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Bible Study and the Power of God

I find it providential that God has given me a renewed sense of the power of His word during national Bible week. I teach High School theology classes at an international school in Asia, and the fall semester 9th grade curriculum presents a simple introduction to Bible study. I impressed upon the students that the seminary course I had taken the previous summer followed these same Bible study steps (Observation, Interpretation, Correlation, Application), and understanding them well will aid them greatly in their own personal Bible study once they leave this course and this school. After all, I tell them, I can’t follow you around answering all of your questions!

One objective with the course is to have the students do Bible study on their own outside of school. To this end I assigned the class journal entries, 5 per week, which evidence their opening of the Bible and following the steps we’ve learned. An additional goal through this is to see their Bible study habits improve and their journal entries get better over the course of the semester. I collect the journals weekly, making sure that they have done 5 entries, and jot small notes when the effort could be better. Since I don’t give much emphasis on journals in class, I was surprised to read a student thanking me for “forcing” her to do Bible study – it keeps her in the word and shows how she needs to change.

Probably the most convicting evidence of the power of God in Bible study I saw a couple of days ago when an unbelieving Thai student came and talked to me about her journal entries. Through opening the Bible and honestly considering what it says, she now wants to be a Christian. Being from a Buddhist family she knows life will be hard and she struggles with this right now, but I see her on the brink of conversion.

I can give all the chapel messages I want; teach my students about worldviews and how the Christian worldview answers the primary driving questions everyone asks; discuss truth and how it can be found in Christ. My students, I pray, see my personal Bible study through these things. But more than any teaching I can give, it is the individual who honestly opens up the Word, ready to study it and find out who God is, that sees the power of God at work. I hope I can spur on this message of personal Bible study; I encourage those who make Bible study aids, like Logos, to continue the work with me.

Submitted by Dan Roeber