The Bible seems to be my theme of the day today (I guess it should be every day!), so I thought I would just explain how I will be using the Bible in this blog while I'm on a roll!
Because this blog is about how to be a woman who follows God today, much of my use of the Bible is likely to be taking principles and applying them to life.
When I pick out a verse and quote it on my blog, I will normally have gone through this process...
1. I listen to God, and something I read in the Bible stands out to me, it kind of seems to jump off the page at me.
2. My life fuses with the passage as God applies it to my life. It specifically meets me in a certain struggle, God's Word meets my need.
3. That passage continues to be useful as it has become part of my life. I then offer it to other people and use it in other situations because most human experiences are not unique to one person, but common to lots of people.
So, my intention is to mostly use straightforward passages, which have a direct application for Chistian women in our culture. My heart's desire is to see a generation of women who's lives are shaped by the Truth (See John 8:32 - Through Jesus, that we will know the truth, and the truth will set us free).
However, this way of reading the Bible is not what I recommend for individual Bible study, and it isn't how I read the Bible every day myself. So, from the outset I want to acknowledge that:
1. The Bible is not a self-help manual or a magic book which is always immediately relevant to our personal situations and ready with an easy solution.
2. Because the Bible is about God, not about me, much of it is not designed to apply to my life. The point is to draw us into the bigger picture of what God is doing and who He is.
3. As we study the Bible over our lifetime we will learn how it all applies to us, including the less-direct passages. This is because the God described throughout the Bible is our God, the history of salvation is our history, the people we read about are our brothers and sisters in God's family, and the Gospel is our Good News.
No comments:
Post a Comment