How to Study the Bible

Well, praise the Lord, thanks for being with us.

My name is Thomas. I'm the pastor here at Portland

Gospel, and I'm so thankful for those songs, man, I just love

our music every week. So thankful for that.

Thankful for the truth in those songs as well.

We're going to continue in something that we kind of

started last week. So last week you can go back on

our YouTube or Spotify or Apple, wherever you want to find

things. And we did how to Read the Bible

and we started a new Bible reading plan together.

And as a church, it's our goal to just be a part of reading the

scriptures and to have accountability and discussions

around God's word. So there's 2 tracks.

There's a New Testament only plan.

If you want to read the New Testament in one year, it's

about 5 chapters a week, less than 1 chapter a day.

You can totally do that. If you want to be a big boy or

big girl, you can also attach the Old Testament to that.

We have both of those on our website, portlandgospel.org.

And I think it's also in your bulletin thing that's now one

page for you. You're welcome for that and

trying to get everything onto one page for you.

So we did how to read the Bible and I gave you some steps just

for how you can approach the Word of God and how you can hear

from it for yourself. Today we want to continue in

that same vein and look at how to study the Bible now, as David

already gave us some handles on our Bible studies.

There's a lot of things that we could say and do in this time.

The the Bible's a big book and there are some principles for

understanding it that we would teach and what we would call

like a homiletics class. Homiletics would be, I'm sorry,

hermeneutics. These two words are very

similar. How to interpret the Bible

essentially today. We won't be getting deep into

that. I just want to give us a basic

substance and really this is going to help us kick off our

Bible studies this week. We're going to begin in the book

of Colossians. So I want to encourage you to be

with us. But, but let's maybe ask this

question first. Why?

Why do we study the Bible? You don't have to have an answer

for that. It's OK, I'll, I'll say it for

you if you're not ready for that.

By the way, we have notes if you want to follow along.

There's some papers in the back of the room.

If you didn't get one of those, they'll be helpful for you to

have cross references and that sort of thing.

But let's talk about why we studied the Bible in the first

place. Well, I'm going to give us 2

reasons. There are many more.

Certainly I could talk a lot right now, but to keep them

simple, I would say let's start first with the lost.

For the lost to be saved. We just sang those songs about

being saved to sin no more. And I what a friend we have in

Jesus. But that's not true for

everybody. Not all of the world are saved

Christian people. And oh, by the way, I'm sorry I

forgot to dismiss the kids. Thank you.

My bad. Why?

They get to have pizza tonight. So they're like, ready.

I know Watson was ready to go. But it might be easy to look on

America or other places. Doesn't say there.

There's a lot of Christian people or Christian things, but

as far as God is concerned, man is essentially lost until

they're saved. The Bible says something like

this. All have sinned and fallen short

of the glory of God there. There is no man that sinneth

not. We've all done things that are

wrong. The Bible says the wages of sin

is death, and what we inherit because of our sin is eternal

damnation and separation from God.

But the Bible says that God commended his love toward us,

and that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.

And what Jesus did on the cross was paid for the sins of the

world, so that whosoever believes in him would be saved.

To be saved, to sin no more, to have their sins washed away and

being made new and have a home in heaven, to have a

relationship with God. And that comes at a time that we

choose to put our faith and trust and what this book has to

say. This is the only place that

you'll find what I just shared with you, that Jesus saves, that

he rose from the dead, that he paid for the sins of the world,

that you're a Sinner and that God wants to save you.

You won't find this and anywhere else outside of this book and

this book is going to have a lot to do with you being saved.

This might sound crazy, but it's not possible to be saved without

the book. Peter says being born again.

That's what happens at the moment we choose to trust on

Christ, ask him to save us and forgive us.

It says by the word of God, which liveth and abideth

forever. So born again is what happens,

like I said, when we choose to believe that Jesus died on the

cross and make him our Lord, and that happens when we receive the

word of God. So the Scriptures are incredibly

important for anyone coming to faith in Jesus.

Jesus says it this way. He says in this parable of the

soils, he says the seed is the word of God.

And if you're familiar with this parable, the the seed was sown

on different kinds of hearts, the different soils, and the

seed, the Bible frequently interprets itself.

The seed is the word of God, which is sown upon the heart.

Paul says it this way. He says that faith comes by

hearing, and hearing by the word of God.

