Growin' Gearä Bible Study System
Phil 1:9 "I pray that your love will overflow more and more, and that you will keep on growing in knowledge and understanding."
Study Resources
The way you use Growin' Gearä may differ from the way your mom uses it , or your best friend, but in the end we are all striving to grow deeper in our knowledge of God's Word! The following resources are provided as a general survey of ways to start Growin' deeper!
Start by understanding how the bible is laid out. The following information outlines the basic breaks in the books of the bible.
Old Testament
Genesis - Deuteronomy are considered books of "The Law"
Joshua - Ester = "History"
Job - Song of Solomon = "Poetry and Wisdom"
Isaiah - Daniel = "Major Prophets"
Hosea - Zephaniah = "Minor Prophets"
New Testament
Matthew - John = "Gospels"
Acts
Romans - Philemon= Paul's Letters "The Epistles"
Hebrews- Jude & Revelation = "General Epistles & Revelation"
*information comes from Bible Overview by Rose Publishing
The internet offers numerous resources, providing multiple ways to search information (i.e. keyword, by verse, by topic, etc.) as well as various translations of the word.
http://www.ibs.org/niv/appendix/concordance.php
Dictionaries, Lexicons, Commentaries?!
What are all these tools?
A Dictionary simply allows you to look up the meaning of each word. You can begin by looking up the English translation of each word, as found in your bible. To go deeper into "original" language, you will use one or more of the following.
Using the Lexicons (the following information was taken from www.bible.crosswalk.com)
The Greek Lexicon has been designed to help the user understand the original text of the Bible. By using the Strong's version of the Bible, the user can gain a deeper knowledge of the passage being studied.
The Greek Lexicon can be searched in three ways:
- By Strong's Numbers: If you know the number of the entry you desire to see, you can enter it into the text box, choose "Strong's Number" and click "Find" to view that entry.
- By Greek word: You can enter a Greek word, choose "Greek Word" and click "Find" to view possible entries corresponding to your query.
- By English word: (pre-selected) You can enter an English word, choose "English Word" and click "Find" to view possible entries corresponding to your query.
The Concordance is an alphabetical collection of biblical words from which you can search in order to find their location in the bible.
Commentaries are just that....... "comments" from the author on what the bible says. A commentary helps shed light on passages as you are attempting to gather greater understanding and view points of what God saying. History and customs are researched by many authors and their insight helps the reader to gain a wider scope of the passage.
