Basic Tools for Bible Study

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A large network prayer together and it will begin to a session on preparing for the trip and say that always do so far has been more theoretical we talk about the big word picture of it in a bottle study is like taking a trip we talk about motivation last week and I can only invite you that as you have thoughts for me on things that can help the sessions be more correct to talk to me about that they could you do this or this could pull me a little bit more but we talked about motivation and then we'll talk about today is one of the tools we need and what are the commitments we need in order to really get a pattern of life: were reading and study in Scripture on the basis so we want to talk about other things we need to pack these next week will start into very practical step by step processes of reading and studying the Bible well and so next week really get into talking about context issues background and things like that and then we're going to take every week and deal with another crack at Alaska to Bible study and pull all those things together as we go along and I'll give you some time (actually doing Bible study every week and I will have the time was that there were prayer and then we'll talk a little bit about what they did just recently taken some of the other thank you for time together and thank you for these people who were here I pray Lord that you would draw the long poles along in this process of thinking about how we can make Bible reading Bible study in normal as part of our lives and I pray that you would give us encouragement and today you would give a practical tool help that will encourage us to get started so we thank for this time that we've had together in Christ thing to be ready to launch for one of the big issues you face hacking and you probably have different ways that you have to prepare for a trip with Pat and I moved to see we were or we were just out of grad school we had basically money and told to move up to see we moved the horse trailer or brother had access to a big horse trailer he drove up with his big pickup truck.txt is and we loaded down a think we had my dads truck and then we had Ryan pulling a horse trailer will buy that drive was just a vile I think we had a cheerful thought we would like the plantation of their leader was driving somewhere with all this juggling all this to happen the horse trailer well we got to Dallas and it was about 155° outside of what it felt like and it was so hot that the friction on the tires on the horse trailer burst one of entire so we broke down in sweltering heat in Dallas Texas to kill about 550 miles from home and so we got that fixed by the combination of the weight of all the conveyor and the feet so we had to drive 30 to 35 miles an hour the ball away from taxes to the city in order to move our stuff home it was not a good situation and that was a situation where we were absolutely overloaded with too much stuff now we had other trips in which we didn't have enough last year we went to law Kentucky and we normally do at too much everyone away for two days it looks like for moving to Vermont we normally have way more than we actually be life we took off it was fairly warm January day when we laugh and we got all the stuff in the car everything was packed out we thought then we go and back roads route to connect over to 40 from Madonna would take 152 and go over that direction and we got about 2025 minutes from home and Pat said we forgot to bring our folks here was a middleware and because of the low visible warmish today we forgot to pack our heavy coats and it turned out that we notice that it was going nowhere out of Louisville so we had to turn around and backtrack and go back and get the things that we did bring along well as we talk about Bible study we can at times be old local dynamics are at times perhaps when you may have only things which are trying to juggle in terms of tools maybe you have access to a lot of Bible and the types of tools when you bought a computer program that we've talked about before and you may just feel overwhelmed with all different things in there but probably for most of us we face the other kind of problem where we come to the point of Bible reading her Bible study and we think I wonder what that means and we're not really sure where to go find out we don't feel like we have the tools right at hand that would help us do a word study finds out who person is or find out where place is or something like that and we feel if you will that we are well packed we don't have everything and that we need it so well is to talk about in this session is first of all what are some of the things that we need to be sure the most basic tool that we need in order to sound Bible reading in Bible study and take a look at these talk through them step by step and a red talk about herself commitments to go along with his right thing on your sheet there is we need a good study Bible we need a good study Bible that are several things that a good study Bible will probably For will be a limited concordance a limited concordance in the back and perhaps in the text itself now looking for news does is it takes a term a word in a Kyushu various currents of that word throughout Scripture now is you're using an English translation which I'm doing every body is the concordance is to give you every time that that English word curse in the tax of looking up the word parts is going to show you every time that the word far occurs in the new Americans and their translation if that's what you're using the new living translation of the new international version of something like that but what importance does is fabulous study in him a cross all use of a specific term like justification bandwidth and courts will do is it will show me other places that were diffuse and I can look in Paul's writing find perhaps where else used in Roman search and also the ridings or something like that now some study Bibles blog so have a very abbreviated cross referencing system in the Texas self so if you feature study Bible it may be that in a little column are down to bottom of page if you're looking in verse 13 and you look over in middle column if a few other passages of Scripture that are associated with adverse or a specific were and what there doing their thing this idea for this term is used in other places in the Bible so you can look at those are iso-study Bible is going to give you a limited concordance and ability to do some cross referencing