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The Purpose of Bible Study

Go into a local Christian bookstore, and ask about Bible study, and they will point you to a few shelves of books that cost five to ten bucks. They might ask you about whether you are interested in a topical approach, a exegetical study, a systematic approach which will lay open all the Bible, or perhaps a simple devotional, which gives you a trite thought of the day.

Ask your pastor, and depending on your church, you might find even more tools, as those things that helped him prepare for years of teaching Sunday School, Bible classes, and home studies are revealed. (Surely you didn’t think he dreamed up all those illustrations and himself!) You may find tapes of such studies, or these days, google the phrase “Bible study” and download a podcasted study of some guy, proclaiming that he found the secrets of the rapture (hint, scripture is clear about who goes first – see the parable of the wheat and the tares in Matthew thirteen), or how things really should be in your life, if you had enough faith.

Those items may be tools, but they are not “Bible study”. Bible study means to get that leather bound book out from the closet, to sit down, and learn to savor the very word of God. To meditate on its laws, to discover the riches of the promises found in Jesus Christ.

Bible study seeks to discover the very thing those words were written there to provide YOU. As John the apostle writes “31 but these are written so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name. “ (John 20:31 (ESV)) Let no one fool you, Bible study is awesome, especially when guided by someone who has walked through the passages before, and is prepared for the potential mistakes and pitfalls that come. But Bible study is about Jesus the Christ, the Son of God. It is about trusting Him, and realizing the life we have, in His name. That comes from God’s word, the Bible we study, as the people of God.

Submitted by Pastor Dustin Parker