Becoming Familiar

It is a good idea to become familiar with a text of the Bible at a high level before beginning a close study of it.  The goal of this familiarization is to get a "forest" level understanding prior to examining each grove of trees or even each individual tree.  The most basic way of getting this sort of understanding is to read the section of the Bible over and over again. 

As we are beginning a study of the book of Titus, I would encourage you to read over the whole book, which is only three chapters long, each day leading up to the first meeting this coming Friday morning Sept. 12, 2008.  Doing so will give you an overview understanding of the book and will help down the road when we look at the text a little closer to aid in preventing taking the apostle Paul's writing out of context.  

Why is reading the Bible So Valuable? - Part 4

This past Sunday, during the men's first hour study, I turned the discussion back a couple of weeks to cover a little more about the first of the "Six Habits of spiritually happy men", namely spiritually happy men read their Bible regularly. I read a bit from a rather long sermon given by a 19th century preacher on this subject, J.C. Ryle. I mentioned that I would put a link on the blog to the full text of the sermon:
Bible-Reading by J.C. Ryle
The link above points to the great website: The Bible Bulletin Board. I have written about this site in a previous post and there is a link provided for you over on the sidebar on the right.

Scripture Memorization (TMS)

Many of you know that I am a big proponent of memorizing verses in the Bible. I have been amazed at the number of times in my life when I am involved in a conversation with someone, or in some sort of situation and a memorized verse comes to mind that informs my understanding. Many times it has happened when someone asks me a question, expecting a certain result, and the answer that comes back surprises them because it is quoted scripture and not just an opinion. The staff of the Navigators have developed a set of Bible verses that are organized into topics that when memorized can provide a scriptural knowledge base on a broad range of applications. They call their system the "Topical Memory System." It is available for purchase as a book along with companion flash cards, but they also list the verses and the topics on their website. Perhaps people don't memorize Bible verses because they don't know where to start, or what verses to memorize. If that is the case, I would encourage you to choose one verse from the list, let us know about your choice by leaving a comment on this article, and then work at committing that one verse to memory, and then let us know you have made that verse, that part of God's word, part of your being by reciting it to one or all of us sometime in the next few weeks. It will help you grow in your relationship with Jesus and will honor and glorify Him.

The Navigators

From time to time we have heard Pastor Stout mention his involvement with The Navigators during his enlistment in the US Air Force. Have heard of the strong discipling influence that organization, and in particular his personal mentor, had on his life. Therefore, today, I thought I'd post a link to The Navigators website and add it to the side bar on the right. Furthermore, in the coming days, I'll probably highlight some areas of their website that could be of particular use to our church body as we endeavor to "become disciples of Christ and to help others to become disciples of Christ."

JEHOVAH-RA-AH Additional Material

The folks over at Preceptaustin.org have a great collection of articles, including a set on the Names of God (the set includes 2 articles on this week's topic JEHOVAH-RA-AH). I previously highlighted their site when we were studying the lesson on JEHOVAH-NISSI. There is generally a large amount of background on each topic. Usually it is presented using a sort of question and answer approach. This approach works good for me because it helps me to develop the skill of asking questions around the topic and then letting the answers inform my understanding of the subject matter.

Note: I have put a link to Preceptaustin.org in the links sidebar on the right.

9 Marks

While on my afternoon Internet break today at work I came across an interesting website called 9marks.org. According to the website, their mission is as follows:

We believe the local church is the focal point of God's plan for displaying his glory to the nations. Our vision is simple: Churches that reflect the character of God. Our mission is to cultivate and encourage churches characterized by these nine marks: Expositional Preaching, Biblical Theology, Biblical Understanding of the Good News, Biblical Understanding of Conversion, Biblical Understanding of Evangelism, Biblical Understanding of Membership, Biblical Church Discipline, Promotion of Christian Discipleship and Growth, Biblical Understanding of Leadership.

I took a couple minutes to look over the first Mark, Expositional Preaching, and found it very interesting. I have added this site to the links area over on the right sidebar. I look forward to looking over each of the lessons contained under each of the 9 Marks.

Do any of the 9 Marks stand out as particularly interesting to you?

Bible Bulletin Board

Another great resource for extended Bible study is the Bible Bulletin Board (I have added it to the links on the sidebar as well). It contains broad array of searchable topic areas including, Gospel GEMs (Great Evangelical Messages), Sermons and Articles, Charles Spurgeon Collection, George Whitefield Collection, John MacArthur Collection, Recommended Books for Christians and numerous others all of which are searchable using the 'Google Powered' search field on the site. A search using the key-term 'Nissi' yielded this result. I haven't had the opportunity to read the articles in the returned search items yet, but I will endeavor to get the through the most relevant ones prior to this Sunday's class.

Blue Letter Bible

One of the tools that I use frequently when studying a passage in the Bible is the Blue Letter Bible. The website includes resources such as many different translations of the Bible, reference material for Greek, Hebrew and Aramaic as well as numerous commentaries and even a look-up to see if there is a Hymn that is associated with a particular verse. I have added a links pane along the right side of the page. Blue Letter Bible is the first link there. We can add more as we discover and use them.

What are some of your favorite resources that you use in your Bible study?