• Nehemiah 8:1-8 – When these people needed a spiritual revival, they went back to the word of God.

What is the Bible?

• A collection of 66 books

  • The word “Bible” comes from the Latin “Biblia” which simply means “books.”

• Written over 1500 years

• 40 different authors

• Inspired by God

  • II Timothy 3:16; II Peter 1:20-21

  • Apologetics Press: Behold the Word of God (PDF)

• Different styles and genres

• Two major parts:

  • Old Testament, 39 books (Genesis – Malachi)
    • History of creation and God’s dealings with man, specifically following the nation of Israel.
  • New Testament, 27 books (Matthew – Revelation)
    • Story of Jesus and the inspired people who carried His message to the world after His crucifixion.

How do I find my way around?

• Parts of a Bible reference: book, chapter, and verse
• There are five books with only one chapter: Obadiah, Philemon, II John, III John, and Jude

Which translation is best?

• Old Testament: Hebrew (some Aramaic)

• New Testament: Greek

• Example of translation issues:

  • II John 1:12 – Greek: stoma pros stoma (mouth to mouth)

• Translation philosophy: word-for-word vs thought-for-thought

  • Example: Romans 13:4

  • Recommended word-for-word translations:

    • NASB-1995 (New American Standard Bible, 1995 edition)

    • ESV (English Standard Version)

    • NKJV (New King James Version)

    • KJV (King James Version)

Which type of Bible should I use?

• Arrangement of the text

  • Verse-by-verse

  • Paragraph

  • Journaling or wide-margin Bibles

  • Daily reading Bibles

  • Parallel Bible

• Extra material added

  • Maps

  • Concordance

  • Reference Bible

  • Study Bible

  • Devotional Bible

  • Children’s Bible

• Features

  • Red-letter

  • Large print

  • Cover

  • Paper

  • Foreword/preface

  • Italics

  • SMALL CAPS

• A reference Bible is the primary workhorse. If you only get one Bible, get a reference Bible.

• Other types of Bibles are helpful for particular purposes or types of study.

Now what?

• Get a Bible!

  • Get a good translation as a reference Bible.

  • Christianbook.com

• Read it!

  • Fivedaybiblereading.com

• Study and apply it!

  • Local church

  • Benchley.org – What does the Bible say?

• Review of last week

  • Importance of attitudes

  • God always wanted our hearts

  • Evolution of law

• Love your neighbor – but who exactly is my neighbor?

  • Love God, love your neighbor

    • James 1:12 – Love God! The crown of life is promised to those who love Him.

    • I John 3:17 – Love your neighbor. It’s not stated directly, but is clearly there.

    • I John 4:21

    • Specific laws under Old Covenant: Deuteronomy 6:5; Leviticus 19:18

    • Luke 10:25-37 – parable of the good Samaritan

• Sermon on the mount

  • Matthew 5-7

  • Beatitudes: A progression of attitudes > salvation

  • Admonitions: Jesus amplifies points of law.

    • States the “understood”

    • Goes to the root law

    • Reveals attitudes in which law is based

  • Poor in spirit (Matthew 5:3)

    • Is that an attitude? Matthew 18:1-3; Micah 6:8; Revelation 3:17-18

      • Yes! Poor in spirit means humility before God.

    • What will it motivate one to do?

      • Recognize need for God’s guidance

      • Know that one has found rock bottom

      • Naaman Syndrome (II Kings 5)

        • In haughtiness – form of worship

        • In humility – extreme shows of dedication

  • Those who mourn (Matthew 5:4)

    • Why do they mourn?

    • II Corinthians 7:9-10

    • Some translations: sorrow = grief

  • The meek (gentle) (Matthew 5:5)

    • Power under total control

      • Not imposing

      • Moses

      • Jesus – John 18:22-23

      • Proverbs 25:8, 15

      • James 3:13

• Hebrews 2:1-4

• “By signs and wonders and by various miracles”

  • Mark 16:20

  • Virtually every person believes that miracles happen, even if they do not believe in God. The Big Bang would have violated the laws of physics, so if it happened, it constituted a miracle!

  • The same problem exists for the origin of life. The law of biogenesis would have to be broken. Life would have had to come from non-life.

  • David Hume reasoned that because miracles are rare, they have little evidence. Wise people don’t believe in things with little evidence.

  • Norman Geisler rebutted Hume’s argument by pointing out that rarity of events is not the issue. Rare things happen constantly!

  • Exodus 14:21-28 – How do we know this happened?

  • Acts 2:22-24 – It would be pretty hard to fake this!

  • Acts 13:6-12 – Paul’s miracle proved his words were from God. The proconsul was amazed at the teaching (not the miracle itself!).

• “Word spoken through angels … just”

  • Hebrews 1:1-2

  • Hebrews 10:28-29

  • Psalms 51:4

• “How shall we escape it we neglect so great a salvation?”

  • Hebrews 2:1

How to change (continued)

Shape your environment so it will help shape you. (continued)

• I Corinthians 15:33
• Ephesians 4:17; 5:1-2
• I Peter 4:1-5

Create good habits and stop bad ones.

• Serving God is a way of life – not a one-time action.

  • Ephesians 2:2, 10; 4:1, 17; 5:2, 8, 15 – Notice the term walk. This is a figure for way of life.

  • Romans 6:4, 13-16 – After baptism, a Christian is to walk in newness of life. We are slaves for obedience. We’re not a slave for a day. We are to submit to God from now on.

  • Colossians 1:10; 2:6; 3:7; 4:5 – Walking

• Remember to shape your environment to make good habits easier and bad habits harder.

  • Daniel 6:10 – Daniel had a well-engrained prayer habit. He had a place just for praying.

  • Deuteronomy 17:18-19 – Israel’s kings were to read God’s law everyday.

• We tend to do what’s easy and convenient. We must reduce the friction for good habits and make the bad habits harder and inconvenient.

Examples:

Let’s say you want to do a better job of loving your spouse (Ephesians 5:22-33). List some ideas that would help in that endeavor:

• Think of yourself as a new person.

  • “I am the kind of person that thinks of her first.”

• Shape your environment so it will help shape you.

  • Have a career that allows time for family.

  • Shrug of bad advice about marriage from those who do not fear God.

  • Watch how strong couples interact and love each other.

God is strong; we are weak.

• Job 38:1-5, 22-30, 33-37
• Psalms 147:1, 7, 10, 15-19
• God says something and it happens! His word has tremendous power.
• God used His word to give us laws. The elements must obey, but we have a choice.

Count your (basic) blessings.

• I Kings 17:10-12 – This woman was pretty desperate at this point!
• Philippians 4:11-12
• II Corinthians 11:23-27
• I Timothy 6:8 – Are we content with food and clothing?

It’s wise to be prepared.

• Matthew 25:1-13