how to paraphrase

topical studies

Biographical

Mnemonics (aids to memory)

devotional

We will be using 5 study books (in addition to the Bible) which are...

1. Strong's exhaustive concordance
2. Hebrew/Greek word study Bible
3. Vine's expository dictionary
4. Nave's topical Bible
5. New manners and customs of Bible times

we'll cover these more later, let's move on...

Introduction

There are some main points we need to remember as we study...
   If we cannot believe the opening chapters of Genesis to be literal, why then bother with the rest?

   Lets face it, if God lied about the beginning of the Book, why should we believe him about the end? Or the middle? It just makes more sense to take God at His Word than try to inject human wisdom.

   Understand the Bible in the way the people to whom it was written would have understood it.

   We need to be careful about "westernizing" the Scriptures. The bible was written in an eastern, oriental culture. Some of what is recorded needs to be taken in that light. (This does not mean that we cannot apply the Scriptures to our lives; we just need to be certain we don't major on a point that is purely cultural).

   Study Bible culture to understand NOT to replicate!

We don't want to make the mistake of thinking that people in bible times were somehow "more holy" and we should act just like them; after all, women were sorely mistreated; the Jews were very stuck up; and false gods were commonplace (o.k., so our culture has done a good job of duplicating that last part...but thats another story...)

Viewpoints should flow this way...


Unfortunately, they to often flow this way...

   We must always start in the Bible (clean slate so to speak) and derive our theology from what God has recorded, then apply that to our situations (good or bad). If we have pre-conceived ideas of what certain doctrines or practices should be, this will always slant our view of what God says in His Word
(and ya shouldn auta do that!)