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Bible 101 Now What?

Jim Parker

Jim Parker

Member
Ok. That was a run through Genesis and I hope folks got something out of it.

However, I'm really not up for a book-by-book cursory analysis of all the books in the Bible.

SO: what would everyone like to do? A particular book? A particular topic? Teachings you've heard or read? Something else?

Let's pick something.
 
Jim Parker said:
Ok. That was a run through Genesis and I hope folks got something out of it.

However, I'm really not up for a book-by-book cursory analysis of all the books in the Bible.

SO: what would everyone like to do? A particular book? A particular topic? Teachings you've heard or read? Something else?

Let's pick something.
Click to expand...


Got a lot out of it.
Thank you for all your hard work, time and patience.
 
exodus has a lot of type and shadow of Christ - i would like to do exodus

or the topic of Christ foreshadowed in the OT

and then a companion study of Christ in the NT

that way we would be fixing our eyes on Jesus - the Author and Perfecter of our faith
 
Any of those would be good in my opinion. I expecially like looking at Jesus forshadowed in the old Testiment as well as Him in the New Testament. But here's a few more suggestions to throw out too. If you'd be up for it, maybe one of the books that are hard to just read streight through. I like both psalms and proverbs, but it's hard to read them streight through while retaining much of it. Job also seems like an easy one to get lost in with the long speaches and losing track who is talking.

My throw out suggestion is for any book that is tough to finish all the way through after it's started. However based on the suggestions so far, my vote would be for a study on the topic of foreshadowing Jesus.
 
How about studying about God himself?

We need to keep this fairly general and basic. (And outside of theological differences)

We all agree that God is omnipresent, omniscient, immutable, Sovereign and a host of other attributes...but what does each of those terms mean exactly? Can you explain it to someone else who has never heard of God? God is holy, holy, holy....how and what and why does that mean?
Standing there giving someone "the muppet face" isn't going to work really well. (Blank look on your face with your jaw dropped open)

Does God really get angry?
Does God really cry?
How can God do those things if He is immutable and timeless?
Is God some kind of absentee Santa? Why does God act when He does act?

There are answers to these questions.

I would think that exploring God after studying the basics about His book would be a really good thing...knowing the Author.
 
Because I like history, I think it would be cool to learn about the people who learned directly from the Apostles. Like Polycarp and Ignatious.
Both of them were at the feet of John, and both left their writings that are preserved to this day. Clement of Rome is another, and many suspect he was mentioned in Phillipians 4:3
Really, anything early church.
 
Jim Parker said:
Ok. That was a run through Genesis and I hope folks got something out of it.

However, I'm really not up for a book-by-book cursory analysis of all the books in the Bible.

SO: what would everyone like to do? A particular book? A particular topic? Teachings you've heard or read? Something else?

Let's pick something.
Click to expand...

I think it would be cool to discuss the standards of truth. I notice that in a lot of cases of discord and non agreement in threads, it's almost as if , science is the source of the disagreement. Is the Bible the standard of truth, which science must prove itself to? Or is science the standard of truth, which the Bible must prove itself to?

:wink
 
Then, if we wanted a topic to discuss after a reasonable consensus is reached to relate the focus if the discussion...we could discuss the earth itself. I've been reading some about it and science about earth as taught disagrees with the Bible. The Bible actually says quite a bit about the earth, blurbs about it all throughout scripture.
 
Edward said:
Is the Bible the standard of truth, which science must prove itself to? Or is science the standard of truth, which the Bible must prove itself to?
Click to expand...
The source of the issues concerning science and the Bible arise from the misconceptions of what the Bible is and what science is.

The Bible is God's self-revelation to man.
It contains information about how man is supposed to have communion with God.

The Bible is not a science book or a history book. Even though there are historical events included in the Bible, that is not its primary focus.

The Bible relates truth from cover to cover.
Man has difficulty comprehending exactly what Truth is.

Science is the STUDY of nature. (the creation)
Some things that have been discovered by the application of scientific methods are indisputable facts. For example: a water molecule is made up of two atoms of hydrogen and one atom of oxygen.
Other aspects of creation that people are using science to investigate are still in the early stages of being understood. The "facts" have not yet been established. No clear conclusions have been proven and the research (the trying to figure out what the facts are) is still in the hypothesis (best guess) stage.

Facts are our descriptions of reality. For example: we now that anything that has mass exerts a force on other objects which have mass and we call the force, "gravity." Throw a ball up and it comes back down every time.

Truth is a philosophical view of reality. It includes basic concepts such as "good" and "evil."
What is "good", according to the Bible is regularly in direct conflict with what is considered "good" by secular society. For example: the Bible teaches that we should love (treat as we would want to be treated) our enemies while "the World" teaches that enemies are to be permanently and totally destroyed by any means available.

So: Discussions about "science vs. the Bible", because people regularly confuse the meaning of truth and fact, tend to as fruitless as would be a discussion about apples vs. submarines.

The Bible says there was a flood that wiped out all the people on the earth except Noah, hie wife, his 3 sons and their wives. So we accept that report as truth.

Science cannot find irrefutable evidence of the Biblical flood. And we accept that report as fact. Scientists have not succeeded in finding observable, measurable, countable evidence of the Flood.

The lack of scientific evidence is a Fact. That does not mean the Flood is not Truth.

The confusion of the meaning of words like"fact" and "truth" regularly make the discussion unfruitful.

So, anyway, I've been there often, always with the same results, and I don't care to go there again. :shrug

But that's just me. If many insist on it, we can.
 
StoveBolts said:
Because I like history, I think it would be cool to learn about the people who learned directly from the Apostles. Like Polycarp and Ignatious.
Both of them were at the feet of John, and both left their writings that are preserved to this day. Clement of Rome is another, and many suspect he was mentioned in Phillipians 4:3
Really, anything early church.
Click to expand...
the didache would do.
 
Jim Parker said:
Truth is a philosophical view of reality. It includes basic concepts such as "good" and "evil."
What is "good", according to the Bible is regularly in direct conflict with what is considered "good" by secular society. For example: the Bible teaches that we should love (treat as we would want to be treated) our enemies while "the World" teaches that enemies are to be permanently and totally destroyed by any means available.
Click to expand...

Nope. This is absolutely wrong. You should know this too, Brother. Truth is a person. His Name is Jesus.
 
Edward said:
Nope. This is absolutely wrong. You should know this too, Brother. Truth is a person. His Name is Jesus.
Click to expand...
Yes, I know.
That is a theological fact.

What you missed was that I was comparing the commonly misused meaning of the word "truth" with the meaning of the word "fact".

I was talking about the confusion introduced into any conversation when we misuse language.
 
It would be really interesting to see what John's Disciple wrote about the meaning of the book of Revelation in Against Heresies.

I bet that's also the least known of the suggested topics so far, although I will never vote against seeing Christ prophesied and foreshadowed in the OT.

Another very interesting topic is comparing Psalms to Biblical history of what was happening as the Psalm was being written. That's long too, but it's easier to break into small chunks.
 
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