Bible Study

Let me begin by saying that I am not a Bible scholar, but a student of the Word. Upon occasion I have been asked how I have come to have the grasp of the Bible that I have been blessed to possess.

Back in the mid-1980’s I became more committed to Bible study. I started by getting up earlier, and this was tough on the cold, winter mornings. I found that if I didn’t study the first thing in the day, it would be delayed and then totally missed.

When I made the commitment to study then the Lord made it easier. Before, I needed to study, but then I wanted to study. I would pick a specific book of the Bible, read at least a chapter a day and would focus on a specific subject, such as prophecy. I was amazed how many passages had prophetic meaning. Later, I might focus on a different subject, such as history or chronology. And I (gasp!) made notes in my Bible.

Then, in the early 1990s I was blessed by Brother J. R. Church and his program “Prophecy in the News.” It was from Brother Church that I learned that the Bible has layers. For most of my life I had been reading only the surface text. But I learned that there are deeper layers. Here is the way Brother Church presented it:

  1. The surface text
  2. Practical application of that text to your life
  3. Prophetic implication of the text
  4. Deeper, perhaps metaphysical, meanings of the text
You may recall the example of the story of David and Goliath. The surface story you know. The practical application is that David honored the Lord, and the Lord, therefore, gave David the victory. The prophetic angle is the picture of young David facing the giant. Scripture tells us that in the End Times little Israel will face the giants of the world and will defeat them. Perhaps a metaphysical perspective on this story is that David cut off the head of Goliath and took it to Jerusalem, which at that time was not an Israelite city. Some think that Golgotha, or the “place of the skull” is where David buried the head of Goliath. This is conjecture, by the way. Scripture does not say.

But, you get the picture of different levels.

Also, I began to read the works of conservative Bible scholars like Brother J. R. Church, or Brother E. W. Bullinger. Brother Chuck Missler has wonderful verse by verse studies of most of the books of the Bible, and he offers a unique perspective of history and connection with other Scriptures. I did not gain anything from Field & Stream or Sports Illustrated.

Finally, the various pieces of the puzzle of the Word began to fit together and I began to understand the Bible better. And then I discovered the many patterns and foreshadows in the Bible, which makes the study of it even more exciting. It is like a puzzle. And solving parts of it brings blessing, and great satisfaction.

This is how I started learning about the Bible. If you have any questions, I am happy to try to answer.

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