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Thoughts on Bible Study

The Bible is the inerrant Word of God. It is everything God wants us to know about Him, His history, creation and salvation through Jesus Christ. The Bible is central to the Christian belief system. Apart from the Bible, people just speculate and guess as to who God is and what He desires from His creation.

As I have stated before, I attend 2 Bible studies and I teach 2 other Bible studies. the Bible studies I attend are led by other churches. So I attend 2 other churches every week to study the Bible. I started attending the San Jose Bible study when I lived in San Jose, 2 blocks from their church. Then they had a church split and I moved up north to the San Francisco Bay Area. The Men’s Bible study hardly missed a beat during the split and now I travel south to San Jose every week to attend this Bible study. There are two basic reasons I travel over 40 miles to a Bible study.


First, I made a commitment and a promise to them. I promised their leader that I would be there and support them, every Monday, and I have. Second, it is vital for a pastor to have a place where he can talk and none of his people will be there. There is a value in studying the Bible where I am not the teacher and where I can share struggles that my church people do not need to hear.

If we can rate the various actives Christians participate in, group Bible study would need to be high on the list. Church attendance is also high on the list, but Sunday Morning worship, is just that: worship. The corporate meeting is not meant to be a teaching time, although teaching can take place. It is non-interactive. This is because the people are focused on God and his word and the pastor is focused on God and his word. A time is needed, apart from the worship time, where people can interrupt, ask questions, bring problems, share insights and discuss. This time is a Bible study.

Every Bible study I lead and participate in starts with the Bible. Three of them use a book to guide the study of the Bible, in the fourth we just read a passage and discuss. Reading the Bible, either guided by a Bible study book or not, speaks to our minds and brings things to the surface. Then life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness and holiness can be discussed. Bible study is a great place to discuss the Christian view of world events, politics, ideas on applying certain Scripture, fears, joys and more. Guided by Scripture, the people of God can gather together and discuss life. If a major event is happening, the entire Bible study time can be devoted to these events. We can pray together, counsel each other and go back to the Word of God over and over gain for answer to life’s events.

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