Our Bible Study

I will start this post by telling you what it is we do for Bible “study”. First, we read the Bible. Then we read the Bible some more and then…you guessed it, we read it even more. At the end of last school year we were given the Judah Bible Curriculum (JBC) for a review and it honestly changed how I look at “studying” the Bible. 

I’m pretty sure before I was looking at the Old Testament, specifically, as a bit of a history lesson and not much more. The New Testament to me was more to be applied than the Old Testament, which I don’t think is completely as it should be. “All scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness: that the man of God may be perfect, thoroughly furnished unto all good works.” (2 Timothy 3:16)

Here is how we do our Bible study, in a little more detail than the first paragraph I gave.

We start with prayer. If we want to understand God’s word, who better to ask than God himself? Next we read a chosen passage or set of verses set forth in JBC. It goes through the themes of the Bible, but not every verse of the Bible. I like that it has the themes plotted out for us. Depending on what day it is and the passage we are reading from, we will work on either a Key Individual, Institution, Event, or Document Sheet. These key sheets have 2-4 columns, each with headings to help with what to look for in the passages to get a better understanding. For example, the Key Institutions sheet has 3 columns: Doctrinal Base, Character of the People, Government.

Usually I will need to do some background research for our together study. I was researching today for our Bible study of Egypt as an institution. I looked at the sample Key Sheet provided by JBC but honestly, I couldn’t figure out how some of the points that were made. So I went snooping around online to find some resources.

• Bible Timeline
• Commentaries on Exodus 1:8
• Bible Study, Maps
• Blue Letter Bible, Timeline and Dictionary to the KJV

With these resources, I will read up and see what is applicable to our study through the week. I’ll share the sites with both the kids. They can choose what to include on their key sheets and we will discuss what we find. This can take from 30-45 minutes usually. Here is an example of one of my Key Individual sheets (Joseph):

That is the end of our ‘together’ Bible study. They each have reading they do as well as a Bible passage to memorize. For instance, Fox is going to be reading Judges 12 on Monday, Acts 11 on Tuesday, and alternate the rest of the week the Old Testament and New Testament. After they do the reading, they do a narration of what was read. Sometimes this is long, sometimes short. For the verse(s) to memorize, they read the verse in the Bible then write it out. I do expect this to be in their best handwriting (but honestly, I’d just like them to at least write legibly). After that they recite it. They cannot always recite it without looking, especially if it’s the first day or two. I do expect it to be fairly well memorized by Friday though.

Lee also has a personal ‘study’ that she does. She is going through the book of Galatians right now and reading Matthew Henry and Jamieson-Fausset-Brown commentaries (from Bible Explorer). She reads from the Bible, reads the commentary and then writes her own commentary, or narration.

Personally, I do Bible reading, following a chronological schedule, as well as the JBC at the start of our school day. I am working on verse memorization. I have a nice list of verses to memorize; I just need to get to it!

We have Bible every day, and 3 times a day I suppose. It’s my goal to do just what God commanded- to write His word on our hearts.

What do you use and/or do for Bible study?