Bible Study - Sabbath School Podcast

Further Thought: If you consider the words that you’ve spoken during the past 24 hours, how would you evaluate them? Were they loving, kind, joyful, uplifting, frustrated, tired, anxious, angry, gossipy, or malicious? The Bible says, “Out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks” (Matt. 12:34, NKJV). When we have junk in our hearts, it comes out in our words.We’ve all experienced feeling frustrated, tired, or stressed, and that state of mind changes what comes out of our mouths (often words we later regret). In contrast, when our heart is bursting with love for someone, it flows through our words.In the same way, God’s Word speaks of His heart and His intentions toward us. It’s amazing to think that these very words, straight from the heart of God, are in our possession in the Bible. It’s truly incredible to see the power God’s words have held throughout history. “It is one thing to treat the Bible as a book of good moral instruction, to be heeded so far as is consistent with the spirit of the times and our position in the world; it is another thing to regard it as it really is--the word of the living God, the word that is our life, the word that is to mold our actions, our words, and our thoughts. To hold God’s word as anything less than this is to reject it. And this rejection by those who profess to believe it, is foremost among the causes of skepticism and infidelity in the youth.”--Ellen G. White, Education, p. 260.Discussion Questions:What are all the logical and rational reasons you have for your faith? Probably a whole lot more than you realize.How can you make sure that Bible study and prayer are the foundation of your relationship with God? How can you have a relationship with God without both prayer and Bible study?If someone wanted to deepen their relationship with God, where would you advise them to start reading?How can you live by every word that proceeds from the mouth of the Lord? (Deut. 8:3). What might that really look like in your life?What do the following passages tell us about God’s words? Heb. 11:3; Ps. 33:6; Matt. 11:4-5; 1 Thess. 4:16; Eph. 6:17; James 1:21.Summary: The Bible is living and powerful, and reading it is foundational to growing our relationship with God. Not only does it teach us about God’s wonderful character and His interactions with humanity throughout earth’s history--it also speaks to each of us today when we come to it in humility.

State of the Heart❤️‍🩹Our ability to receive instruction from God’s Word (Job 22:22) depends largely on what the state of our heart is like when we come to the Bible. How does 1 Corinthians 2:14 explain this?To have spiritual discernment means to have spiritual insight and understanding. It makes sense, then, that a spiritually open-minded person will have very different takeaways in reading the Bible than a spiritually closed-minded person. Someone who thinks the Bible is foolish won’t look for truth in its pages.So, both our attitude toward the Bible and the way we approach reading it are very important when it comes to growing in a relationship with God. How does Paul explain this in 1 Thessalonians 2:13?God’s Word works in us when we believe. When you open your Bible and believe that God has something to say to you through the words on the pages, He will indeed speak to you and work in your life. But so much depends on your faith and your expectations. The good news is that if your faith is small, God can help it to grow (Mark 9:24), even if it’s tiny like a mustard seed (Luke 17:6).One of the great purposes of the Bible is to speak truth into our lives about the condition of our relationship with God and how to strengthen it. If your heart is open to the Holy Spirit, if you approach the Word with humility, you will always come away changed, although one might not always immediately recognize this day by day, because such change and growth is often incremental. But if we cling to our apathy and sin and are not willing to change, Bible reading can avail us little good. The Holy Spirit prompts us to move closer to Jesus Christ. Do we want to step closer? If so, we become “wise unto salvation” (2 Tim. 3:15), and we’ll see things we never even imagined.What is the state of my heart and mind as I approach the Bible? Am I just bringing my opinions to the Bible with the goal of trying to justify them, or am I coming with an open mind and heart, ready with childlike faith to see what God wants to tell me today? Why is that answer so important?