So if we want the people in our lives to have faith, they have

to hear from the word of God first.

Paul also says to Timothy that of Timothy's childhood, he said

from a child thou has known the Holy Scriptures which are able

to make the wise unto salvation through faith which is in Christ

Jesus. Now not everybody is going to be

raised in church. Praise God for those of us that

were that even whenever we weren't like willingly learning

the Bible, Maybe there is something that happens that

we're able to become wise unto salvation because of our

exposure to the Word of God. I remember being in a church

basement and Rush Township and people teaching a punk kid who

just want to kick back up on the chair and play with my friends.

I don't remember what I learned in those moments, but I know

that there was some transmission.

I was gaining some kind of knowledge and it was much later

that I decided to choose to believe that for myself.

But Paul says to Timothy from a child thou hast known the Holy

Scriptures. So I read to my kids almost

every night. The Bible has many, sometimes

harrowing stories of death and that's the I boys.

So that's the stuff that they like some pretty wild and crazy

stuff. And I'm just trying to get as

much in there as I can so that they can become wise to

salvation. So I put it to you this way,

opening the Bible with the lost allows them to hear from God.

Because like I said a moment ago, it's not possible to be

born again without exposure to the Word of God.

Now, you might let your mind drift, and we can't get too far

off with this, but what about the guy on a mountaintop?

What about the guy in North Korea or the gal in another

country? Well, God is good.

He's not trying to trick anyone. He knows all things.

He sees all things, but they have to have a messenger, they

have to have the words of God to be able to be saved.

You can't get saved from nature. You need a revelation.

The Scriptures. David quoted this earlier in

Romans 10. It says how shall they call on

Him and whom they have not believed.

You cannot look at a tree or a mountain or a river and come to

understand that God put on human flesh and took your sin on on

the cross and was buried and rose again.

You just cannot have that kind of revelation from being in

nature or from any other book. You need to have someone come

and share with you. It says, how shall they believe

in whom they have not heard? How shall they hear without a

preacher? So here at this church, as

Tucker said, we want to equip you to believe, live and share

the good news. We want you to be a messenger of

the gospel that you're our Bible studies would be places that

people can come and learn from the Scriptures, hear from God

and choose to follow Christ. But that's just one application.

That's to the lost. The second one is for the saved

to be edified. For the saved to be edified.

There are just so many things in the Bible that the lost man will

never understand. The lost man can probably learn

about as much as that he needs to be saved.

Beyond that, there is a spiritual comprehension required

to learn all of the Bible. So don't expect in your Bible

studies that lost people are really going to be hanging in

there. They're going to get something

hopefully, and you just need to get them to the gospel whenever

you can. First Corinthians chapter 2

1 Corinthians 2 · chapter mention

tells us that the natural man receiveth not the things of the

Spirit of God, for they are foolishness unto him.

You know people like this this week, Nathan, who we were with,

we had a group of guys from our Bible study this week passing

out Flyers in the city to say, hey, we're starting a Bible

study. Come and join us.

And I had some guy say, well, you really think there's

something up there like I do you want to come to Bible study?

And you know, he kept walking. But the natural man, the the

person that's not born again, they haven't trusted Christ.

They don't have the Holy Spirit. He thinks it's foolishness.

You mean you believe in the a book, you believe God became a

man. You believe that there's

something up there. It goes on to say neither can he

know them because they are spiritually discerned.

So Christian, there is truth in this book for you that the rest

of the world does not get. Isn't that amazing?

You can think about just so many wonderful truths that the lost

world cannot process. But unfortunately for many

Christians, most Christians end their Christian life at the born

again experience and they never grow beyond what the Bible calls

a babe. When we're born into God's

family, we're born a spiritual baby.

Paul writing to this church in Corinth described this whole

church in this way. He said, y'all are so immature.

He said, an I brethren, could not speak unto you as unto

spiritual like, hey, I have things I want to tell you, but

as unto carnal, even as unto babes in Christ, I have fed you

with milk and not with me. For hitherto you were not able

to bear it neither yet now are you able.

So you'll find that many things in this book are only going to

be exposed to you as you grow. At first you just need a bottle,

you need to be nursed, you need someone to spoon feed you.

What does the Bible say and help grow you up?

But you don't want to stay in that state.

So in God's Kingdom, time in the Kingdom does not equal maturity.

