Bible Study, Importance of

The Bible may be the world's bestselling book that is never read. Fewer people are reading it and not as often. The problem, though, is not availability.

In one sense, we take the Bible for granted. In other times possessing God's Word was rare and expensive. Here is why having such ready access to God's Word is one of our richest blessings.

John Ritenbaugh compares the multi-faceted, infinite, marvelously complex, and perfect works of God with the limited, flawed works of man. Like geodes, hiding magnificent structural and aesthetic designs, the biblical types, emblems, or allegories are dece. . .

One of the most widely occurring metaphors in the Bible involves eating. We must develop the ability to feed ourselves properly, discerning the good and bad.

God gave Israel manna to eat every day for forty years. Today, we have God's Word as our daily bread. Are we taking advantage of it, or are we allowing it to spoil?

Eternal life is to live a quality life as God lives, having developed a close relationship with God, living by faith and accepting His sovereignty over all.

Christ says His words are Spirit and Life; they have a quality above human words because their source is divine. If ingested, these words lead to eternal life.

Kim Myers, asking us whether we see God working in our lives, contends that Job was able to endure the multiple trials and tragic events in his life (the deaths of his offspring, the assaults on his health and livelihood, and the attacks on his reputation . . .

John Ritenbaugh affirms that faith and love require reciprocal works on our part, even though God has made the initial step, providing His only Son as a substitutionary sacrifice for our sins. As God calls us, He provides the power both to will and to do. . . .

The Bible is full of symbols and types. The offerings of Leviticus, though they are no longer necessary under the New Covenant, are wonderful for teaching us about Christ in His roles as sacrifice, offerer, and priest. And they even instruct us in our role. . .

John Ritenbaugh affirms that the Word of God is not ever improved by syncretizing or alloying it with human philosophy, a pattern of reasoning which often begins with a faulty or dangerous premise. The Gnostics criticized by Paul in Colossians 2:16-17 were. . .

David Grabbe, focusing on Christ's warning about false prophets in His Sermon on the Mount, cautions us that every belief will produce something, either pointing us toward or away from God. The false prophet conceals something deadly, which will eventually. . .

Richard Ritenbaugh, reflecting upon the technological and linguistic changes that have occurred in the short span of one century, marvels at the drastic decrease of our attention span and the corresponding degradation of language. The dramatic shift in ori. . .

We are what we eat. The same can apply spiritually to what we put into our minds. John Ritenbaugh shows that God wants us to desire His Word with the eagerness of a baby craving milk.

God personally handpicks individuals with whom He desires to form a reciprocal relationship. This relationship must be dressed, kept, tended, and maintained.

John Ritenbaugh, reflecting that the book of Hebrews was written for a group of people living at a time of the end of an age (the end of Jewish life in Judea), suggests that this nation is also languishing in an end-time decline. People are in a general ma. . .

Our physical bodies have a defense system to keep out invaders. Spiritually, how well do we maintain our defenses against error and contamination?

In a world influenced by Satan the Devil, fear is a constant that we must all deal with. We may be confused, though, because we can see two contradictory sides of fear, the good fears and the bad ones. Pat Higgins explains the paradoxes of fear, encouragin. . .

David Grabbe, marveling that over the past 25 years the Church of the Great God has assembled a massive library of electronic resources as a service to the Greater Church of God, as well as to the world at large, asserts that God performed this work at a f. . .

Luke 4 contains Satan's temptation of Christ, and it is instructive to see what Jesus did in the face of evil. ...

John Ritenbaugh explains that justification is not the end of the salvation process, but merely the doorway to a more involved process of sanctification, symbolized by the long journey through the wilderness toward the promised land, a lengthy purifying pr. . .

Sheep are the most dependent on their owner for their well-being. From the viewpoint of the sheep, the quality of care of the shepherd is of utmost importance.

Grace places limits on our freedom, training us for the Kingdom of God. Our behavior must be clearly distinguishable from the non-believers in society.

God commands us to come out of Babylon, giving us spiritual resources to do so, including faith, vision, hope, and love. These come through knowing Him.