Food For Thought

When I was first married, I didn't know how to cook.  We ate a lot of cereal, the sugary kind of course, and slowly graduated to Ramen noodles, and frozen burritoes.  As the years went by, I started to get more comfortable in the kitchen and branched out to make stuff like spaghetti and hamburgers. 

22 years later, I look back on those early days and I'm so thankful that things have changed, that I learned and grew.  And though I still make all kinds of disasters in my kitchen, I am pretty confident that I can tackle most any recipe, adapt it to our tastes, and even create my own. 

I started thinking about how this was similar to when I was a new Christian.  Just as I had no idea of how to put together a meal, I also had no idea of how to feed my spirit with God's Word.  Where to start?  And how?  And what does it mean? 

Just as I have taught most of my kids to cook, I decided it was time to teach them how to dig into God's Word for themselves.  I don't want them to have to be dependent on Beth Moore or Henry Blackaby.  I certainly believe that pre-packaged Bible studies are useful, but my kids also need to know how to chop their own lettuce, if you know what I mean. 

I've started teaching them the inductive Bible study method this week.   I learned this many years ago but had sort of forgotten about it until a friend reminded me of it recently.  It is perfect for learning how read your Bible all by yourself. 

You basically start with a small passage of Scripture, usually 3-10 verses.  Then you start asking questions..
~Who is writing or speaking and to whom?
~What is the passage about?
~When does this take place?
~Why does the author write what he does?
~How does this passage fit in with the context?

Here's some more..
~What are the commands or promises?
~What are the cause/effect relationships?
~What are the repeated words and ideas?
~What do I learn about God, Jesus, the Holy Spirit, myself, or mankind?

So I gathered everybody together with their Bibles...even the littlest kids.  We started in Genesis with creation since the babies could follow along with the pictures.  I had a young reader read to us what his Bible said as we all followed along either with our own versions or picture Bibles.  Then we dug in deeper with the questions. 

As time goes on, I plan to incorporate cross references, Bible dictionaries, and concordances for the older ones.  I'm also hoping for lots of questions and conversation starters!