Doesn't matter how long you've known Christ, that doesn't make

you any more mature if you're not in God's Word and walking

with him. And Peter says the antidote is

to, as newborn babes desire the sincere milk of the word that

you may grow thereby. You need to have a desire for

the word of God. You need to be nursing on the

words of truth, to grow up and understand what does it say and

what does God want me to do? Paul says to Timothy to be

nourished up in the words of faith and of good doctrine, So

you, you have to be in God's word.

The author of Hebrews compares these two different types of

people the the spiritual babe and the mature and he uses these

two types of food to describe the word of God, milk and meat.

It says for when for the time you ought to be teachers.

So this group of Hebrews Paul says you all should know this

stuff by now. He says you have need that one

teach you again the 1st principles of the oracles of God

and are become such as has have need of milk and not of strong

meat. Now, if I were like a a better

illustration pastor, I would have someone come up here and be

drinking a gallon of milk during the entire sermon and you know,

see how things go by the end of the sermon.

As you're probably aware, you can't drink a gallon of milk in

under an hour and keep it down right As an adult, you, you

can't be nursed in a bottle all day long.

It's actually not it's not going to be good for you right.

You you need to move on from that, he says for everyone that

uses milk is unskillful in the word of righteousness for he is

a babe. So just like you would not trust

a child to to develop a real skill and learn how to do

something. The same is true for Christians.

There is a skill in Bible study and understanding it, he says,

but strong meat belonging to them that are of full age.

Now that's that's not just old, It's developed, brought to

maturity in Christ. Even those who by reason of

their use have their senses exercised to discern both good

and evil. See what a comprehension of this

book does is it enables you to have a sense about you, a

discernment for good and evil. You know what's right, you know

what's wrong. You hear God's voice and you can

say that ain't right and I'm I'll tell you why that ain't

right. But if you're a babe, you you

just need someone else to spoon feed you.

You do not know on your own. So I put it to you this way in

your notes, you will grow in direct proportion to your time

spent in God's word. Not everybody's spiritual growth

is the same. Some people seem to have

accelerated growth and for those, that's usually the people

that are giving themselves to this book, to understand it, to

hear from it, to let it reprove and correct them and direct

them. How about you?

Have you been acting like a spiritual baby?

I mean, maybe you are. If you are, praise the Lord,

there's a place for babies and families, right?

We love them. They're cute, they're wonderful.

When you get past the baby age, you're like, oh, could we maybe

have another one? We're we can't, we're not, we're

not going to, we can't. There's so much work.

But they're cute, right? We love babies.

There's a place for that. If you just got saved, man,

there's no judgement. We're not mad at you.

Just like I'm not mad at my now 6 year old child for being six

man. We're thankful.

We just want to help him grow to the next thing in his life.

Do you know the scriptures? I mean, I think of it like this.

Could you take the Bible and lead another person to Christ?

If you can't do that, don't tell me you're spiritually mature.

If you can't lead a Bible study, I'm not mad at anybody.

We're not upset. We're talking about the

difference in grown and not grown.

So we have a couple Bible studies coming up.

Monday nights the ladies meet in Southwest PSU, man, Praise God

meets on Tuesdays at 4:00 and then in my office in the city we

meet at 6:00 on Thursdays. Man, we would love to have you

join us for Bible study. It's a goal of mine that our our

whole chart church starts to get plugged into these Bible studies

and they become a midweek kind of fellowship for us.

So those are two reasons why to study the Bible.

So the loss can be saved, so the saved can be edified.

But now let's look at more specifically how we looked at

why. Let's look at how.

And again, I'm not going to give you all of the Bible study

principles. We have a class after personal

discipleship that will teach you all kinds of things like

context, the rule of first mention, comparing Scripture

with scripture, all kinds of wonderful things.

And you'll learn some of that as you attend a Bible study.

But for now, I think if we're using the word study, let's go

to where the Scriptures use the word as well.

So if you have a Bible, turn it to Second Timothy 2:15.

2 Timothy 2:15

The word study shows up three times in the King James Bible.

Only three. Today in Second Timothy 2:15

2 Timothy 2:15

we'll look at man a verse that you ought to memorize.

It says study to show thyself approved unto God, a Workman

that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of

truth. This is an absolutely critical

verse for us and our understanding of the Bible and

what Christian people should be doing.

There are so many things that churches could and should be

doing, but we definitely should be a people that are studying

the book. So I broke this down and just to

just a few points for you and how to study.