some study Bibles are going to have studying those notes at the bottom of the page where the WS in the search to explaining what a word means or who a person is perhaps plays for something like that now that danger here with some study Bibles is some say Bible certainly coming from a very specific field.the poll viewpoints and so all you're going to get in their study notes are trying to promote their viewpoints as defending to be aware what's driving what's the motivation behind this study Bible it's interesting when the King James version was first translated again James version actually was not an original translation only thought it was a team of scholars who were doing with the original languages but they will using other translations like Tyndale's translation and others to try and guide them in their translation of the text you back to the original reference to the original King James version by saying very clearly we're not trying to come up with a completely novel translation were trying to build on the good translation work is being done for us to worry since watching James version became the standard translation very popular was because France was since prior to that time were loaded down with study notes that were very theologically and sometimes politically loaded and so they decide to come up with a translation that was more neutral where people were not translated in different directions that reasons why that was very popular life study notes can be very helpful for just a quick glance to discern who somebody is providing what the phrase means there is actually as revival facility coming out next year the new living translation isn't about a study Bible formats in the thing I'm excited about that study Bible is they got dollars on those individual books of the Bible to actually do study notes on books I didn't book the Bruce and they have a bunch of different scholars doing different books of the Bible and those notes are to be very very detailed it is a lot of substance there that will give you guidance we might look for that essay featuring her mouth in a year or so so so we are sci-fi will soon have notes of our page for playing in some study Bible for their going to half subject indices the open Bible is an example of a study Bible that at the beginning of this Bible faith you view a subject index so if you want to look up things on King David you can look under David and it will be a few surly life is pain seen mistakes that he made things like facts also study Bible for topic index which it's not the Senior foreign service before actually taking subject like San or Mary H. and it will give you a bunch of pacifists that may or may not have the specific term in the pacifists rifle that's another thing a study Bible will have been for almost all of them will have maps some of them will have articles on different subjects like archaeology of the Bible and study the Bible and thinks that a fairly unique study Bible is the new inductive study Bible something that King Arthur came up with and the thing that the inductive study Bible does if it doesn't give you many study notes he does have off toward the back doesn't give you a lot of saner future cross references in the March thinking the inductive study Bible Friday due to each study the Bible for yourself what she does is she leaves a lot of room in the margins rewrite notes and at the end of every book of the Bible what she does is she has fatal charts for -- you're reading through and studying through you can actually write a summary of each chapter in that book for your self saw what she is trying to do is teach you in the studying the Bible for yourself and she has instructions of how to market Texan out of work of the chapter and if you think should be aware of in terms of the kind with death so first thing she needs is a good study Bible something that should have you looking for a long time the children of the element notes in a fierce elf and the most practical things I can encourage you do if you don't have one of invited talk to me if you want to talk about if say without much direction but take some time one day and go to the bookstore's in full download study Bibles and look at them even need to decide which translation you want to go with and then you're going to need to look see which study Bible saying this if you choose this at length question about that for you and talk about translation's five fresh fish at God have to say that the best thing to do there is talk to somebody who is more familiar Audi left off you about that some direction there even read Nietzsche one day after one of the bookstore so we can get some of them that investing is find a friend who's a little bit more knowledgeable and they can give you some direction and someone else have a question or maybe a study Bible that she really enjoyed that has been very effective for you to suffer little bit about translations than the virtue if you need several trans-ancients of the Bible another reason why say several translations of August to fold but later we talk about Word studies were actually going talk about how using a number of translations side-by-side filthy chimney into what the critical word study issues are in your path because if you're going to the translation's farewell each other and then you get to one word and you have different translations of that word in each of the threats was sending for this must be a little bit of a difficult word to the grass and health flu you in there but the other reason why we need different translations is because the translation stuff are done according to certain theories are roaches to doing translation and I actually need different kinds of needs some talk about that for a minute first of all there's always good to be a need for new translations by coming why that's the case why is it that we never get to a point where we just have one standard translation is going to be the bass or every body for ever from that point on why is one we all received a translation's strife in which God language is in the process of constant change and in the early centuries of the church what happened was after gospel was taken in different cultures and places people could not speak Greek speaking for himself there was a need to translate the original scriptures into the vernacular of the people who were being brought into the church and even today if you think about the English language is English language changes dramatically over time I've read a little bit for some classic works this summer I was reading Robin