LADIES’ BIBLE STUDY
CORNERSTONE CHRISTIAN CHURCH
FRIDAY, 10TH MARCH 2017
The Bible: A Refresher Course
Time of prayer. Pray for calm minds, for focus, and willing hearts. Pray that You will reveal to us Your wisdom, sovereignty and authorship of design throughout the themes and categories of Your Book. Pray that what we learn will be useful in the edifying, correcting and training of our hearts and minds in the way of righteousness.
Bible passages to consider
2 Timothy 3:14-17: As for you, continue in what you have learned and have become convinced of, because you know those from whom you learned it, and how from infancy you have known the Holy Scriptures, which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Jesus Christ.
All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, so that the servant of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work.
The fruit of studying God’s Word is two-fold; first and foremost, we are saved (“so then faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of God”, Romans 10:17); and secondly, by learning in God’s Word we are sanctified and trained in righteousness, so that we may be useful as servants of Christ (“for we are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do”, Ephesians 2:10).
The Bible – An Overview
|------------------------------------------66 Books--------------------------------------|
|-----------Old Testament------------------------------|-----New Testament-------|
Old Testament
|Law------|History--------|Poetry----|Major Prophets----|Minor Prophets------|
- The Books of the Law (The Pentateuch). These are the first five books of the Old Testament and are commonly referred to as the Books of Moses.
- The Historical books. Numbering 12 in total, they detail the history of Israel including God’s hand in their redemptive journey.
- The Poetry books. Sometimes referred to as the books of ‘everyday wisdom’, these 5 books comprise much of the inspiration for hymns and teachings.
- The Major Prophets. The first sub-division of all the books of the prophets. So named not because these prophets were more godly or did things which were more significant; purely because of the length of text in each book – 5 in total.
- The Minor Prophets. 12 shorter, but no less magnificent, books detailing the ministries and works of some of God’s prophets. They are commonly overlooked due to their smaller size and lack of content; however, we have as much to learn about God from them as we do from the Major Prophets.
New Testament
|Gospels-------|Acts----|Paul’s Epistles----|General Epistles---|Revelation---|
- Gospels. 4 books of testimony from 4 very different authors. Written out of different cultural and religious perspectives, and for different intended audiences/uses.
- History of the Christian (New Testament/Covenant) Church. The book of Acts is shortened from “Acts of the Apostles”, and follows the events in the lives of the first Christians after Christ’s ascension to Heaven.
- Paul’s Epistles. The letters known to be written by Paul, to various churches under his ministry, teaching and leadership. There are 13 of these in total.
- The General Epistles. These are the letters penned by different authors. The first of them, Hebrews, is commonly thought to have been written either by Paul (who normally always addressed himself as author), or James (Jesus’ brother). The other 7 books are titled after their respective authors.
- The book of the “End”, or “Revelation”. John’s account of what is to come in the end times when Christ returns to judge the earth.
QUESTIONS FOR US AS CHRISTIANS
- How can we use this knowledge to increase our intimacy with God in our quiet times?
- What qualities of God’s character can we see in the design and categorisation of the bible?
- Think of a time/s you’ve learned something about God from Scripture that you wouldn’t have without the background of context of culture, politics, religion or genre to consider.
Weekly reading recommendation: Read the book of Nahum and the book of Jude. Think about ways to integrate the less-read books of Scripture into your quiet times. Pray each day that God would reveal things about Himself to you as you read, and actively seek Him in His Word. Write down anything that comes to mind that you hadn’t noticed in those scriptures before.
Notes/Discussion
- We spoke about the need for knowledge in order to have trust/faith; you can't have intimacy/deep relationship with a stranger. You need to know a person in order to love them completely. If you have a superficial knowledge of someone, you'll have a superficial/acquaintance relationship.
- As Christians we are called to know and love God deeply, and this comes by getting to know Him through His written Word.
- God's design, categorisation and writing of His Word shows His ultimate love, care and mercy to us, His people. He has given us access to His wisdom.
- He has chosen to display His holiness and mercy through His Word, so that by it we may be holy as He is holy.
Prayer: Thankfulness for God’s Word; for the privilege to have access to Your very own Words to us about Yourself. Pray that we may become all the more like Christ as we devote ourselves to you. Help us to be accountable to one another, and humble in our learnings.