First is that we've got to do the work.

Do the work. That's your blank and point A is

do the work. You see it.

The Bible uses this word study in this other word, it says a

Workman and that that means to us that we're going to need to

apply some kind of effort. You've probably never

accidentally studied for anything in your life, right?

Like when I went to college, I had to learn that you really

actually had to study things. I didn't really want to do that.

But if you don't study, you don't pass and you have to

actually apply yourself to learn some things.

Merriam Webster uses this is his definition for study.

He says to apply the mind to. To read and examine for the

purpose of learning and understanding.

This is the kind of effort that takes work, a Workman kind of

work. This doesn't mean that we're

going to beat our beat each other up in Bible study and make

it super intense, but it's not going to be casual either.

This kind of effort is lacking today in applying your oneself

in a trade or a skill learning the guitar.

We often quit. We're becoming weak.

We don't want to do anything difficult because now we just

have. You'd probably know what this

is, right? We have these prompts that just

say the Bible is TLDR ChatGPT. Just tell me what it says,

right? Maybe if you're over 30 you're

not doing that, but everyone under 30 is Definitely.

This is the prompt. I don't want to read it.

I just want to have this much information to be able to make a

decision on. And you'll just never learn the

Bible that way. It'll never happen.

You'll learn a few facts about the Bible, and ChatGPT is never

going to give you objective truth because it's designed not

to tell you that Christianity is the only way.

The Bible says in Isaiah 28, whom shall he teach knowledge

and whom shall he make to understand doctrine?

Them that are weaned from the milk and drawn from the breasts.

Knowledge and doctrine. That's something that we have to

apply ourselves to. And maybe you've never weaned a

child, but the weaning process isn't super simple.

It takes a little bit of effort. We kind of want to go back to

those things that make us feel comfortable and safe, but we

have to grow. So I put it to you this way, if

you want to study the Bible, you'll have to actually apply

yourself. Have you ever woken up one day

and got to the end of the day and realized I accidentally

studied the Bible today? That's never going to happen.

It's going to need to be intentional.

So let me ask you, where is it on your calendar?

Maybe it's personal study at home.

Maybe it's a group that you want to come to.

We would love to help you get started.

We would love to help you understand.

So please come to Bible study. All right, Next is you need to

have God in mind. So if you're going to study the

Bible, you need to do some work. You're going to apply yourself

and you're going to make sure to have the author of the

Scriptures in mind. This was critical if you can

remember from last week. If you just want to read the

Bible and get anything out of it, the first thing you do is

pray. I need to have an open heart.

OK, God, what do I need to see? Teach me, show me.

Because all scripture is given by inspiration of God.

This book claims to be given life from God himself.

It's not just an ordinary book. So we need to consult the

author. We can't just neglect him and

look at it scientifically or look at it historically.

We need to look at it as if it was written by God.

The Bible tells us also that the Holy Spirit called by Jesus in

John 14, the Holy Ghost is the one who will teach you all

things. So you're never just going to

learn this book like a robot. You need to spend time with God.

Consider the author and he will teach you and it says here

there's a relationship that God has with the person that studies

his word first. It says that God trusts approved

ministers, approved ministers. The Bible says study to show

thyself approved unto God. Now, this type of approval, this

is not salvation. OK.

The songs that we sang, the blood of Christ covers our sin

belief. Faith in the gospel saves us

from our sins. So it's not that we studied the

Bible to go to heaven, but we have a relationship with God and

we don't want to be infants the rest of our life.

Many people though, they think that time in the Kingdom equals

maturity and they end up unapproved, unequipped 2nd

Corinthians 10, the Bible says not he that commendeth himself

is approved, but whom the Lord commendeth.

So if we're just looking at that word approved study to show

thyself approved unto God, it this isn't something that we get

to do to say look, I'm approved, I'm wonderful.

Look how good I am, look how smart I am.

We know also that studying the Bible, as we'll see in a moment,

it's going to protect us from false teaching.

It says of these that were approved in the Corinthian

church, it says there must also be heresies among you, that they

which are approved may be made manifest among you.

There are heresies among us as well.

I just last night ended up on a Portland church's website.

I don't even know how I found it on accident and was reading

their doctrinal statement and you're just like, what is wrong?

How do people come to how do you believe this?

That's not every church. And I'm not better than anybody

else. But heresy is a deviation from

the true understanding of the Bible, the actual truth of it.

But if you study it, you can be approved and it says here you'll

be made manifest or made known. You'll stick out when you have a

full understanding and mature understanding of the Bible.

You're going to be sticking out around you.

So I put it to you this way in your notes, If we cannot handle

the Scriptures, why would God trust us with anything else?

Many people want to be leaders. They want to be on the worship

team. They want to make disciples.

They want to be promoted. I've been here long enough.

I got my dues. I've been paying my tithes.

I deserve to be wherever. But at least in this church, if

you don't have a decent comprehension of the Bible, you

can't be a leader. I don't know what I would have

you lead or do almost everything that we do.

I would need to entrust you with rightly dividing the word of

truth. So the requirements for leading

a Bible study in this church, we have people leading our Bible

studies. I think I put these on the

screen for you. These, these leaders are

approved. They're trusted, OK?

They are members in good standing of our church.

They have completed a one-on-one personal discipleship

relationship, being mentored by somebody else in the Scriptures.

That doesn't mean they're a Bible scholar, but they know the

Bible a little bit. After that we have a class.

It's a 16 week class that we call How to Study the Bible that

will teach you principles for how to interpret it and

understand it for yourself. And then lastly there we have to

give the thumbs up. So just taking a class doesn't

mean you can lead a Bible study. So I want you to trust whoever

it is that's leading the Bible study, that you're a part of

you. You can trust them.

They may not have all the answers.

They can go home and study and bring them back and answer your

questions later. But you can trust these people.

And in some ways, leadership needs to be approved.

Paul wrote to the church in Rome.

He said salute apeles approved in Christ, salute them which are

of Aristobulus household, etcetera.

So he gives a a long list of names and he calls this man the

the word approved is used many times, but he says this man is

approved in Christ. So your leadership needs to say,

yeah, you you should be leading a Bible study.

That would be good. But let's look next.

That study produces boldness. So our verse and Second Timothy

215 study to show thyself approved unto God a Workman that

needeth not to be ashamed. The opposite of ashamed is

shame, right? That's what the enemy of God

does to make us feel bad, to expose us, to make us guilty and

miserable. But if we study the Scriptures,

we needeth not to be ashamed. We'll find an interesting

result. The psalmist said in Psalm 119,

Let my heart be sound in thy statutes, that I may that I be

not ashamed. Psalm 119 uses different words

for the Scripture, like statutes, judgments, precepts,

etcetera, but all applying to the Word of God.

And so if our heart is sound in the Word of God, it's going to

produce in us a lack of shame. A couple other examples.

Paul says to the church at Rome, I am not ashamed of the gospel

of Christ. He says in Romans 5 that hope

maketh not ashamed. So I put it to you this way.

Confidence in God's Word causes us to share it boldly.

Have you ever found this to be true, that when you're ignorant

on a subject and someone asks you a question, you're not very

bold or you shouldn't be? You don't want to be a fool.

Well, I am not really sure. I'm going to have to go check

that one out. And that's, that's an OK.

If someone asks you a hard Bible question, that's an OK response.

Don't, don't make things up. But when you've been in God's

word and someone has a question about it and you're like, yeah,

I'm in. Let me show you.

There's some kind of boldness that we have.

We're not ashamed. And some of that only comes from

study time in the Scriptures. Roman says that whosoever

believeth on him shall not be ashamed.

God wants you to be bold. The righteous are bold as a

lion. But that only comes with knowing

what you're talking about. Let's look next at rightly

dividing. So when we're studying the

Bible, we're going to apply ourself.

We're going to keep the author in mind and let him approve of

us and grow in our boldness and our confidence.

But then we've got to make some divisions.

This verse says rightly dividing the word of truth.

So if you do it right, if you apply yourself, you seek the

Lord, you find your proper divisions in the Scripture.

What you'll walk away with the Bible says, and I quote, is the

word of truth. And that's what we want.

We want the truth. Jesus said the truth is the

thing that makes you free. Thy word is truth.

Jesus says in John 17, we need the truth.

Solomon said that we can know the certainty of the words of

truth. So if we rightly divide, meaning

that there are divisions in this book, we said this last week,

not everything in the Bible applies to you today.

You're not under the ceremonial law, you're not in the Book of

Revelation. There's a place and time in

history, and there's a way in which this applies to you, and

you've got to make right divisions.

