How to Make a Bible Plan

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Lord, God, thank you for today.

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Thank you for this time that we have to share our knowledge, listen to what each other has to

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say, to understand ways that we can be committed to your word each and every day of our lives.

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Lord, give us the strength to beat the statistics, to not just be another lukewarm Christian,

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to be one who strives to be proximal to you at all times.

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One who doesn't check boxes, but one who yearns for your spirit, yearns for your word, yearns

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to be close to you, Lord.

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In your son, Jesus name, and through the Holy Spirit, we pray. Amen.

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Thank you so much for joining me today.

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I want to talk about Bible studies like we talked about last week.

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But I want to talk about how to build your own Bible study.

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I do not think it is absolutely necessary that you build your own Bible study.

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It can be a little bit of an upfront amount of work.

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It is well worth it, but it is not absolutely essential.

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There are many Bible studies out there that are great.

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As I said last week, the best Bible study out there is the one that you are committed to.

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I also do not think that you need to have a specific method I think in our best of times as

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Christians, we are led by the Spirit and God will lead us to what we need to hear and what we need to read.

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I also think it's miraculous that in the midst of Bible studies, it just seems like coincidence

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that the right message shows up at the right time.

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Of course, as Christians, we know it's not coincidence, it's by design.

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But I'm just in awe to think that on day 60 of a Bible study, that God knew I would be in a

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specific season of my life at day 60 or just prior, and the message would be so relevant to me at that time.

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In fact, if you take a moment to be in awe and think back, he said all things into motion, we know that.

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But actually wrestle with that for a minute and think what that looks like.

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That at the beginning of time, he put everything in order. He started time.

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He placed everything in a sequence so that it would perfectly align up over and over and over

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again for His people many times in each of our lives. It's absolutely incredible.

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And if you look at it from a scientific point of view, we could go on and on and on about how

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things have to line up perfectly in order for us to even exist.

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In fact, I've talked about it before, it's been a few months, but I've talked about it before.

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They've actually figured out the probability of not even life existing, but basically a simple functional protein of existing.

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And I won't bore you with the details, but the number's huge.

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It's 10 to the 164th power.

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And for those of you that it's been a while since you studied exponents, recall that that's

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a one followed by 164 zeros.

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Just like 10 to the second is what? 10 times 10, 100.

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So that's a one followed by two zeros.

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So 10 to the 164th power of just a simple 150 amino acid chain protein. Functioning.

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And you don't need me to tell you, but you're much more than 150 amino chain protein. I digress.

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But today I want to talk about if you wanted to take on the task of creating your own Bible

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study, how might you go about it?

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I've included in the show notes a Bible study that we have created that you're welcome to cut

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and paste if you would like it in Excel format or a Google, what would that be?

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Not Numbers, that's Apple Google Sheets.

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Google Sheets format, happy to send it to you.

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Of course, you can convert that as you would like, excuse me.

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But it's also within the show notes if you want to take a picture of it or copy and paste it

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or whatever you'd like to do.

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But this summer, I spoke about this last week, this summer I was doing a Bible study that was 10 chapters a day. And it was amazing.

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It took me about an hour and 15 minutes, maybe an hour and a half to complete.

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When school started, my schedule more than doubled in terms of hours I need to invest in a week.

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And so after a few weeks, it became apparent that I needed to chew on some smaller Bible study.

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And so I chose one that was four chapters a day, and that's worked well since then.

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I've made some accommodations that I'm not super thrilled with, but I am in God's word consistently.

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One of those consolidations that I made was to when I can't open God's word and do an actual,

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what I'd like to do as a Bible study with hard copy of God's word, pen and paper, write it all

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out, that I'm not gonna just bag a Bible study that day.

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I'm going to listen to God's word.

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And so the last few weeks been pretty busy, and it's been tough.

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To get out pen and paper and be able to do that.

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I'm not trying to provide excuses, but I am trying to relate in the life that a lot of us live that is busy.

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But again, rather than just kind of bag the Bible study for the day, I listen to it and actually

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able to get through more chapters than four per day by listening.

