Here are the reasons I study with a dictionary:1. The definitions for familiar words are often broader and deeper than I’m aware of.
Example: Psalm 119:2 says ‘Blessed are those who keep His testimonies, Who seek Him with the whole heart!’
I read ‘keep’ and my first thought was ‘obey’, but there is more to it. Webster’s gives additional meanings and synonyms. Keep- hold, treasure, safeguard, obey, observe.
Then there’s seek. Seek – look for, search out, uncover, study, consider, take counsel.

2. It adds a fresh dimension when studying well-known passages.
Example: Psalm 23. Yesterday I looked at ‘want’ and ‘anointing’. Looking at those seemingly familiar words keeps me focused on the passage and removes the temptation to glaze over.

3. I am a Word-nerd. Jon’s Sunday school class is studying spiritual gifts and one of the traits of a teacher is a fascination with what God’s word says- the breadth, the depth, the detail, and the TRUTH. It pegged me. I get excited about little [boring] things like the description of the tabernacle. It’s not just knowledge for the sake of knowledge. I want you to see how well God’s Word works in our lives. I want you to help you see how to apply it. That’s why I like squeezing as much out of each passage as I can.

My characters often go through a process of discovery with God’s Word and a few of them study ‘my’ way. Bobbi does for sure. She was my first main character, so she is more like me than any of the others. She’s not afraid to question God, argue with Him, and admit when she doesn’t want to follow His guidelines. God honors the heart that seeks Him, though, even in fiction. He gives the answers we need, and the strength to let go of the questions He chooses not to answer.

Study Tip: Complete Sentences

Study Tip: Chapter Breaks

Study Tip: Repeat, Repeat

Study Tip: Use a Dictionary

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