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Alright. Welcome back to Words of Life. This is sadly our final episode in our series with this panel of believers who have been sharing what deep, intentional Bible study has meant in their life. Be sure to check out the show notes for plenty of links to Bible study resources. What is so incredible at this point in time is how easily accessible.
It is to study the Bible. The UVersion app on your phone that has the Bible in every version you could imagine. On that app, there are plans that you can follow. These plans are so easy.
So it's not like you're having to take your Bible everywhere you go. You can have it on your phone. These plans that Chris and I are talking about that we have done this year is called the Bible Recap. Teralee Cobble is the woman who has put this together. It is studying the Bible, reading the Bible in a year in chronological order.
And so it's a different way to read the Bible, but it has been so incredible and meaningful and helpful. To me, I think it's a great plan. And so I've encouraged. A lot of my friends are doing this. Where I work, we Meet every other week during lunch and talk about what we've read over the last two weeks.
And somebody kind of leads the discussion, and we show some of the videos. I have seen it change other people's lives around me by reading this plan, which is reading God's Word. And I know what it's meant to me, how much more I have learned. There's so many great. Plans, different ways to read the Bible.
But what I want to say is how easy it is to do that now. I feel like you really have no excuse. You can do it. You can listen to it while you're riding in the car, while you're getting ready in the morning. I mean, reading it, highlighting it, but There's just so many.
different ways. I just want to encourage Everybody, to find the one that works for you and stick with it because it makes a difference in your life. Hey, you're listening to the Salvation Army's Words of Life. We're gonna take a quick ad break and we'll be right back. Americans have a big healthcare problem.
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Join CHM today by visiting chministries.org/slash wellness. That's chministries.org/slash wellness. The important thing is to read God's Word as the majority of your time when you are doing your Bible study, that you are reading. The actual scripture, we have the Bible recap, and I'm so grateful that I've been led to do that as well. You have some commentary by Teralee Cobble, though the majority of your time is spent in scripture.
And so, as the listeners of this go through their scheduling, see what they're going to find for their resources, that they are actually in God's Word, or majority of their time is spent reading that more than following a brilliant writer, more than following a special speaker, they are actually spending that time in God's Word. When I was a student, I would look for scriptures about love, scriptures about anger, scriptures about patience just to go about the situation that I was in. And today's age, that's very easy to do with our phones in our hands that we can quickly find scripture to kind of match the situation if that's what we need. I would suggest also Bible Project. My Bible studies that we've done and leading.
The Bible Project has made every book of the Bible come to life with a video about how it was made, the general summary and the application of that book. It's so smart. It's so edgy, it's so modern, and it's definitely God's word being alive and active. At our church, I led a Bible study and We went through the whole Bible in a year. We were so impacted by reading the Bible together as a group.
That really moved us. And most of the ladies in the group were people that had read the Bible already several times throughout their life. But it was something different that we all experienced reading God's Word together and being impacted in different ways. And when we would gather to talk about it, sometimes our meetings were just crying about how great God is. And we were so moved.
It became not just alive to individually, each one of us, but it became alive to us as an entire group of friends, an entire group of seekers. And it's incredible what God does when. Two or three are gathered in his name, and the change that we all had, and encouragement we all had together. I'm glad that you mentioned the Bible project because in the Bible recap plan, if you follow along with that plan on your phone, at the beginning of every chapter of the Bible, the Bible Project video is there for you to watch. And that has been so helpful to me.
And I would encourage everyone to have someone else that you're reading the Bible with. It's been a blessing to me that my husband has read along with this plan this year with me. My son-in-law has done this plan.
So when we're together, we talk about it. There's something about that that is encouraging and it's also an accountability. And so if you can get in a group in a church or a small group or in your neighborhood or wherever it is, find someone to read with you because, like Claudia said, you can learn from one another and you can get encouragement from one another. And it also does hold you accountable, which I think. It's really important.
You mentioned accountability. And I think both in the sense of having somebody encourage you to keep going, but then also in discussing the passages, by doing it in a group, we're making sure, like, hey, am I understanding that properly? Like, am I reading that the right way? And I think just that kind of conversation can lead to such. rich conversation in in understanding some of these Passages that may be a little more difficult to really get what it's meaning.
And it also encourages you if you don't understand something, you can ask that person and Like if someone asked me, I don't know. I was wondering about that too. And it just causes you to dig deeper and to. Call your friend Caleb or someone like that and say, Can you help me with this? And I love that.
Then after I'm called, I might turn to some commentaries to find the answer. I was going to mention that actually two commentaries I often recommend, and they're actually part of the same set. Is Intervarsity Press did these background commentaries, one for the Old Testament, one for the New Testament. That I recommend, particularly to folks who are starting to preach and want to have some kind of commentary to refer to, that's not that expensive. But it's a really great resource for knowing.