Hood earlier in the summer and go back some of those original works and what a word that was used consistently in these books was goth and you know what the word gossip mess couple hundred years ago admit something like France did that stuff was someone who was your close companion or you could talk to about things and you might even agree someone on the street and your use thing that word instead of the word friend Wellborn gossiped mean something completely different for us in fact a DOS is not likely to be somebody who should bring you the seldom thinks while language is always changing and so were always going to need new translation's affair should shrink and doing translation what we want to do is we want as much possible parallel the original wording original meaning but at the same time what we want to do is we want to communicate would do a translation and so what translations try to do if someone I do try to balance what should be faithful to the facts as it was originally written and at the same time communicate clearly to what would be called target audience right now the Chilean kind of translations that we have our number one formal equivalence formal equivalence and what formal equivalence is his more word for word word for word the leading example of a more formal equivalence translation chain chain should use formal equivalence and American standard which is one that I grew up with is more formal equivalence there many places in the American Standard translation for what they opted to go with was very much warmer word for word translation even though it may not be readily affair has been worsening in the example that the new American Standard in verse 71 reach now concerning the things about which you wrote the Corinthians had written up all asked serious questions so he says after three things about which you wrote it is good for a man not to touch a woman down if you read that immediately what is communicated to us this is good for a man to touch a woman.I'm very thankful that that's not what Paul talking about but that is more of a formal translation of that passage where other translations like the English standard version which is then released for recently some reviewing of the revised standard and it's very very good translation of thing this is about formal equivalence translations a couple things first of all you are left to study the text for yourself to discern when it meets that's actually a good thing because with the other translation theory read talk about it in minutes both translations think that all translations to a degree going to involve interpretation but with a dynamic or functional equivalence translation would see in a minute that translation makes more decisions about what the text means each in order to bring it over and communicate in modern life which solve the formal equivalence will leave more of this study and the sir enough to do it also leaves more of a poetic structure of the tax impacts were to word things like that slip more if as formal equivalence translations so it has a very important place analysis suggests that a formal growth translation like the ESV or numeric standard those translations are important for you to do your Bible study with support and that you have that feature base approach to doing Bible study Elliott fan translation though is what I mentioned just a second ago the functional web translation it's not word for word hideous fall for Fox and what a functional equivalent translation is going to try to do is this going to say that the word of their rainfall for the falloff at the leash trying to communicate with the author within 10 in society by the translation so full we look at the new living translation which is a sample of functional equivalence translation excess deaths in prescription 7Y now about the questions you asked in your letter is S. it's good to live celibate life because what follows probably talking about there was Mary H. for more specifically sexual relationship between a man and woman but it's clear from the broader context we says is good for men not touch a woman he was using a softened way of saying it's best for a man not to be bound up in the marriage relationship and all the responsibilities that go along with that sexual relationship with South we don't have time to get into first with seven day fall had a very specific reason for talking about antiperspirant stuff and he comes around and says everybody has their gifts from God and marriage is a gift from God and God called that but the point is that what the new living translation does this inch for race those words for you in the translation thing that I think the functional equivalence translation approach this vital think it's very rare for them because what it does is allow faster read texts in fear what is being communicated in her own language and readily grasp and understand so what I would suggest is that for broad reading of the checks for rapid reading of the text especially if you're fairly young Christian what you wanted to wish you want to have a very good functional equivalence translation to do your reading and fetching cover a lot of ground and understand what is going on very red ride so far so frivolous when it's trying to do is to communicate shrine to communicate that this has a very very important place in how we do our Bible study and Bible reading that is one other thing that is not actually translation is called fairer price and the living Bible the racial living Bible that was done back in favor was actually a paraphrase what he did was getting a trifle thought for thought strife can give a summary of what was said there were one of Roberts King James version says the blueness of 1/5 way evil and selfish rights and reports the belly well you know if I'd have to agree that that's not the city with the great ocean of cloth you know in the morning by the way that the paraphrase of the living translation said it was sometimes it takes painful experience makes her once so what does it summarize sense of the meaning of the whole passage paraphrased this I think her interesting to read as five interpretations of facts that I think that we need to stick with the formal equivalent send the dynamic equivalence for a Bible reading and or Bible study rivalry which a couple of other things strictly in terms of school for saying that need is a good Bible dictionary of the Bible dictionary of old and five dictionary is a good one MRC press pass a good Bible dictionary again what I would suggest is that you go to Christian bookstore as