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I spend probably an hour and a half or so, maybe two hours in the car on a daily basis, Monday

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through Friday, and you'd be shocked at how many chapters you can get through in that amount of time.

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Even if I only listen to the first hour of driving and then switch the second hour to a podcast

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or something else, I'm still easily able to get through five, six, maybe even seven chapters.

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But nonetheless, three chapters is what we created for our Bible study.

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I think a lot of people find 10 chapters and even four chapters intimidating.

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Three is a significant number in scripture.

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And even if you find three chapters to be intimidating, especially if you're willing to tackle

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it at first through audiobook, you'll find that it's really no struggle at all.

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Even if you sit down with pen and paper, you can do this in three sections throughout the day.

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You can do it at the beginning of the day, you can do it at the end of the day.

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I always recommend you provide your first fruits to the Lord.

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So whenever you're most productive, I would suggest doing this.

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But that may be an added level of difficulty for some.

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It's still something I suggest that you dedicate to and that you do.

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But nonetheless, some word is better than no word.

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And I think we should be in God's word every day.

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I know we should be in God's word every single day.

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I feel like I'm making too many consolidations here, but my empathetic heart is really trying

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to relate to the challenges that we experience here on Earth with providing for a family, with

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our day-to-day tasks and all of that.

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But please don't misconstrue my goal here is not that we make all these consolidations, but

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that we get in God's word every single day, and that as God's word continues to work on our

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heart, we will be striving for greatness, and we will be striving for more.

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I want to be upfront with that also, because I remember in my 20s when I would go to church,

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this is before I was truly a Christian.

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I would tell you I was a Christian, but in hindsight, I wasn't.

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And I remember going to church and feeling like a lot of churches that the derogatory term these

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days is Seeker Friendly, a lot of churches that were Seeker Friendly would get me in the door

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and then they would basically seek on how can they get me to confess Jesus Christ is Lord.

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And that some churches were only interested in that and then other churches that was sort of step one.

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And it was almost like a lure that they were trying to get me to participate in their church

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more and more and more.

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And so I saw this mountain that I needed to climb, and it was a man-made mountain, and I wasn't for that.

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I was skeptical for that.

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And to me, it honestly looked like a pyramid scheme or a scam that the church was, was running.

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And now that I'm a Christian and I am born again and I confess Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior,

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I still see that as a stumbling block that a lot of churches kind of approach the faith.

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And I do see the tendency of people that were in my previous point of view, looking at the church

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and Christianity as that, as sort of almost like a bait and switch, where if we can get you

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as a church to confess Jesus as Lord, and then we can get you involved in the church, now we've

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got all this free labor, or now we've got all these tasks for you to do.

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And so when I say start a Bible study, and then I'm honest in saying that start somewhere so

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that we can go places.

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It does kind of sound like that.

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It does kind of sound like, yeah, start here with a little bit, but I'm going to be asking more of you.

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And while in part that's true, it's not that I'm asking more of you.

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It's that if you truly yield and submit to the Lord and you're asking him to bathe you in his

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Spirit, to bathe you in his word, and you're dedicated and you can't help but want to do more.

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And I think that's the big distinction is that I used to feel like it was a task list that I

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was going to have to do more and I was required by others to do more, maybe even for their benefit, not mine.

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Now, as a born-again Christian, I see that I want to do more.

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And there's a huge theological undertone there.

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There is a huge distinction there between faith and works.

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And that's really the problem with works is with works we're getting people to show their faith

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by the amount of things that they do, sort of a checklist on like what their status is going to be in heaven.

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And really faith becomes a to-do list and just checking off the boxes.

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Whereas faith that yields works is a natural thing that by faith and by recognition of the price

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that Christ paid on the cross, you only want to do good.

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And more than that, because you can't do good by yourself, you're asking for your heart to be

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changed so that doing good would be a byproduct and a natural tendency that you would have.

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So in creating a Bible study, what I'm hopeful for is that you do get started, and not that

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you climb this mountain that I'm putting in front of you, but that by yielding to God, you would

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only want to increase the work that you're doing because of your faith and your commitment to the Lord.

