The Most Important Thing You’ll Ever Study: Old Testament Vol 1
The Most Important Thing You’ll Ever Study: New Testament Vol 1 is part of an amazing course that guides students in a walk through the Bible from beginning to end to better understand the big picture.
Author Starr Meade guides students to know what God is like, what He requires, and how to have a right relationship with Him through reading His precious Word. God chose to reveal Himself to us through the written Word, His Holy Book the Bible. To see God’s overall message, the Bible should be read like any other book… from beginning to end.
Finding the Bible’s meaning
To gather the Bible’s meaning, we need to study and analyze it. We need to think deeply about the it. Meade shares that each book of the Bible has at least one or more main arguments and important points to make.
Following these arguments and points requires study. Of course, we need to turn this “head knowledge” into “heart knowledge,” affecting how we live out of our lives. But, as God’s Word says, “Knowledge (of God) is the beginning of wisdom.”
Meade shares that she looks upon her survey of the Bible as a study. This study is based upon reading God’s Word each day and studying it.
The focus is on seeing the Bible as a book, with a main character that is God Himself. In His Book, he reveals His own character. This leads us to ask as we read His Word, “What does God do in the story? What do we learn from Him about what He does?”
Next, Meade shares that we need to understand that each book of the Bible was written by a human author who had a reason (or intention) for writing his portion of the Scripture. This intention helped determine the meaning of that particular book of the Bible.
Understanding the context
Even though all Scripture is God breathed, knowing to what audience and for what purpose the human author wrote the book helps us understand what he wrote.
Meade also reminds us that while the Bible is to be read and studied like a book, it is not just any book. This means that we cannot pick and choose what we believe or agree with as we read God’s Book.
Instead, all of our “beliefs, opinions, and preferences must bow before the truth that God reveals in Scripture.” This is such an important distinction that sets study of God’s Word apart from the study of other books!
Last, Meade reminds us that because of sin’s effect upon us, we need the Holy Spirit’s help to grasp what God is saying in His Word and to desire to obey it. “Real understanding requires the work of the Holy Spirit in our hearts.” Apart from God, we will never truly understand His Word. Studying also requires hard work and diligence!
God has good reason for each part that He included in Scripture. This means it is worth the work to get to know His Word well.
- Note: This item is consumable. You will need one per student.
