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Bible Study is the Key to Life

What comes to mind when you hear the two words Bible study? Does the one word Life flow concurrently with them? If not I believe it should. Why? Well I say this because one day during the time of my own personal Bible study I came across a verse that explained to me the words that I was reading were the very source of my Life.

Moses when instructing the Hebrews in their wilderness wandering exhorted them in Deuteronomy the thirty-second chapter’s forty-sixth and forty-seventh verses to “Take to heart all the words I have solemnly declared to you this day, so that you may command your children to obey carefully all the words of this law. They are not just idle words for you—they are your life. By them you will live long in the land you are crossing the Jordan to possess” (NIV) If they were words of life for the Hebrews than they, in no uncertain manner, are words for our very lives as well. And through further Bible study under the blessing of having the full corpus of Scripture, a great privilege and responsibility that not even the Hebrews had I’ve read in a section of the bible addressed predominantly to them, that is the epistle of Hebrews in the forth chapter’s twelfth verse that “the word of God is living and active. Sharper than any double-edged sword, it penetrates even to dividing soul and spirit, joints and marrow; it judges the thoughts and attitudes of the heart.” (NIV) For this reason my Bible study allows me to see the beauty and blemishes of my inner man inside of my body deep down into the depths of my heart, and reflects this to me through my study and meditation on it just as a mirror reflects my face (James 1.22-25 NIV). So not only is this book, the bible, my very life (Dt.32.47 NIV) but it is alive (Heb. 4.12 NIV).

Let me make another allusion on the importance of studying God’s Word taken from the Psalms. All throughout the Psalms the importance of God’s name is mentioned. This name of God is so sacred that even today when written in English amongst the ultra orthodox Jew it is written in this manner exactly, G-d without the vowel. This stem from the earliest translation of the tetragrammaton. I know that was a big word, but just know this it stood for the transliteration (another big word basically meaning how one languages letters convert over to another) of YHWH in English which we have the “a” and “e” vowels to be commonly called Yahweh. Scribes when writing the Holy scriptures would even go and ceremonially cleanse themselves when copying the scriptures right before they would transcribe those Hebrew letters because of the sacredness of the Name of God, and yet God says in the Psalms 138.2 thru His servant King David that His Word is magnified above His Name (Ps. 138.2 KJV)

Therefore I would strongly urge you that if you don’t conduct your own personal Bible study that you do, and second to that that you attend a small group or home fellowship that also reverences the study of God’s Word. Likewise for your own personal Bible study I’d recommend some sort of Bible study aids like a commentary: Matthew Henry’s, J. Vernon McGee’s, F. F. Bruce’s or Keil and Delitzsch’s just to name a few. Likewise a concordance which will help you find certain words you may be looking for is a helpful tool. The most popular would be the Strong’s concordance. There are a vast amount of helpful tools, but just make sure you don’t let them come before the Bible itself. Electronic Bible study software is also available, and there a number of different companies that produce good helpful electronic Bible software to help aid ones Bible study. So if you haven’t, start today, and continue on in it every day. I used to have to think about doing it and after a while I decided to make it a hobby, and now “Praise the Lord” it’s a habit. I’ll know if I’ve gone a day without it just like I’ll know if I missed a meal. This Word of God is daily bread for our soul, and that’s as stated at the beginning of this article, life. This is the life to be lived, a life more abundantly. (John 10.10)

Submitted by Richard Hoover