Our Daily Family Bible Study

As God's Word teaches us men to pour His Word into our family, this time is spent being obedient to that exhortation in Scripture.

God has blessed our family for being obedient in this area of His calling and as iron sharpens iron, we too have all grown in our understanding of God's word through these lively discussions in our home.

This time spent pouring over God's Word with my family has become an invaluable time that we all look forward to.

Prior to Proverbs we studied (in an expository fashion):
 

The New Testament Book of  1st Timothy
 

The theme of 1st Timothy is that the gospel leads to practical, visible change in the lives of those who believe it. It is often thought that the theme is church order, but the discussion of church offices is simply a piece of the larger argument that the true gospel, in contrast to false teaching, will always lead to godliness in its adherents.
 

Paul wrote 1st Timothy in order to advise his young coworker Timothy concerning issues that were arising at the church in Ephesus. When Paul left Timothy in Ephesus, he had specifically charged him to deal with some false teachers in the church. Since Paul was then separated from Timothy and the church, he wrote back to him with further instructions. He hoped to return for a visit but wrote in the meantime to address the way in which Christians should behave. Throughout the letter Paul grounds Christian behavior in the gospel.
 

The false teachers are the primary occasion for the letter. The letter as a whole is bracketed by discussion of the false teaching and the positive instruction is crafted in direct contrast to the false teachers. The exact nature of the false teaching is unclear. It apparently involved speculation about the law and asceticism. Paul’s real concern is with the results of the false teaching — for example, promoting speculations, arrogance, and greed. Paul addresses the content of the false teaching only in passing but focuses on the fact that true Christianity is evidenced by lifestyles shaped by the gospel. Those whose lives are not shaped by the gospel show that they have turned away from the faith.
 

First Timothy is a clear call for the church to live out in tangible ways the ethical implications of the gospel.

Prior to Daniel we studied (in an expository fashion):
 

The Old Testament Book of Job
 

Considered to be the oldest book in the Bible, dating between 1500 and 2500 years before Christ (BC) the book of Job is a gem amongst the Old Testament. Categorized and placed as the first of 5 books of the Old Testament that we call Poetry (Job, Psalms, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes and Song of Solomon are all considered books of Poetry), Job is considered by most scholars to be the world’s most perfectly written poem. 

Of course, one must study Job in its original written language of Hebrew to garner the perfect harmony of this work that all other works of a serious poetic nature are compared against.

The Israelite author of Job tells us that Job was a person living in the land of Uz, which is outside the borders of Israel. Can we all not relate to Job, even today, as Job himself, calls his friends miserable comforters, and in 21:34 he declares they are trying to comfort him with empty nothings. In 21:2, Job sarcastically offers to his friends the “comfort” of hearing him out. 

The key to this brashness comes in 42:6 now that God has spoken, Job can say that he is “comforted in dust and ashes.” When Job’s relatives and friends come to comfort him in 42:11, this is probably ironic: Job found the comfort he needed in the vision of God’s unsearchable wisdom.

This unsearchable wisdom that Job discovered during this process that God ordained for him to experience is the same process by which God teaches us to rely and trust on Him in spite of what we see and experience around us.

The book of Job has brought great comfort to all who read it during times of trials in their lives as it will most assuredly lift your eyes off of yourself and your circumstances and place them squarely on Christ where they belong.

The Israelite author in 1:22 tells us “In all this Job did not sin or charge God with wrong.”

Wouldn't it be great if after we come out of our next trial, we could boast the same thing?

Before Revelation, we finished...
 

The 2nd Epistle to the Corinthians
 

The central theme of 2nd Corinthians is the relationship between suffering and the power of the Spirit in Paul’s apostolic life, ministry, and message.
 

In addition to calling into question Paul’s motives in organizing a collection for believers in Judea and questioning his personal courage, Paul’s opponents had argued that Paul suffered too much to be a Spirit-filled apostle of the risen Christ. Paul argues that his weakness as an apostle is the very means by which believers are comforted and God in Christ is made known in the world.
 

Paul’s sufferings embody the cross of Christ, while his endurance amid adversity, with thanksgiving and contentment, manifests the resurrection power of the Spirit. Paul’s suffering as an apostle is thus the very means God uses to reveal his glory.
 

Paul therefore sees a close tie between the Corinthians’ acceptance of his apostleship and the genuineness of their faith. To reject Paul and his proclamation is to reject Christ himself, since Paul’s message, ministry, and manner of life are one.
 

This explains why 2nd Corinthians is the most personal of all of Paul’s letters, filled with deep emotion.