Lecture Week 3 – The Word of God: Ephesians
Heidi Kovacs did a great job of teaching us some tools for reading the Bible this week! Having been to Bible college for 3 years I expected it to be a study involving a lot of theology books and a mass academic investigation….
“Well, was I pleasantly surprised”
Using only a Bible, a concordance and a basic commentary we read Ephesians, a book in the New Testament of the Bible. Using tools from YWAM SBS (School of Biblical studies), Heidi delivered the sessions quite differently to that of a theology degree. Beholding the Word of God like treasure in my hands, I was so inspired this week reading Ephesians!
Tools for reading the Bible
- Pray- Ask God to use His word to speak to you through the Holy Spirit as you read
- Read the book as a whole – What is the historical context? What is cultural and what is for all time?
- Read it out loud
- Go into more detail. Ask the questions Who? Why? How? Where? When? What?
- Make paragraph titles for each section of the book to help you remember what it’s about
- Ask God to show you how this applies to you today and then apply it to your daily life!
My insights from the book of Ephesians were so rich this week. The 3 main things that I noticed were….
1. The background of Ephesians and why Paul did not greet people at the start of this letter- it’s thought to be a chain mail! Paul was possibly writing from Rome. We found this by looking at other books in the Bible itself before looking at other resources and historical information. This was a good tool to use when I read other books in the Bible
2. We were given print outs of each chapter of Ephesians, and as I highlighted key words and things that encouraged me, it really started to come alive in my heart!
“Words like… Beloved children, Redeemed, Reconciled, Destined and Unity leapt off the page”
3. Ephesians is so rich in spiritual blessing! I keep being reminded of just how far God has brought me. He has redeemed me and adopted me as His very own!
Walking with Heidi to her house for more inspiration and coffee!