The background stuff of the Bible. And the Old Testament's written by a scholar named John Walton, and the others by Craig Keener. Both are brilliant scholars. And Craig Keener's been on Words of Life.
So they're a friend of the pod and really helpful. And they're not there to give you the application of the text or even interpret it, but just to give you, hey, here's some background information. And then something else I'd say, too, in terms of. Our relationship to the Bible is to use it as worship as well. If you find yourself in a worship meeting and scripture is being read and you're checking out, lean in, lean into that moment.
That's how the scripture has primarily been used throughout. the people of God's history all along is in corporate worship as Are hearing the word of God, inspired word, read for us as this gift to all of us. And I've just found more and more churches. Moving away from that moment of worship, of the scripture being read and. us saying as the church The scripture is an act of worship in and of itself.
The reading of it, the hearing of it is worship. I love that thought of singing scripture because if I'm listening and I hear a song on the radio and recognize that they're singing scripture, it is more meaningful to me, and I love that. And I also love the idea of praying scripture when sometimes you go through a season where I don't even have the words to pray, but you can find. A verse. that you just pray that verse.
It's so meaningful and it's so powerful. And I mean, those words are a lot. Better than any words that I could come up with. And God gives us those words to pray for ourselves, to pray over our family and friends. And That's powerful.
I love that you mentioned praying scripture because that ties into the resource that I was going to suggest, which is an app called Lectio 365. And it's taking this really old tradition of reading the Bible, taking a smaller chunk, a small passage, maybe even just a verse. and repeating it. In that moment of praying, that verse of scripture, asking God to speak to you. And so this app There's a morning prayer, a midday prayer, and an evening prayer.
It does that very thing. It just walks you through a passage of scripture. and then allows you time to just kind of You know, ask the Holy Spirit, you know, what you might be speaking to me through this passage. But that has been a really neat way for me. To interact with scripture.
And so the app is Lecgio365. It's a free app. It's really good. And it's a great app.
Okay. We pray that you're enjoying and being blessed by this conversation. Uh We're going to take one more ad break and we'll be right back. Health insurance rates are surging in America, leaving millions without affordable options. If you're sick of having paychecks eaten up by healthcare costs or dealing with mega corporations, then listen to this.
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That's chministries.org/slash wellness. My mom would tell me the story about when my dad was in World War II. And she was at home. With a toddler and an infant living with my grandmother while my daddy was in the war and woke up in the middle of the night having a terrible nightmare about my dad. And my grandma grabbed their Bible and started reading and praying Psalm 91: Whoever dwells in the shelter of the Most High will rest in the shadow of the Almighty.
I will say to the Lord, He is my refuge and my fortress, my God in whom I trust. Surely He will save you from the fowler's snare. And they just prayed this scripture over my dad. A month or so later, they received a telegram in the mail that was delivered to my mom. My daddy had been wounded in a battle.
Thankfully, he survived. That reminder of praying that over him. And now I have a nephew who is deployed in Africa. And I promised him that I would pray scripture over him. And every day I've prayed these words from Psalm 139.
It's a beautiful sombre 139. Verse 5, you hemmed me in behind. And before, and you lay your hand upon me.
So I'm just praying every day for God to hem him in and keep his hand on him and protect him. And a lot of times we may think, well, what can I do? What can I do for my nephew that is so far away from us right now? I can pray this scripture over him and know that there is power in those words. What an incredible time.
To just hang out with all of you God-loving people, children of God yourselves. It's an encouragement to me. We have all collectively loved the story that Caleb shared from Numbers and that amulet. And uh I just wondered if Caleb Would offer that same prayer for our listeners, for each of us, that God would do miraculous things in our hearts and our minds as we. Take the time to get to know him through the reading of his word.
And with that, Caleb? Pray that prayer over them, that scripture over them. Let's pray together. The Lord bless you and keep you. The Lord make his face shine on you and be gracious to you.
The Lord turn his face toward you. and give you peace. The Salvation Army's mission, doing the most good, means helping people with material and spiritual needs. You become a part of this mission every time you give to the Salvation Army. Visit SalvationArmyusa.org to offer your support.
You can subscribe to Words of Life on your favorite podcast store or visit SalvationArmysoundcast.org. Join us next time for the Salvation Army's Words of Life. These are the words, these are the words of life. These are the words, these are the words, these are the words of life. Thanks so much for listening to Words of Life.
We want to thank the team at Life Audio for their partnership with us on the show. Visit lifeaudio.com, where you'll find dozens of other faith-centered podcasts in their network. They have shows about prayer, Bible studying, parenting, and more. Thanks again for listening. We'll see you next time.
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