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I hope that makes sense.

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It may not, and it may make sense to some. And not to others.

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But please hear me when I say I'm not trying to create a task list for you to do.

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I'm merely stating what I have learned to be true and how my walk with the Lord has been and

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what we've designed as a Bible study path, if you will, that you can utilize.

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Now, with this Bible study that we've created, that encourages you to maybe take what we did and create your own.

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You wouldn't be done with this in a year.

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It would take you 438 days, I believe, is how many days it would take.

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No, that's wrong. 493 days it would take you.

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So it would take you not quite a year and a half, but about that.

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But that wasn't the goal was a certain amount of time.

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It was really three chapters a day is a manageable thing for everyone, regardless of if you're

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listening in the car, or if you're writing it down in dedicated time to God's word.

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And the Bible really divides well by three.

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Three is a significant number in the Bible.

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And let me take you through how I divided it, how we divided it, so that we got somewhat equal parts.

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It makes sense in one of our sections to start with the Old Testament beginning Genesis, and

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it makes sense to start with a New Testament beginning.

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So really, your first chapter of every day and your second chapter of every day does begin in

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the old and begin in the new.

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So your first chapter in sort of this first section, every day you're pulling kind of off the

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top of the list from what's left of that section.

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Your first chapter would come from Genesis 1, and the next day would be Genesis 2, so on and so forth.

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You would go in order of how the Bible is organized.

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To Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy.

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That would cover the Torah, the law.

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And then still in that first section, you would go through the 12 books of history, which in

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order is Joshua, Judges, Ruth, 1 Samuel, 2 Samuel, 1 Kings, 2 Kings, 1 Chronicles, 2 Chronicles, Ezra, Nehemiah, and Esther.

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That would be everything within the first section.

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I apologize about hitting the mic there.

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Everything within that first section.

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So again, all those chapters sort of stacked on top of each other, you're just taking the one

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off of the top every single day.

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So however many chapters are in Genesis, I think there's 55 or 60, something like that, it would

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take you that many days to get through Genesis, and then you would start with Exodus.

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Your second chapter, you wouldn't go Genesis 1, 2 and 3, just go Genesis 1.

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Your second chapter would be out of the second section, and that would start in the New Testament with Matthew.

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So on day one, you'd be reading Genesis 1, Matthew 1, and then I'll tell you about the third

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column here in a little bit.

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And actually, column two or category 2 would be the entire New Testament.

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The math works out really well on that.

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So it would be the gospel.

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It would be Matthew, Mark, Luke and John.

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Then it would be acts.

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Then you would go through the Pauline Epistles, which is Romans, First Corinthians, Second Corinthians, Galatians, Ephesians.

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Philippians, Colossians, 1 Thessalonians, 2 Thessalonians, 1 Timothy, 2 Timothy, Titus, Philemon,

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Hebrews, James, 1 Peter, 2 Peter, 1 John, 2 John, 3 John, Jude, and Revelation.

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Almost got into a little bit of a song there.

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It's funny, my students memorized this song of all the books in the Bible. You might know it.

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I still haven't learned it.

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I didn't go to a Christian school growing up and I haven't learned it since.

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But every once in a while when I kind of tell them where we're gonna be and they're trying to

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find particularly like a small book like an Obadiah or a Philemon, they sing the song to get

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to where it is in God's word, which is always funny.

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I always laugh because we go one verse, at least one verse out of every book of the Bible in order.

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So they sing the song to find where Philemon is and I'm like, we were in Titus yesterday.

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Like it's not, it's not, that difficult to.

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To remember where we were the day prior.

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And oddly enough, as I record this today, today in school, we are in Philemon and yesterday we were in Titus.

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So that is applicable to real timing here.

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Then we have a third column, and that's going to begin with the job, which is a section of books called the. The wisdom books. And I apologize.

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So if I go back to column two, Romans to Philemon would be the Pauline Epistles.

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And then when I got to Hebrews, Hebrews through Jude would be sort of the general epistles.

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And then Revelation is kind of its own apocalyptic category.

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Most scholars divide it that way.