You need to understand it. Isaiah says that precept must be

upon precept. So the Bible builds upon itself.

You need to understand line upon line.

Here a little, there a little. We compare Scripture with

Scripture. Paul says that the result of

good teaching would be this, that we be no more children

tossed to and fro and carried about with every wind of

doctrine by the slight and cunning craftiness whereby they

lie and wait to deceive. Ephesians chapter 4.

Ephesians 4 · chapter mention

It right before this, it gives you pastors and teachers and

then there's a church and a place for you to belong and

there's a protection that you get spiritually when you expose

yourself regularly to teaching of God's Word.

But there is every wind of doctrine.

This world blows with a lot of weird and strange stuff.

I mean, there's just some wild things.

I started to make a list and I thought that's probably not very

helpful for me to just call out a bunch of false teaching.

But whenever you're scrolling, you got TikTok theology.

Yeah, that sounds good. Oh, yeah, that one's good.

Oh, yeah, that one's good. Oh, yeah.

That. And I'm just going to tell you,

a lot of these podcasts, YouTube people, they're not approved in

the sense that they don't, they're not a pastor.

They've not been trained. There's not a person that laid

hands on them and said, we ordain you to this ministry.

They just got a camera and started talking.

Have they studied? Do they?

Are they rightly dividing? Every wind of doctrine blows and

you better believe it's all around the Internet.

So be careful who you listen to. But your last blank for this

section is that rightly dividing will protect you from false

teaching. By the way, our Bible studies

being led by our Bible study leaders that are trained, our

Bible studies are all going to operate under our doctrinal

statement. You can go to our website and

look at our beliefs and see what we believe about God, Jesus, the

Bible and all that sort of thing.

Feel free to let me know if you have any questions about that

stuff. We'd love to talk about it.

But our Bible studies are not going to deviate from our

doctrinal statement. So they're just some things that

we're not going to come to the same conclusion on for other

people. And again, I'd love to help you

if you have any questions with that.

But let's look next at our process of Bible study.

So this is going to be brief. This part I don't have any

verses for. I just want to share with you

what we're going to be doing in Bible study.

So earlier in the the end of last year, we did Bible study a

certain in a certain kind of way with some columns and that is

fine and good. But we're going to move on to

something a little different for this year.

So I just want to go over that with you.

I also wrote this and put it on our website.

If you go to our Bible study page, you can go and read

everything that I'm sharing with you right now.

So our process is going to look pretty simple that I put this in

your notes. OK, so we want to first start

with the time of greeting. It might sound weird, but you

know, just hey, how are you doing?

How's your family? Haven't seen you in a week.

How's that thing we prayed for? OK, cool.

Now let's let's jump in and let's move on.

But we need to get to know each other.

If there are any guests, we want everyone to feel welcome to say

hi. Maybe we can explain how we do

what we do, tell them, hey, we're a part of a church, come

and hang out with us on Sunday, etcetera.

The next is that we want to read.

And I know last week this was a point as well, like at some

point we just have to do the work and read it several times.

So you're going to probably read it at least three times before

you study it because you need to have it in your mind and in your

heart to know what you're even thinking about before you start

dissecting it. So you'll read it independently

and silently to yourself. Then we'll go around in a circle

and read it. Then we'll read it again.

Because especially if you've never read it before, you just

got to get it in there. By the way, this is a good time

to just say that the the version of the Bible that we use is

important. You're welcome to bring any

Bible that you want to Bible study.

We're going to ask that you use the King James Bible if you're

willing, because the way we do cross references, like maybe if

you have a different version of the Bible, that verse in second

Timothy 215, the King James says study.

Almost every English version of the Bible does not use the word

study right there. So when we're cross reference

referencing and we're saying, where else does the word study

show up in the Bible, We're going to come up to different

conclusions. If we're not singing from the

same sheet of music, you can bring whatever Bible you want,

but as a church that's we use the King James next is the

theme. So we say hi, we read and then

we want to just say, what, what are we reading?

Like if I was ChatGPT and I said, hey, what did that?

Just tell me? Like say it to me in a sentence,

right? Maybe you've got 5 or 10 verses.

OK, what'd you just read? Let's just summarize it.

OK? Yeah, that's a good summary.

The summary has to come from the contents, right?

OK, yeah, that's a good summary. And what that's going to do is

help you stay focused for the rest of your study.