Bible ClaimsWhat might change in your home if you turned to the Bible when faced with a big decision, relationship problem, or challenge? What might change in your workplace or church if the words of the Bible truly became the lens through which people viewed the world and chose to live by?The Bible authors knew how valuable the words of the Bible were. No other book can speak to your life as these words can. The words can sit on the page in your Bible, but how can you keep them in your heart?What is David’s advice in Psalm 119:11, and how might you follow it? (See also Heb. 4:12.)One of the claims the Bible makes about itself can be found in Hebrews 4:12. A two-edged sword is powerful and sharp, but the Bible can do what human tools cannot for the human soul. The Bible describes itself as being alive. Perhaps you’ve wondered how this could be, given that it was written thousands of years ago, but Jesus said, “The words that I speak to you are spirit, and they are life” (John 6:63, NKJV). If your heart is broken or your life is falling apart, God can speak His words into your world and change things around. The Old Testament also describes God’s words as being very active and not at all stagnant or passive (see Isa. 55:11). When David reflected on the impact of God’s words on his life, he wrote, “This is my comfort in my affliction, for Your word has given me life” (Ps. 119:50, NKJV).Perhaps you’ve experienced severe hunger at some point in your life, or maybe you’ve fasted or gone on a diet. Doesn’t food taste good after you’ve been hungry? In a spiritual sense, the Bible is food for our souls.If your soul is empty and hungry, open the living Word. Read Jeremiah 15:16, 1 Peter 2:2, and Matthew 4:4.God’s words taste good to the mind and heart, and when we read them, they will fill us and sustain us as promised.The messages in God’s word, the Bible, have come from God Himself. God sent them specifically for us and for every other person who has sought Him. When we read them with a prayerful, open heart, those words won’t be wasted.How much time do you spend daily in the Bible, and how do you spend that time? What can you do to make that time the most spiritually profitable?

Bible TruthA trend among some liberal theologians in the 1960s was to write God out of the field of theology. In 2017, a cover story of Time magazine featured the headline “Is Truth Dead?” It’s interesting because this trend illustrates the position of our society today. The very idea of “truth” itself is decaying to such an extent that no one knows what truth is anymore. According to popular culture, there is no measuring stick, no foundation that remains constant and can be depended upon to endure the test of time. Contrary to this, Jesus said, “I am the … truth” (John 14:6). His Word testifies about Him as truth in complete purity.Read the following three verses slowly, and then read them again a second time. What do you notice about these messages?John 17:17Prov. 30:5-6Ps. 12:6The Bible declares that basic truth, Jesus Himself, doesn’t change (Heb. 13:8). At the same time, as we read God’s Word, our understanding of God and His truth can grow. “There are mines of truth yet to be discovered by the earnest seeker.”--Ellen G. White, Testimonies for the Church, vol. 5, p. 704. In speaking of “truth,” Ellen G. White always referred to truth as given by God through His Word. We can search for additional light in the Bible because the Bible never contradicts past truths, but instead builds on them.Read 1 Thessalonians 2:13; Psalm 33:4-5; and Ephesians 1:13. What is the message there?In the end, the Bible, and the Bible alone, must be the foundational source of what we understand as truth. All other sources must be tried and tested by the Word of God. Even what we deem “reason” needs to be tested by the Word of God.Some people want to argue that there is no truth. Why is that statement self-contradictory? That is, why is making the claim that there is no truth an attempt to proclaim truth, and thus self-refuting?

Scripture, the AuthorityThe Bible’s authority and function are clearly declared within its pages. Read and copy out 2 Timothy 3:15-17. Take note of what these verses tell you about the function of the Bible.When it comes to personal Bible study, we must be careful not to expect the Bible to serve our purposes or perspectives, which are not always the same as God’s. For example, we shouldn’t use the “close my eyes and point to a text” method, because this isn’t how God wants to communicate with us through His Word. God is not a puppet on a string, waiting to serve our needs and will. His ways and thoughts are so much higher than ours (Isa. 55:9), and so we should never try to control His words to us. Neither should we pick and choose only the parts of the Bible that feel comfortable to us. Instead, we should see the Bible as a whole package rather than reading the easy, familiar passages and leaving out the confronting or challenging ones. If we truly want God to speak into our lives, we must take the Bible as a whole and use sound methods when we engage in careful Bible study, trusting that God will reveal what we need to hear when we need to hear it.Also, Jesus Himself tells us: “You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind” (Matt. 22:37, NKJV). That is, God doesn’t want us to ignore our minds; rather, He wants to inform our minds with His vast reaches of knowledge and understanding, which are revealed, in part, through His Word. We can read many biblical narratives in which God had discussions with such people as Enoch, Abraham, Moses, and Job, in addition to many conversations that Jesus had with people. God doesn’t bypass human reason but invites us to submit it to His Word and wisdom when “working out” our salvation.Human reason, however, is still human--capable of error and deception. It’s never infallible. It's possible for human reason to push God aside to try to work things out on our own, which places self as equal to, or above, God when it comes to thinking. People can approach Scripture with an arrogant and critical spirit, thinking they’ve heard it all before and that there is nothing new. It’s when we feel important, confident, self-sufficient, and in need of nothing that we neglect our relationship with God and rely on our own limited knowledge and faulty reasoning.