In the How to Study Your E-Bible series, I listed digital tools for note-taking with respective methods (recording mp3’s, outlines, etc). I mentioned that the process should be easy, accessible, and personal but in this first of three posts I wanted to highlight seven points of a theological methodology for note-taking.
I’ve noticed when a church has problems (or more often before problems) they try to figure out what to do to make things better. Mind you, that might be fine. If a church has money issues, it might be a good idea to examine spending habits and prepare for the future.
Thing is, some of the problems are specifically spiritual but folk try to contrive a fix using the flesh. Now, what I mean by that isn’t what the modern ear would hear. I’m not saying “things that have to do with our internal faith have to be dealt with by praying or other faith-things instead of using our physical selves to deal with it.”
I mean that we can’t deal with these situations, whatever they may be, using the methodology and empowerment of the old system we’ve been rescued from. Church gossip might be addressed by saying “stop doing this” or “gossip hurts people” and then maybe having get-to-know-one-another-parties: but this is based more on what the world values in the Flesh System than what God has revealed as valuable to deal with these issues.
I suggest examining the thought model offered by Paul’s letter to the Church at Corinth.
I recently heard Don Carson recommend a children’s Bible which I immediately added to our Amazon shopping list. It is called the Jesus Storybook Bible and it is downright amazing. It tries to be faithful to the actual Biblical text while giving a unified overview of the Bible to show how it all hangs together. This isn’t the silly children’s storybooks that have some cheesy story about Adam and Eve disobeying and God being sad. The writer says that the Bible is a story about Jesus so when she tells the story of the Fall, she makes it a very sad ending but highlighting how it wasn’t the end: God did something and it was tied to Something that was coming.
Seriously, if you have kids, do yourself a favor and pick up this book.
I crossposted this on the site I created for my wife but which she doesn’t use.
I’ve been doing this series on Bible Study tools and was focusing on commentaries. In this post, I am going to list my commentary methodology, and a recommendation, with one book of the Bible: Romans.
I’ve read it quite a few times. Repeatedly. Taken notes on my perfect Bible and backed them up. Each time I find myself thinking “well, still don’t fully get it!” Paul had quite the brain.
I’ve been saying that when we study our bibles digitally we need to be reading our Bibles. Repeatedly. Exegesis requires reading. Recently, I’ve added the need to consult commentaries. In this post I want to list a few ways to use a commentary when studying the Bible digitally: