Beginner Bible Study Tips to Understand the Bible (I wish I knew this sooner!)

so you want to take your Bible studies to the next level maybe you're a beginner and you kind of feel silly like why am I struggling so much in my Bible studies today I'm going to share with you a lot of the stuff that I learned in Bible College and in seminary and just through life experience studying the word of God on how you can take your Bible studies to the next level without overwhelming yourself let's [Music] begin hi friends welcome to the channel my name is Faith I'm a pastor's wife I finished Seminary a

couple years ago and I have two kids and I spend my time on the internet here typically helping Christians go deeper in their Bible studies but one thing I noticed as I was looking over my channel this past week and kind of prayerfully talking to the Lord about what I should make a video on I realized I hadn't really made a beginner Bible study video to help more beginners go deeper I kind of assume that people already kind of have a good grasp on how to read the Bible but today I wanted to make a

video specifically for beginners trying to start Bible studying and do it well now first off this is your Bible and if you open up the cover there's typically always going to be a table of contents somewhere where is my table contents and it will show you how many books it has if it is a Catholic Bible it will have seven other additional books you can go down so many rabbit Trails hearing about people's different points of view and it's always biased based on where they come from if they're Protestant or Catholic as somebody born to

the Catholic church and then raised more in the Protestant church I have a lot of Sympathy for the discussion but I'm not really going to get into it today canonization is a huge topic so I just don't want to get into it just know the prestant Bible has 66 books now within this Bible there are books like I mentioned you got Genesis Exodus Leviticus and and it just keeps going all these books are written by different people they're often written at way different time periods to different people and that's really important and so we really

kind of want to understand the context or situation around each book of the Bible if you've been here for a while you guys know I have my Cliff Notes Through the Bible that I made they are onepage summ of each book of the Bible some Bible study tips outlines of it is how to study it well a core verse Etc and you can find those link down below but there's also like you can Google things online the Bible project is a really good resource if you have the time to sit and watch videos and take

notes that way but I want you to know because most people don't understand this that different books of the Bible are all written by different people to different people from different points of view so for example the Kings and the Chronicles were written before and after the Exile now the Exile was this horrible period 70 years where God's people were pushed out of their land and into Babylon for example and they were under this false god Marduk and it felt like Marduk had defeated Yahweh and they were questioning God on his goodness and so Kings

writes the history of their kings from the point of you before exile like this is why we're going into Exile and then the Chronicles writes the story of all the same the same story the story of all the kings as they've come out of Exile Kings is saying this is why we're going into Exile and Chronicles is saying this is now how we be faithful because of the the Exile so while they're written by different people at different points of times to different audiences we want to keep that in mind because it informs our Theology

of like what's the overall point what's like the purpose by the way I don't know if you noticed my shirt God's love is higher than any mountain which I personally just love it's got the long sleeves and the hoodies I think it's so precious for the fall it just makes me want to cuddle up and do my Bible study cus makes it easy to share the gospel message and start gospel conversations w also looking cute and fashionable I grew up taking my chores money and going to the store I remember specifically only wanting Caruso shirts

because they had the cutest designs and they also were faith-based I've always loved the idea of if I'm going to wear clothes they might as well be clothes that get someone to think about the gospel or their faith or to start the conversation around the faith and that's Caruso's Mission literally named after the Greek word which means to Proclaim or preach the gospel in fact this is very embarrassing but I've shared it before I for a long times that I was going to name my firstborn son Caruso because I just think that is such a

cool way to identify yourself with keeping the main goal the main goal preaching the gospel so if you want to check out Caruso I know it's time to stock up on cute little long sleeves and it's definitely always time to preach the gospel and start those gospel conversations check out Caruso I'll have them linked down below but I also have a discount code for you to get 15% off I think I'm going to stock up for Christmas with this code use my code faith of Life 15 for for 15% off I'll have it here on

the screen so check them out and let's definitely support these Christian Brands which are preaching the gospel now I might already be overwhelming you but I want to make the point the Bible is yes it's like one book but literarily speaking it's many books many different types of genres as well you'll be reading a story and all of sudden they break into song songs tend to be more metaphorical they tend to have parallelism and I just want you to be aware of that because many people assume you can open the Bible on any page and

just read it straightforward but if you open it up to you know there's Psalms say that God is a bird and we're under her wings like obviously God isn't a female bird this is a metaphor to describe his loving care and his his nature with us but I do want to acknowledge that I think a lot of people are afraid of talking about these things because they don't want to dismiss the fact that this is the authoritative word of God and I don't say any of this to dismiss that while this is like a literary

unit with different types of genres and different authors written at different times this book is still the authoritative inherent word of God I believe this to be the word of God which holds authority over my life informs the way that I live informs my theology the way I think about God it is the word of God it is his message his promises his covenants that's actually what Testament means new testament old testament covenants promises both of these truths can be held in equal weight that this is totally the powerful authoritative inherent word of God and

it's also a book with literature and genres in it and metaphors in it just like this is a video you're watching today so it's therefore Med I also might use types or genres of media in this single video I might tell a story I also might state facts I might give instructions and then I also might be sarcastic similarly although this isn't a perfect metaphor the word of God is the authoritative word of God and should be taken literally and with weight but not every sentence of the Bible should be taken literal in a word

for word manner for example uh today I was referencing back to Second 2 Chronicles yeah it's chapter 10: 10 and it's also in U First Kings 12: 10 here's a short form of it there's this King and he basically says my little finger is thicker than my father's thighs and he's trying to prove that he's enough my little finger is thicker than my father's thigh now is he literally saying his little finger is thicker than his father's thigh no actually he's referring to his manhood here trying to say that he's a bigger man than his

father it is a derogatory term that he's using here which if we were ancient near Eastern people we'd read this and go what a pig he thinks so highly of himself and so I tell you this not to overwhelm you with how am I supposed to read the Bible Faithfully or how am I supposed to understand all this stuff that's going on and all these authors and all these situations but rather to inspire you that the word of God is so much more Rich than something that we should just like just grab a random verse

like that one and take it as if it's not rich if we really believe it's true if we really believe it's the powerful word of God recorded through man's hands 2,000 years ago but preserved through time for us to believe and hold tightly to today then we're going to want to be faithful to it and understand its original context as much as we possibly can and so when it comes to Bible study because I did promise we're talking about beginner Bible study tips here I know it's going to be overwhelming at times no matter where

you are in the Bible whether it's Ezekiel or Revelation or second Kings or whatever it is there's going to be times where you're like what did I just read I encourage you and and I really think most people dismiss the importance of this I encourage you to read it again read it again and then read it again again you see when my husband when he was in his Seminary like pastoral classes and they're teaching you how to like preach and how to write a sermon and all that one of his professors said I don't want

to hear anything of what you think about a passage until you've read that passage 25 times you should never stand behind the pulpit before you've read that passage in the Bible at least 50 times and his point was not to say you have to count every single time you read the passage but that you should read the passage so many times over in the week that you're preparing a sermon that you nearly just about have it memorized that there's so much power in the reading and the rereading of a passage because let's be real this

isn't like reading I don't know a tweet or a Facebook post this is different this is translated it's also like sometimes Old English depending on the translation you're reading don't be afraid of rereading the passage and then rereading it again and really trying to understand what it's saying because sometimes I don't understand something until like the fourth time I've read it and I read the Bible every year like I've definitely read the passage before but sometimes it just hits different maybe the coffee hasn't k kicked in whatever and on that note I did not that

there are translations I have a whole playlist all about the differences in translations I'm a really big proponent for not having fear around translations a lot of people want to ignite in you this fear that these are bad translations these are the good translations this is the only translation and I think that's really not fruitful and more often than not ill-informed and so I have a whole playlist linked down below about translations and the spectrum of translations which are tools for benefit so I encourage you to check that out either at the end of this

video or link down below now in addition to reading and rereading a passage you might be Bible studying and you're like okay but I still don't get it Faith the number one tool and I cannot say this enough it is up here can y'all see right here is a Bible dictionary friends a Bible dictionary is is much like a dictionary in that you can look up nouns persons places or things and look up a definition of what those are what is bethl what is uh Cyprus Wood Etc and what the Bible dictionary is going to

do that like a normal dictionary can't do is it's to give you an Old Testament definition like this is what it meant in the Old Testament this is how it's used in the Old Testament this is basically every reference of this wood or of this place in the Old Testament and then it's going to give you a new testament definition and tell you okay this is how Jesus interacted with Cypress Wood this is where Cypress Wood comes from this is when it's referenced in the New Testament Etc and so whenever you look up something in

a Bible dictionary it's going to not only tell you what this is what this place is what this thing is who this person is but it's also going to give you a Biblical understand understanding of that and that my friends is priceless I think many people have heard the phrase of us being like biblical about something but we really take it for granted how hard it is to truly understand like Old Testament to New Testament what the whole Bible says about Cypress Wood or whatever it is so if I just like really easily want to

take my Bible study to the next level with one simple tool it would be with a Bible dictionary and my subscribers tend to buy this one out so I've been recently adding more Bible dictionaries to my library because a lot of them are very similar and you guys want to recommend you specific Bible dictionaries and they're all very similar I really like the Tindale if you can get it um I'll have it linked down below but I'll have some other really good options Linked In the description box of my video as well again most Bible

dictionaries are like basically the same but they will in like totally take your Bible study to the next level I would like stop at every single word you don't understand like okay what is justification okay where is Smyrna okay like all of it and it will like you won't go far in an hour but you will go deep in an hour I mean let me just show you okay here's Macedonia so Macedonia in at least in the Tindale it starts here here's where the entry starts and it goes it's a Roman Providence in the New

Testament times so it's not going to have anything on the Old Testament and it goes on and on shows me a map and it shows me Paul's travels in the area and then what people believe to be true about it how the gospel was sent there the Roman involvement it's giving me a holistic understanding of Macedonia when it comes to any of my biblical studies and that my friends will transform your understanding of the Bible but don't be fooled it will also you know eat up a lot of time and really like if we really

believe it's true how could we not want it to take up all our day as much as it can right now if you want to check out that playlist all about Bible translations and understanding how to use them as tools not something to be feared check out this playlist right here and I'll see you guys there [Music]