Beginner’s Bible Study: The goal is not to understand the Bible, it is to become closer to God so we can glorify Him better.
We all need to have the proper goal when we start. Reading the Bible and understanding it better will bring us closer to God, which will help us bring Him glory. In the broadest sense, that really is what life is all about. Sometimes we look so closely at the trees, we don’t see the forest. Lets first spend a little time discussing this larger goal and how reading the Bible fits into this much larger goal.
Becoming closer to Jesus requires three major efforts for all of your life. Imagine you have a 1,000 piece puzzle, or a better representation is a 10,000 piece puzzle. Now divide the pieces into 3 “piles”. You could spend all the time and energy you want on any 1 pile (or even any 2 piles), and you will never get the puzzle put together. Even if you spent a year with one pile, and a year with the next, and a year with the third, you wouldn’t get the puzzle together. You need to work with all 3 “piles” at the same time. So it is with our relationship with Jesus. There are 3 large areas of discipline, and we need to work at all of them. Now thankfully Jesus doesn’t require us to be perfect at all of them, just working at all of them. These three areas are:
- Prayer – Communicating with God Both individual and group.
- Studying the Bible, his Word
- Living a constantly changing life (allowing the first two to do their work!)
We will look at these areas one at a time in the next few posts.
Have you ever experienced the Holy Spirit opening your mind and heart to something you read in the Bible? Would you share the story with us?
Are there other major areas of our Christian life outside these three that I missed?
Does the puzzle analogy make sense to you? Can you think of another analogy?
Beginner’s Online Bible Study *obbs*
Thank you God for being a constant support in my life. I can remember when I was in college one rainy weekend day that I actually opened my heart to your companionship. I read the Bible and let your Word soak into my very soul. Looking back at my life, I know that you were always with me. You protected me in so many situations and guided me with loving hands. Even though I often ignored you and didn’t return your love you never gave up on me – your child. I always believed in you, but it wasn’t until that day that I really let your love penetrate into my very being. That I made an effort to really communicate with you on a deeper level than just praying for things I wanted. That day I made a new friend and couldn’t wait to get to know you better. Talking with you brought such peace. I didn’t feel alone – the future was so full of joy!
Great analogy, I am really looking forward to this, Thank You for your efforts!
Thank you so much for doing this. I’m really looking forward to sharing in this.
The Holy Spirit has opened my mind often and showed me that God’s plan is different and defintely better than what my human nature told me was right. The specific stories that come to mind required me to forgive and God gave me the grace to do so which led to many blessings for more than just me.
I love the puzzle analogy because it is so true and reminds me of our mother who loved puzzles. I am sure she will join us in this study from her place in the communion of saints.