You're not getting wild and crazy over here with did Adam

have a belly button? You're you're focusing on the

theme of where you are in the moment.

So you can for the theme, look for repetitive words.

Ask simply what is it saying, or try to summarize it into one

sentence. After you do that, you'll get

into dissection. This is the part that we often

want to jump to. What does it all mean?

But before you can do that, the Bible says that God is not the

author of confusion and that believing in the Scriptures and

having the Holy Spirit, you can have a sound mind.

So that means that God's word is intuitive, it can be broken up

and it's organized into intelligent chunks.

So what you're going to do in dissection is try to discover

the the thoughts. What, what is, what are these

few verses saying? And then we move to the next

few, what are these few verses saying?

And we can take those logical breaks in the sentences.

Sometimes punctuation helps us to discover OK a period.

Ends of thought and now we have the beginning of a new thought.

Or we have a word like therefore that says what is this referring

back to? So we just dissect and break it

into a few sections and then spend the rest of the time

looking at the words and understanding what the sections

say. So dissection will probably be

the biggest use of your time to just study out the words and see

what it says. But #5 is after that, we want

some application. We don't want to just study it

like you would study for a test, get it in your brain, and then

dump it later. The Bible's a lamp to your feet,

a light to your path. This is how you hear your

shepherd's voice. You want to know what God's

voice sounds like. It sounds like your Bible.

This is how when you read another religious text like the

Quran or even the Apocrypha, you just say that ain't right, that

isn't alive, that's not Jesus. He's here in your Bible.

So we need, when we show up to the scriptures, we need to apply

it to our life. We're glad to help you with

that. We can maybe ask some questions

like, is there anything you read that that was interesting to you

or maybe has an impact on your personal life?

Do you maybe feel weird about something like, ah, man, maybe I

shouldn't be doing this and I need to start doing that.

That you can share at your own discretion as your group grows.

So maybe your vulnerability can grow over time.

So we'll let you. We're not going to expose you or

make people feel bad right away. We want people to come and

participate as much as they want to.

But then lastly, we want to end with prayer.

Prayer will help unite our group back together into a fellowship

setting. If anybody had application, we

can say, well, let's just pray for that right now.

We'll just take some time and pray together and then conclude.

So this is what our Bible study process is going to look like

for this semester. We'll begin this week in the

Book of Colossians. I hope you'll join us.

And we're just going to be figuring it out together.

So I'm super excited for that. But now that we reach the end of

our preaching time, let me ask you a few questions.

In the beginning, we said our very first point was that the

Bible helps the lost be saved. If you're here today and you

haven't had a time in your life that you chose to believe Jesus

as the Lord, that you're a Sinner and his death, burial,

and resurrection paid for your sin, if you haven't made him

your Lord, that's the place to start.

That's how you unlock your Bible.

But if you're here and you're saved, have you put any effort

into the Bible to study? Have you ever applied yourself

to figure it out? Are you a part of a community of

people studying it together? Today we can choose to invest in

our own spiritual growth by applying ourselves.

Just show up and we'll help. We'll help you with

accountability to do the work. But now, as we conclude, then,

before the kids come in, I'd like us to break out into

groups. This isn't common for us on a

Sunday, by the way. This is a good time to say our

Bible studies are going to break one time a month.

This is the plan for now. We'll meet whenever you meet.

But the first week of the month, I have it wrong in your notes.

It should be February 4th. I think the first week of the

month, we won't have Bible study.

We're going to come into this room instead, and we'll have

music. We'll have a little bit of

teaching, and then we're going to have times of prayer

together. We're calling it a prayer

service. So as we're reading, as we're

studying, we'll just come together, take a break.

We can share, we can pray. So be the first Wednesday of the

month. We're coming here.

If you need rides, we'll get you rides, but come here and now

we're going to practice what we'll do then, which is to break

out into groups. If you're not comfortable

praying out loud, somebody else to pray for you, no big deal.

But I'm going to ask you to get into groups of two or three and

pray for our upcoming Bible studies.

One of the things David said in Psalm 127 is the Lord builds the

house. If we want to reach people or if

you want to grow, we need God's help to do that.

So I want us together tonight to seek the Lord as we begin this

week and pray for those things. Will give us about 7 minutes or

so. And then after that we will

conclude with a song. Right sweet.

All right, let's pray.