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Going back to column three, we would begin in Job and we'd have five books which are called Books of Wisdom.

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So you would go Job, Psalms, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, and Songs of Solomon.

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Some Bibles will write it as Song of Songs.

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Instead of Song of Solomon's, it's the same book.

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So going back to day one, you would read Genesis 1, Matthew 1, Job 1, day two, you would do

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all three of those same books, but you go to the second chapter of each book.

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Then when you get to day 29, there's 28 chapters in Matthew, when you get to day 29, and I had

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an error earlier, I'm staring right at it, I don't know why I got it wrong, Genesis has 50 chapters, not 55 or 60.

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But anyways, Matthew has 28 chapters.

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And so when you get to the 29th day, your day would look like this.

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Genesis 29, Mark 1 and job 29.

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So you're just working your way down these three lists as it divides back to day three.

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You'd have the five wisdom books that we already said.

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And then you would have the five major prophets, which are Isaiah, Jeremiah, Lamentations, which

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is always kind of a funny one that it's included, is a major prophet, and then Ezekiel and Daniel.

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My understanding is Lamentations was written by Jeremiah, and it's an extension, and I'm not

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exactly sure why it's considered a separate book.

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So really, we have four major prophets, but we have five books.

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Then we would get with Hosea to the 12 minor prophets.

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Again, I've mentioned this before, but they're considered minor prophets because there's less

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text, not because their contributions were less.

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So we'd have Hosea, Joel, Amos, Obadiah, Jonah, Micah, Nahum, Habakkuk, Zephaniah, Haggai, Zechariah, and Malachi.

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Those would be our 12 books in that column.

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So you can see this on the show notes again, looking right at it here, but I'm going to post

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it in the show notes for you.

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You can see basically tallies, right?

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So in the first column, you would have covered 436 chapters, and that would be 1, 000 or, excuse me, 12, 870 verses.

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You then go to column two.

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That would only be 260.

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Chapters, and that would be 7957 verses.

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And in the third column, you would have 493 chapters, which would total 10,275 verses.

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So you can see that we're actually covering the most verses, the highest number of verses in

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column one, but then the highest number of chapters in column three.

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So the biggest of the three numbers was 493.

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So it would take you 493 days to get through all of column three.

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But note, one of the cool things about this and other Bible studies that are organized like

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this do the same thing.

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But if you continued to do this over and over, I don't even want to think how long mathematically

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it would take for you to sort of reset back at the same order that you started with.

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In other words, I don't know that within a lifetime you would ever end up back with a day that was Genesis 1.

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Matthew 1 and job 1, meaning this Bible study and others like it could be sort of a

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almost feel like a different Bible study every time through.

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Let me give you an example.

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Column 2 was the shortest, right, of 260 days.

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So on the 261st day, you would reset that column and be back at the at Matthew chapter 1.

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But after 260 days, you would be somewhere around probably 1 Samuel or 2 Samuel, maybe into 1 Kings.

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So you'd be reading, like, let's say 1 Kings chapter 3, Matthew 1, and then wherever you would

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be in column 3, which after 260 days would likely be somewhere in Isaiah or Jeremiah, somewhere

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in that area, probably Jeremiah.

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So you can see that as you start one column completely over, you're still in the middle of two others.

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And so it's a unique blend which puts you into multiple different areas of the Bible in the

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same day, which is a huge benefit.

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Now, I mentioned last week two Bible studies that are similar to this that I've gone through myself.

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And they've been really refreshing to be able to be in the Old Testament and New Testament at the same time.

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And I highly recommend both of those.

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You can check out that episode if you want the exact recommendations of those.

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And also, again, if you copy and paste this or I send you that Excel sheet, you can copy and

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paste different sections and you can move this around however you want.

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You could not stick to, like, the Torah followed by history.

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You could do the Torah followed by wisdom books.

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You could scramble this however you wanted to scramble it.

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You wouldn't even have to keep them necessarily in order of the books of the Torah.

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You could go Genesis followed by Proverbs, followed by Jeremiah, followed by Matthew.

