Bible study Questions

by bite me 11 Replies latest watchtower bible

  • bite me
    bite me

    What is the best way to have a bible study without the use of watchtower or awake magazines, just with the bible itself?

    Is the best way to just read a book of the bible and study that or read a chapter of a book, or word (topic).
    Then once you figure what you want to do, what is the best way to break it down. I've found sites and books that seemed to be useful, but I am interested in seeing if anyone here has some other ideas that would be a great way to dig further into the bible.

    Personally I have read the whole bible about 5 times through, but I am interested in reading it again but this time really getting into it.

  • NewYork44M
    NewYork44M
    What is the best way to have a bible study without the use of watchtower or awake magazines, just with the bible itself?

    Don't invite any witnesses to the study. They would be of no value without the society's literature.

  • bite me
    bite me
    Don't invite any witnesses to the study. They would be of no value without the society's literature

    Exactly what I was thinking. I need ideas that would not need the use of their literature, using the bible as it was meant to be, without mans twisted interpretations.

  • Deputy Dog
    Deputy Dog

    From:

    http://www.e-sword.net/

    Introduction

    "Freely you received, freely give." (Matthew 10:8)

    Jesus told us that since we've been blessed we should bless others. I am happy to provide a blessing to others in the form of free Bible study software!

    As a Bible student and teacher I have experienced the necessary work involved in searching the Scriptures for the competent preparation of a Bible study, Sunday school lesson, or a sermon. There are volumes of books available as study tools (and the Christian community is indebted to the various authors' perseverance and scholarship), but there is not enough time, money, or shelf space to properly take advantage of these resources. Computer software has changed the way we can study the Word of GOD. With a simple search or click of the mouse button, we now have access to these same volumes of scholarship within seconds!

    e-Sword is a fast and effective way to study the Bible. e-Sword is feature rich and user friendly with more capabilities than you would expect in a free software package. The fact that e-Sword is free is just one of the blessings and does not speak of the quality of the software. I make my living writing software and I believe I have put forth my best effort in this endeavor. The real work, however, was put in by the godly men and women who devoted countless years creating the texts that have been made available for our benefit.

    In His service,

    Rick Meyers

  • My Struggle
    My Struggle

    Depends on what you want, and correct me but it seems that you mean study in general. The thing that I found to be most helpful is finding major themes about the bible. I was totally shocked how ignorant about the bible I was, and still am for that matter, because of the WTBTS teachings. I didn't even know much about the new covenant. So, I had to start at the beginning and see why people even classify the Hebrew scriptures as the Old Testament and the Greek as the New Testament. Once getting into specific books I found it helpful to look at several outlines of the book to help me see major themes within the book. This put into context a lot of scriptures that were not used properly by the WTS. I also found it helpful to listen to the bible on audio. Going though it quicker than I could read it gave a new perspective on some of the major themes. I highly recommend doing this, even if you have read the bible several times.

    About breaking it down. In seminary there are classes on this very subject, properly called hermeneutics. There are some texts that are a very good introduction to the subject and will force you to grow your biblical study. For all things this is a good principle: find the authors focus (historical setting and context), the text itself ( grammar and lexicon), and interpretation. This principle is probably of little value without fleshing it out, but once understood it is fantastic. The book that I have is Biblical Hermeneutics by Corley, Lemke, and Lovejoy.

    Above all the most important thing is to lay aside our thoughts when we enter the bible and pray. This is the hardest thing to do, to read the bible with no notions about what you already believe. Pray that God guides you in your search.

  • bite me
    bite me

    Thank you, MyStruggle

    That was actually useful information and exactly what I was looking for. In a way I do that already; look at outlines. I thnk would be something that I would want to do, create outlines on my own with information I understand on my own. I think that is where I have the most difficulty. I have a few study books that I got from local christian book stores. They pretty much hold questions which allows the readers to find the information themselves. I'm really skeptical on studying that way because I really want to find the information myself and not spoon fed.

    I have a book that has every word of the bible in it, I tried studying that way but became overwhelmed. I tried studying a full book of the bible, even a small book and still found it overwhelming. I guess my next step is to break it down by chapter.