asked them if you can see their religion section even many of the secular bookstores now also have a basic reference tools and shuffle them off the shelf and read a bit and see if that communicates in a way that is helpful to you by wife said Sondermann before while dictionary throws long time in this something that we feed and Woodward letter Bible reading in the morning and what a Bible dictionaries that this is going to give you far. Each book of the Bible is going to tell you about SQL for instance say that your normal law and maybe you're reading something and you come across a guy named E. food each HUD and you faith in the world was he who well and so you look it off if you look at the feed is he for a while dictionary of dictionaries such as you that he was one of the judges he was a binge of life and use real crafty fellow UN and indeed fill this enemy by using stealth and so he's an interesting person but very quickly can go find that five times we use my Bible dictionary to find out where exactly a certain place was so much geography to the Bible and somewhat obscure places for the insurgency can find places you can find articles on groups like the Sadducees of the Pharisees and then you also can look up specific theological term so if you will put the word repentance or something like that your Bible dictionary will help you with that face so this basic basic standard tool that's been shot at CeBIT and when you're doing your Bible reading her Bible study-these will range in price from about $20 to 40 $45 F. right so you can take a look at a Bible dictionary's faith for school that I've been mentioned and one explain this later when we talk about Word studies is what is called an exhaustive conformance and exhaustive conformance or a word study book release very briefly tell you what an exhaustive concordance is something that looks like this value if a bath and exhausted from foreign surveillance without the sausage factory that thing around so big while the reason why so big is because what it does is it takes a specific translation like this new American Standard and when you have a word for that mentioned a minute ago it will be every occurrence of the word far in the new American Standard translation in the Bible the other thing it does this a cheese every one of those occurrences with a number to a dictionary in the fact that so few the meaning of the original Greek or Hebrew word behind that particular point of translation because there are term senator use in the Bible that are translating may have to completely different Greek words are translated the same way in the English translation in order to get back to which one of those words are dealing with and maybe some nuances in the meaning of the word than an exhaustive conformance will feature what those meanings are now don't worry about it if that's confusing to you really get to that talk were studied some thoughts about using those tools five and exhausted for this is a basic beginning place for doing good works service some of the older word study books like minds and others we want to be careful of the goddess there's been a lot of studies done in recent years in terms of linguistics and how do Word studies and things like that some of those older tools were done for a lot of these more recent approach this word so use were developed and so some of the information there is outdated only gets worse that is when things were talked about for study fallacies how you keep away from doing really strange things were study so you come up with stuff Jesus off of one of where had the worth of his wealth really talk about this fish in one of their coolness number five and that would be Bible studies for Bible study software again this is an area he glanced off the about and can give you some pointers on the website where is good to use it is for the fall all the stools and normally many more together in one place and allow you to do searching and some of them you can do a search on a word but just double-clicking that worth it if you have a translation of the screen you can double-click on that word and it will pull off importance of every occurrence of the word in Scripture you might be able right-click on that word in it will take issue Bible dictionary that will describe the term so it puts all of the schools right there and and when we moved all a bit further in her study of excellent brain couple different Bible study software programs and show you a little bit of Hollingworth and soulful talk more about that than something that you be a great help in terms of your Bible study and future doing it for teaching or even for your model similar things I appreciate about the Bible sets off or if I can cut and paste so if I have a Bible dictionary opened up and I'm in the middle of my Bible study not come across a word I can actually fit the section as that dictionary and place it in the my documents and many of the Bible study programs will actually allow you know this that will be tied to the specific verse that you're studying so if you're studying Romans 323 and you write your notes over there in that place it face up in there a year from now when you come back in your thing up from 323 again it will actually pullback up all those notes achieved with a bottle study program so that's something to be aware of their surveys sequence that you can deck out and they're even some free office software programs on the Internet which you can download they normally have older tools are public domain legal dictionaries like Easton's dictionary reflect that but I'll show you some of those is with the long term for further help there are some books there that I would check out in addition to the home in God that you're using for this class and then the Sith studies website at Union has some felt some links to different places on the web that can give you felt a bench in the number of times as we go through this that you need to reach out to somebody who can help you get points and what I want to suggest is if you can find a mentor if there is someone who can give you a little bit of guidance that can be of tremendous help for some mayonnaise filleting goo.cancer a few years ago a great scholar on the New Testament and the old kind of mentoring me for the last 10 years of his life and that was a tremendous gift to be able to call him up and say it on dealing with this Bible study issue when you think how you interpret this passage so if you have some wonderful friends is further along in the faith and anal more about the Bible that we encourage