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You could do it however you wanted to do it. Make it your own.

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I encourage you to make it your own.

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And I think it would be it. I had fun.

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Creating this, and I think you would too.

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And then it would be your own personal thing that, again, God knew you were going to do this,

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and he set this in motion.

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So you would still, I guarantee, find that on the 60th day of your Bible study, there would

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be a relevant message that would show up that was specific to you, your walk, your path, which is absolutely incredible.

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And in that, I'm really highlighting partially my walk as well.

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I've been encouraged by the Lord to continue my walk as a teacher and to enter my walk as a shepherd.

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I do think that they're two separate paths, and I know that I will never be done teaching, but

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I'm encouraged the older that I get as the years go by to increase my shepherding.

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And with that in mind, I'd like to pull out a single verse out of the book of Luke.

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It's Luke chapter 6, verse 40.

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And it reads, a pupil is not above his teacher, but everyone after he has been fully trained

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will be like his teacher.

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We know there is one true Shepherd, and that is Jesus Christ.

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And our desire is to be more like him every day.

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And I don't teach students so that they would have a desire to be like me, but that they would

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be like me in the sense that they are Desiring to be like Jesus.

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Christianity is a beautiful thing for so many reasons.

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One of the reasons is that I am not trying to hinder anyone to remain underneath me.

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Now, religion does do that, but Christianity is a relationship, not religion.

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And in that relationship, I'm trying to encourage you to have just as close a relationship with

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Christ as I do, and even more so pass me down the road.

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In your path and your journey to be proximal to Jesus Christ.

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That is the greatest gift I can receive as a teacher, as a disciple for Christ teaching anyone,

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is that you would be zealous for the Lord, that you would be on fire for the Lord.

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And I hope, even if it's minimal, that this podcast accomplishes that.

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As my application and takeaway for today as we wrap up this public feed, is that the Lord has

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placed on my heart a desire to share what I've learned.

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That's really what this podcast has become and what it is today.

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And one of the things I've learned is how to effectively study His word.

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And I've today, in addition to previous weeks, just given you a way that you could divide that

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up in a way that is tangible for you.

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You divide it up however you wish.

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I chose three as the number of per day that was tangible.

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You might choose 365 days as your sort of goal when you want to be done.

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And so then that's going to dictate how many chapters that you do in a day.

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But it's simple math to figure it out.

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For me, it was more important to be something that is easily maintained with the number three per day.

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Than it was how long this was going to take.

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And I'm dedicated to studying God's word every day the rest of my life.

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That doesn't mean I'm going to be perfect.

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I'm going to miss days. I'm human.

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I ask for forgiveness for that, and I get back on the horse and make sure that I'm correcting

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that and not stringing too many days together where life gets in the way, because that's a problem.

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But if I'm going to be studying God's word every day of my life, to me, it's more important

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that it's something that something tangible, something that I can accomplish.

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It's a smart goal that I can accomplish every single day rather than how many years is this going to take me?

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As we transition to the members section, I would like to share with you a quote and a question

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that is specific to today's content.

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The first is a quote from John Calvin.

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It is that a pastor or the pastor is not to bring his own dreams, but faithfully deliver what

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he has received from God.

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For the word does not derive its authority from man, but from heaven, specifically from God. Right?

-: 27:50

And I want you to harness what your calling is.

-: 27:56

And I know that the Bible, however you divide it, is going to help you accomplish that.

-: 28:01

I don't have a path or a calling in mind for you.

-: 28:04

I just want to be a brother supporting whatever God has called you to.

-: 28:11

So with that in mind, My question for you today is, what role is the Lord calling you to right this minute?

-: 28:17

And how can you study his word effectively through another Bible study or one that you create

-: 28:23

to effectively be prepared for the responsibility that he calls you to?

-: 28:27

I'm going to segue now to the members only segment.

-: 28:29

I thank you so much for being with me today.

-: 28:31

God bless you and I love you.

-: 28:42

Until next time, may the peace of Christ dwell richly in you, and may I also express Maranatha,

-: 28:46

which is an Aramaic word translating to Come, Lord Jesus.