Use the Web for Bible Study!
By WebFoot
The Internet has revolutionized the way we can do life. From finding bargains on common household items to finding directions to Bear Creek church, the Internet can provide a wealth of information. Of course not all of it is true or even nice, but with Internet filters in place (strongly recommended), you can avoid much of the harmful and problematic sites.
Even Bible study can be greatly enhanced. For example, our small group has been doing a rather good study entitled, “The Jesus I Follow”. This study is located on the Internet at: http://www.rabbihixon.com/studyguides/jesus_i_follow.asp. Every two weeks, small group members go to this site and print off the next lesson. Then before the small group meets, they (hopefully) complete their homework in time to discuss it and understand how to become more like Jesus.
A second example of using the Internet for spiritual growth includes two “links” which can be found on Bear Creek’s own website, www.bearcreekchurch.net. From the church website (also called the “homepage”), select “links and other resources” on the left side of the main page. Here you will find under section “Bible and Reference tools”, two links to “Bible Study Tools” and “Bible Gateway”. For the rest of this article, I’ll illustrate one example of using these two sites.
I. BibleStudyTools
In week 3 of the small group bible study mentioned above, we studied “The Beatitudes”. And at the conclusion of the “Sermon on the Mount” (which includes the Beatitudes) we find in Matthew 7:28
“ When Jesus had finished saying these things, the crowds were amazed at his teaching,”. Of course because of our small group study and discussions, we all had an idea of why and how the crowds were amazed. But what does the word “amazed” really mean?
Using the Biblestudytools website, we can do a search on this verse using the reference “NAS with Strong’s Numbers”. You can also use “KJB with Strong’s Numbers”, but I prefer the more modern translation. So the next image is the homepage of Biblestudytools filled in with this search (Note from here on many of the images have been cropped to only show relevant parts).
Pressing the “Find” button brings up this next screen.
You’ll notice that in this window, many of the words are underlined and in blue. This is because they are “hyperlinks” and you can “click” on these words with your mouse and go to another Internet page to find more information.
Clicking on the word “amazed” brings up the next screen
From this we can see that the word “amazed” is a very strong word (is that because we’re using the Strong’s concordance? :-}) When we think of Jesus’ words do we normally perceive that the reaction of the crowd was “[as if] to strike out, expel by a blow”, or “stuck with panic” or “astonished”. You can see that going back to the Greek definitions of the bible words can “flesh out” the meaning in a new way. Hopefully this will help us understand the dramatic effect of a series of teachings that we may normally think of as “quite nice”. This resource helps us understand what a life changing effect this teaching had on many of the people. No one slept through this teaching!
The page also shows us that the word amazed is used in the New Testament thirteen times and the same Greek word has been translated elsewhere as “astonished”. And because the references on the right side of the page are “hyperlinked”, we can, by clicking the mouse on these words, do further study on “amazed”. For example, clicking on “Matthew” on the right displays the next which shows the 4 times in Matthew that the word “amazed” or “astonished” is used.
There are many more things we could explore and learn from this site, but this is meant to be an introduction into a new tool. Hopefully this brief example will show you some of the ways that what the Bible says is truly “amazing!”
II. Bible Gateway.
The second link, also from the church “links” page, is another very useful website, “Bible Gateway”. Again using Matthew 7:28 as an illustration, here is an example of using this next site to further understand this verse.
From the church links page (bible gateway is also available on the church homepage), we can go to the Bible Gateway site and then select “passage lookup”
Next we select “Lookup passage(s) in multiple versions”
and then enter Matthew 7:29 and select:
the New International Version,
the Message
the Amplified bible.
Clicking on the Lookup Passage button gives the following screen. (Again cropped to only show the relevant information)
This page then again helps “flavor” this verse, giving us clues into the crowd’s reactions to Jesus’ words from different translations. The crowds were “amazed”, they “burst into applause” and were “astonished, overwhelmed with bewildered wonder” at this teaching. Can you “feel” the excitement (and bewilderment) caused at this casual gathering? Jesus’ words transformed all who heard. But before I get into a sermonette, let me try to summarize.
The book of Ecclesiastics states “Of making many books there is no end, and much study wearies the body”. http://www.biblegateway.com/keyword/?search=books&version1=31&searchtype=all&wholewordsonly=yes&spanbegin=25&spanend=26
My purpose here is not to “weary your body” but rather to explore some new ways, without buying a whole reference library, to understand our new life in Jesus.
All this was done with a home computer connected to the World Wide Web. And of course I used one example verse to guide us through two interesting web sites. These sites offer many more tools but this has been an attempt to get us started
So get out there and become an “amazing” disciple. Remember, the purpose is NOT to gain intellect, “Knowledge puffs up, but love builds up” (1 Cor 8:1**) but rather that we might “ be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God” http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Ephesians%203%20:19;&version=31;
So get out there on the Internet and discover amazing truths!
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** ok on this one I did use an actual book. I couldn’t remember the verse here so I looked in my quite large Strong’s concordance under “puff” and found the correct reference and then I copied the verse from my NIV Bible.