    I used to have a book that helped with that, but my problem was not really knowing what to put down.

    I have not tried the audio, I have thought about that but at first it seemed to elementary for me. When they read it, is it slowly drawn out or does the person reading the bible do a great job? Any recommendations on which brand/author to see if I can find?

    Once again thank you for the info.

  • XJW4EVR
    XJW4EVR

    A good primer is the book How to Read the Bible for all its Worth, by Fee and Stuart. It gives you basic hermeneutics for the different genres found in the Bible.

  • My Struggle
    My Struggle

    Bite,

    Creating an outline yourself is a great idea.

    One more thing that I would like to add. Finding out about the historical purpose of the book in a few words is helpful and also fairly easy. You can find out the intended audience and the purpose of the book usually with a quick web search, often on wiki. This gives a good framework to understand the book. For example, Matthew was written in Hebrew to the Jewish people, so you would expect lots about the Mosaic Law b/c and Jewish perspective that is what they were familiar with.

    Sounds like you have a concordance, which is helpful when looking up a very specific topic or a word study, but outside of that it is not that useful. I would recommend getting a bible dictionary (I like the Holman Dictionary) and a topical bible index (I like MacArthur's topical bible index) to complement your concordance.

    Also, if you dont have any study bibles I would recommend getting a few; the NIV study bible, Reformation study bible, New Jerusalem study bible, MacArthur Study bible are all good. The study bibles are good for their text note, and some have mini essays in them. I think that it is good to have a wide perspective on biblical issues. In line with a study bible would be a good commentary, I have several but the Matthew Henry commentary seems to be the best to me. They wrote their commentary some time back and in several volumes, but you can get it in updated English and in one volume, mine is the one published by Zondervan.

    When you are ready to get really deep look into a Systematic Theology book. They are very weighty and slow read but extremely valuable in getting really deep into specific topics, usually somewhere around 1,000-1,500 pages long. They are a slow read, takes up to a year to go though one and really understand it.

    For the audio. It largely depends on what translation you want, but I happen to have one for the English Standard Version. There are problems with every translation, though the differences between translations are minor (with the exception of the NWT), but I find the ESV to be fair and readable. So, I went with The Listener's Bible narrated by Max McLean for the ESV. I think that this series comes in several different translations. It cost about 50 US dollars and came on four MP3 CDs. Max is a very good reader and I believe that he is a professional storyteller. Sometimes he is a bit high falutin in his reading which takes a bit to get used to, but most often it is warranted when he speaks like that. If I read the King James I think that I would have to go with James Early Jones reading, how cool would that be to hear him read the bible. Unfortunately he only does KJ.

    All this can get really expensive, it took me a few years to build up my library and it still needs growing. Take your time and let God's word pour over you.

  • bite me
    bite me

    Thank you for sharing. Personally I a few variations of bibles.So I know how expense it can start to get. What I do is wait a bit for a coupon at the christian bookstore and buy a 50 or 60 dollar bible for 30 dollars. Learning the word of God should not cost that much. I do have NIV and NLT and NKJV and KJV. I also think I have mac arthur study bible. It is brown in color. I do like the essays that they have in there. I try not to read them too much into them until I know I have a better understanding, which I don't think I am 100 % there yet. Soon I will feel like I have an understanding that I am comfortable with so I too can share the word with my loved ones.

    Thanks again for your reply.

  • trudy
    trudy

    Hello my fellow seeker!

    This is how I study, 'prayer while searching Bible word topics while using a concordance.'

    I wanted to know THE TRUTH. So, (ironically enough, I found 'the truth' by using the JW concordance)
    The first word I looked up was "TRUTH". That is when I found this scripture:

    Christ said, "I am the truth" ( John 14:6 ) If you are in Christ, you are in the truth.

    I also use Bible Gateway. You can look up Bible phrases. It is an awesome tool!

    http://www.biblegateway.com

    while in there, type in the phrase, ' in Christ '

    It is truly amazing how often this phrase is in the New Testament yet while in the JW org. I didn't see it.

    My prayers go with you as you study.

    Your sis in Christ,
    trudy

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