Your Word is a lamp to guide me and a light for my path," said King David many years ago. No matter how difficult your situation is, or what decision you need to make, you can have the same assurance that King David had. This 107-page course adapted by Judy Bartel from the original course written by Louise Jeter Walker, will introduce you to the Bible and help you study it in order to gain insight into the way that God views our circumstances and helps us when we ask him.
When you study the Bible, it will affect your life, which will affect the lives of others. In this lesson you will learn how you will benefit from studying the Bible. You will cover such topics as reasons for studying the Bible, benefits from studying the Bible, and the importance of studying the Bible regularly.
Have you ever wondered how God gave us the Bible? Was it perhaps put together by angels and left waiting for someone to "find" it? God used ordinary men from many walks of life and over a span of hundreds of years to give us the Book we call the Bible. And the agreement and harmony with which they wrote stand as a testimony to God who never changes.
The Bible, too, has to be arranged so we can get what we need. The publishers of our Bibles know this. Regardless of the translation, they hold to the same chapters and verses so people don’t get "lost" looking for what they want.
In this lesson we will learn how to say and write Bible references and how to use basic study helps that guide us to subjects and verses we would like to find.
We can count on history books to tell us about their heroes, but the Old Testament includes the common folk of their day. These stories are no less important, for they give us a clear picture of God’s dealings with His people. The books of the Old Testament can be divided into five major themes. In Lesson 3 we learned about the smaller divisions of the books—the chapters and verses. Now we will look at the major divisions or classifications.
At the time the New Testament was being written, the Old Testament picture had changed very much. The days of the prophets were gone and many of the people were indifferent to spiritual things. It was not by chance that God sent His Son to the world at this time. The Greeks furnished a common language for communicating the gospel and the Romans gave reasonable protection and liberties for evangelism.
Almost every Christian faces the question sooner or later: "How do you know that the Bible is true?"
The question is not a new one. Mankind’s fi rst temptation began with an attack on God’s Word. The devil in the form of a serpent said to Eve, "Did God really tell you. . . ?" (See Genesis 3:1.) The devil still suggests the same doubt, "Did God really say that?"