Tag Archives: Bible

Counsel: Finding Meaning in Scripture – SPEAK

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Counsel: Finding Meaning in Scripture – SPEAK

Recently, I gave a great tool for personal Bible study using the “Bible Study and Application Format” worksheet. It’s a simple exercise using 2 Timothy 3:16-17 as a pattern for looking at Scripture.  To sum up, you take a passage of Scripture and do four things with it.  First, record what the passage is teaching.  Secondly, examine self to see how you might be failing to live according to the standard of it.  Thirdly, identify the correction in which you need to get back on track with Scripture.  And fourthly, outline a plan of action to put the correction into real living. 
Sometimes it’s difficult for people to determine what the principles are.  This tool is designed to help you.  It’s an acrostic – SPEAK.  Each of the letters represents a word that will help you determine what the principles are from the passage.
S – Sin to confess or avoid
P – Promise to claim
E – Error to avoid/example to follow
A – Action to take/attitude to change
K – Knowledge of God to apply or praise
            By using each of the letters, you can more easily identify principles from the Word.  As you can see, the acrostic also is great for identifying the “reproof” and the “correction” aspect of the Bible Study and Application Format worksheet.
            Use this on several passages and you’ll gain tremendous confidence in making observations and applications from God’s Word.  AND you’ll be doing your own personal study, which will stick with you a much greater time than if someone just spoon-fed you.  Happy studying!

Just in case you needed the questions from the four columns of the Bible Study and Application Format Worksheet, they are below:
2 Timothy 3:16-17

Teaching– What is the commandment or principle?
Reproof– How have I failed to live by it?
Correction– What do I need to do?
Training in Righteousness-What is my specific plan- how will I do it?

 

           

 

Counsel: Bible Study and Application Format

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Counsel: Bible Study and Application Format

How many times have you led someone to Jesus Christ and been asked the question “Okay, now what?”  You have been a Christian for a while, but their question sends you to the inner resources of your mind and you come out with a brilliant blank!  Or maybe you wanted to get started yourself and you don’t know where to begin studying in Scripture and you think, “If only I had a book that could tell me how to study or what to study in the Bible.”
            We often get the notion that we need another resource or person to dig into the Bible.  Certainly, everyone should begin their spiritual journey with a disciple-maker.  That’s the model that Jesus provided (Matt. 28:19-20).  Yet, you can gain a great deal of wisdom by doing your own personal study. The exercise below is a simple and easy tool to help you gain spiritual strength to dig into Scripture.
            This simple tool is called the “Bible Study and Application Format.”  It is based on 2 Timothy 3:16-17.  It’s likely easiest to understand in a chart form.

Bible Study and Application Format: (Biblical Reference)
 
Teaching- What is the
commandment or principle?
 
Reproof- How have I failed to live by it?
 
Correction- What do I need to do?
 
Training in Righteousness-
What is my specific plan- how will I do it?
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

 
Let me explain how simple it is and how you can gain immediate growth. First, choose a passage of Scripture.  I’d encourage you to choose a passage from the book of James, because it is so practical.  You could also choose a passage from the first eight chapters of Romans, or a passage from Philippians, Colossians, Ephesians, or even 1 John.  James is a very practical book and has great applications.  You could choose James 1:22-25; or James 2:1-5; or James 3:1-12; or James 4:6-10; or another passage.  Then follow the four steps with the four-column chart right above this paragraph.
First, what does the passage teach? There will often be a command or a principle that the passage is teaching.  You can record one or several principles.
Secondly, examine yourself and ask God to reveal how you may not be living according to the standard communicated in the passage.  This is called reproof from the Word.  It’s easy to examine yourself and by means of the Holy Spirit.  After recording the teaching from the passage, ask God to help you see how you may or may not be living according to the passage.  The Holy Spirit will reveal to you conviction about how you have failed to live according to the passage.  Fortunately, because God gives us the standard in His Word, He also gives hope that He will help us overcome the reproof.  The beginning of that process is in the third step.
Thirdly, in the third column, how am I corrected?  What should I be doing according to the Scripture? This step helps me get back on track to walk in a manner worthy of His calling.  I need a plan, however, because all step three is awareness.
So, finally in the fourth column, what does this passage communicate about how I should live.  This is the training in righteousness.  What is my plan to put the principles from the passage into action?  How do I implement the principles into life?  This is a good time to consider how I should engage my thoughts, my words and my actions that would help me live according to the passage.
Why is doing this exercise so important? Most people like to sit and listen to other people teach the Scriptures or to just read books.  Both of those options are great.  However, what is even better is doing the work yourself.  When we are beginning spiritually, we need to be spoon fed the truth or drinking on the milk of the Word.  However, we need to get to the point where we are  able to stick a fork into the Word and use a knife to cut off a portion to chew on it ourselves.  That’s when we are feeding ourselves.  The writer to the Hebrews explains,
12 For though by this time you ought to be teachers, you need someone to teach you again the first principles of the oracles of God; and you have come to need milk and not solid food.
 13 For everyone who partakes only of milk is unskilled in the word of righteousness, for he is a babe.
 14 But solid food belongs to those who are of full age, that is, those who by reason of use have their senses exercised to discern both good and evil. (Heb. 5:12-14)
It may not seem like you get very much yourself, compared to what other teachers may be able to communicate.  But if you are patient with yourself, God will lead you to be able to dig out treasures and nuggets of truth just like other teachers.
For additional information, please see the “Self-Confrontation: A Manual for In-Depth Discipleship” Supplement 3, pages 437-439.

 

A Bible Contradiction?

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I was reading today about David’s numbering of Israel and how there seemed to be a contradiction.  A contradiction in the Bible?  How can that be? 

First let me set the stage. Look at 2 Samuel 24:1, “Again the anger of the LORD was aroused against Israel, and He moved David against them to say, “Go, number Israel and Judah.”  It’s very clear that the Lord moved David to number the people AND then David confesses his sin of numbering the people a few verses later in 2 Sam. 24:10, “And David’s heart condemned him after he had numbered the people. So David said to the LORD, “I have sinned greatly in what I have done.”   How can this be a sin, if the text says that the Lord moved David? ……

Now look at 1 Chronicles 21:1.  The Chronicler writes, “Now Satan stood up against Israel, and moved David to number Israel.”  This passage says that Satan moved David.  How can one passage say that God moved David and another passage says that Satan moved David?

That’s relatively easy to understand.  God is sovereign over all things and in His Permissive Will, God allows sinful things to happen, but God can never be accused of tempting someone, nor can He sin (James 1:13).  Satan must gain permission from God to tempt and do harm as when God allowed Satan to tempt Job (Job 1:12).  So, God may even allow the enemy to move persons to sin (in David’s case, not in Job’s case), yet because it is within God’s sovereign control it is recorded as God doing the action.  In reality, it is really God Who allowed Satan to move David to number the people.

But also notice, David was a believer.  Satan moved a believer to sin and do foolishness. Can Satan cause that kind of problem today?  Luke records in Acts 5:3 that Satan filled Ananias’ heart to lie. The same can happen today.  God can allow good people to be moved by Satan to do sinful things, even toward other people in God’s family.  Why?  Ultimately for God’s glory.  It reveals God’s sovereignty.  It reveals those who are approved by God in a faction of people. It reveals those who do not react, but respond with grace.  It reveals that the creature who acts independent of God, even believers, can be moved by Satan to do sinful things.

May our hearts be broken, purified and never used by the enemy, especially to bring harm to God’s people.