you to reach out to that person and say can you just give me some help and guidance for sale started the personal commitments were probably I could finish with the solid yellow the late start this morning I don't want to rush through the use might need to pick up with the rest of him next week so for me to sort through them will get through this farce within which Arthur Laffer so commitments of tools in the world and if you don't have the right heart commitments though still for sale shelf and often abuse all elements of think a little bit about how we approach in terms of our own attitudes and our perspectives had we approach the Bible for Bible study Bible reading with her saying yes consider your own leave your new term here free understanding consider your own free understanding fell just like this séance about pre-understanding if this with a preconceived notion that I have about 1/2 inch a preconceived notion that I have about a passage based on Mike Fulcher or teaching I've heard or even my past experience it's a free casino should I have based on my culture or teaching that I've heard for my pass experience that Fischer said he is not wrong it just means should I need to understand that their many passages in the Bible that I need to encourage myself to look at with fresh eyes as I come and study because they're many things that we only been realized and ingrained into us through the years it's very hard for us to look at those passages in afresh was me and so we want to think through our own free understanding of the check south and that the earth is a commitment to truth seeking a commitment to truth seeking what I mean by that yes I want to come at the passage with the commitment to discerning what does God want the site to make this tax with truth that God communicates my wife and I want to be more committed to that and I am simply advancing my own understanding of tax so I want to best I can say God what I'm interested in here is understanding what this text really meaningless one of my favorite parts creature to think about this on this Christmas and I were friends again face Danny with a missionary in Ethiopia for a while and when he was over there or he said in the first Christmas fly I retained in Ethiopia I was sitting down front and peace folks came in for the plan away if they came and set the stage was you had married coming in on a donkey and always with her around and they were excited and talking everything Joseph Estrada walking behind following along behind and when they came to the point of the birth bandit Mary had all lease with and around her and Joseph was kind of facing outside with the web in the United States family to actually help Mary with the birth and then when the baby is born novelist broadsided everything and he said if I got thinking about it probably that view of the birth is more in line with the original culture where women and midwives said family member's perhaps help with the birth it's probably more of the way it really took place if you start probing the details of the Christmas story something we hold so dear like the three wise men even the fact that Jesus was born in a stable soare not really fair to ask the very things we can talk about there and I was teaching a Sunday test the class was ominously immature so mad at me she said one dollar nativity scene that should be that adding that we just need to think through why do I see the text the way that I can somehow my fault turn my past experience and one thing we can think up on studying the text well that five cents for this tax will change her mind about some now we're not talking about big future issues like who Jesus was and what a salvation mean that Jesus really rise from the dead dose or presuppositions of the things that over the history of the church over a long study and life of the church we come the whole gnosis ships but there a lot of details in the text that we need to approach with fresh ice and we need to come if you will with a teachable spirit site.what would you teach me what am I not saying here that I've see different venues or assess this sense cry does not listen it knows pride does not listen it notes and any time a first income for the checks any of this and we already have all the answers were not signed into law or were studying just to reaffirm what we already believe if we do not have the right commitments and we need to come from Sandpoint of being teachable in being open for God to change our hearts if this okay I think we have hold it right there would take those other commitments and back and look at the six weeks old ASCII to bring back the sheets that you have and will take a look at both in terms of assignment limited in assignments for next week if you would take a look at chapters 2 and 34 next week to look at Chad Hsu and three in the little book for next week and I also want to ask you to take a look in for Alice some of the stool soft talk about if you have a study Bible go back and reacquaint yourself with the different things for actually daring study Bible you might want to go buy a bookstore and take a look at study Bible for shelf and Bible dictionary's and kind of begin they are by just learning how these different tools function and they will come back and we'll get into the step-by-step process of how -- we study different aspects of the text that the background check something about contexts eventually found the works of the something for one of my fave stories sis about a man who came and with visiting an African-American church and she came down and was sitting on front row of the pastor came out and started playing the piano and said yes Lord yes yes Lord is God and no phone on and other people incarnation started this joining in with the pass of saying yes lower gas gas off and after a while the whole creation versus in on this great for us actually yes Lord yes and then things quieted down and the pastor prayed a simple person Lord Buford our answer now you tell us what did she once did we need to come at our Bible reading Bible study with a hard attitude that says Lord bottom line I want this year you in your word and I will be obedient to death have our commitment that we need for samples and prayer file-this time together I pray Lord that you would continue to draw service processor five setting interpretation for that pray that you would have us in a place fiercely where hearts are soft and moldable we are teachable were ready to practice the words will study it will run Friday that he would be with the solstice we can bless.