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Oct. 20, 2020
How to Read the Bible (3D Bible Part 2)
Learn the different levels of Bible study and how to move from the personal application level to the 3D level where the Bible comes so alive it is life-changing. Learn about recommended tips and tools to help you in your study of God's Word.
3D Bible Series Summary: Join Susan Michael for the 3D Bible Series and take a journey to the world of the Bible—where it comes alive and can change your life. We live in an increasingly secular society that questions everything about the Christian faith. Learn how to find the answers you are looking for about the authenticity of the Bible, the amazing story it tells, and what it means for you.
Links in video:
Pentel Multi-colored Pencil - https://tinyurl.com/y29agrcs
The Daily Bible - https://www.icej.store/store/product/books/theology/daily-bible
Instagram: http://www.instagram.com/outofzion_icej/
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/susanmichaelicej/about/
Sign up for emails about upcoming shows: http://www.outofzionshow.com
More info on Susan: http://www.icejusa.org/susans-blog
Transcript
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Welcome to Out of Zion with Susan Michael, an exploration of the Bible and the land of
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Israel.
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From ancient biblical sites to the story behind the stories, join Susan on a journey through
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the most exciting book on the planet.
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Hit the subscribe button for future episodes which will deepen your faith and bring the
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Bible to life.
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And now here's our host, Susan Michael.
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Hey there.
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Welcome to Out of Zion.
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I'm Susan Michael, your host.
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And we are talking about the 3D Bible and today, specifically, how to read the Bible.
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But you know, the more time you spend with me, you're going to find I love to answer
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questions and that's because I like to ask questions.
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So I can imagine that a lot of you are asking the question, why is this called Out of Zion?
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What and where is Zion?
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So I'd like to address that before we get into our study today.
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In the Bible, Zion is the name of the hilltop on which the city of Jerusalem was built.
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And so a lot of times it's used interchangeably for Jerusalem or Zion.
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But it's particularly known as the hilltop on which was built the temple.
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And the temple is where the presence of God dwelt and where the people would gather in
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order to come before the Lord.
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So spiritually, we could say that for us, Zion is where the presence of the Lord is,
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from where he's going to teach us.
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You know, the Israelites went up to Jerusalem three times a year for the feast times, so
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the feast of Passover and Pentecost and the feast of Tabernacles.
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And that's because that's where the presence of God was and they came before him.
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The prophet Isaiah even prophesied that one day the nations will come up to Jerusalem
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and says that he'll teach them of his ways.
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And then the famous verse that says, Out of Zion will go forth the law and the word of
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the Lord from Jerusalem.
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So Zion is a holy hill in Jerusalem, but spiritually it's where God's presence dwells
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and from where he teaches us about the word.
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You know, in one sense, the word of the Lord has already gone out of Jerusalem and that's
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what we have written in our Bible.
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So today we want to discuss how to study this Bible, how to read it.
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You know, I looked at many resources about how to study your Bible and one common bit
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of advice that everyone gives in how to start reading your Bible, which I totally agree
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with, is number one, to pray.
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And I want to just take a little side trip here for a minute and then we'll come back
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to our subject about prayer.
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If you are one that has some doubts about the Bible or even doubts about God himself
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and the existence of God, I just want to encourage you that if you really want to know the truth,
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and that's a big if because there are plenty of people that actually don't want to know
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the truth.
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They want to live in their denial.
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They like making accusations against the Bible or against Christianity.
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They don't want to know.
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But if you are a true seeker and you really want to know the truth, then my advice is pray
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and ask God to show you that he exists.
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Ask him to teach you from his word.
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And I say that because he will and your life will never be the same.
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And now back to our study.
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So before you study the Bible, it's always a good idea to pray and ask the Lord to open
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your ears that you might hear and that your heart might receive what he has for you today
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from his word.
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It's a great principle.
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A lot of advice says if you want to just start reading the Bible, this is your first time,
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then start with one of the Gospels and especially the Gospel of John.
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It's a great one to start with.
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And I agree.
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Another piece of advice is that if you also want to and have more time to study the Book
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of Proverbs because there's 31 chapters in Proverbs.
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And that means you can take one chapter every day.
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And every month you can just cycle through.
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And the Book of Proverbs is wonderful.
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It's full of wisdom and great advice for living your life.
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You can also read out of the book of Psalms.
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Now there's 150 Psalms, but nevertheless you can take one or two a day and read them along
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with Proverbs.
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So one Gospel, one Proverb and some Psalms.
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It's a great combination to get started reading the Bible.
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But what I want to teach you is not how to start reading it.
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How to read it.
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What is it that you're reading?
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Because you can be reading John or Proverbs or Psalms and still have no idea what the
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book is that you're reading, what the story is behind all of this.
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And that's what I want to teach you.
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You know, most Bible study is done at what I call level one.
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This is the inspirational or personal application level.
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And most of our reading is at this level because we want to know what does the Bible
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say so we can apply it to our life.
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And most sermons at church, it's about personal application, but rightfully so because the
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pastor wants you to take the principles from the Bible and apply them to your life.
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You know, when I first came to the Lord, I was just 16 going on 17, I knew nothing about
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the Bible.
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But I began to read it and I loved it.
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And I saw it as my spiritual guidebook.
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It was like a book, you know, we're often told, read it as though it's written to you.
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And I did that.
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And I was reading it to see how I should live my life and some of the instructions from
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Jesus or the apostle Paul.
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And sometimes I was reading the Bible and verses would just jump off the page into my
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heart.
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It was as though the Lord was using this Bible to just give me personal affirmation or personal
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direction for my life.
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But the danger in that is that sometimes we can take a verse out of context if we don't
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really know what the Bible says.
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And we can actually end up in error.
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But definitely continue reading your Bible for inspiration and for personal application.
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You know, because I love the Bible so much, when it was time to go to university, I decided
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that I was going to major in biblical studies.
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So now I'm at university and I'm reading it at the second level.
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That is a more theological or doctrinal level.
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We're now not reading our Bible about ourselves and for ourselves, but to learn about God,
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about His character, about His ways, His dealings with His people.
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We want to understand the key doctrines in the Bible of salvation, of righteousness,
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of judgment.
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We might do word studies, we might do topical studies, we might do book studies like the
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whole book of John or the whole book of Galatians and study it that way.
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And that's when we're going more into that second level of study and getting more into
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understand the doctrines of the Bible.
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So here I am, I went to university and so every day I'm still reading my Bible as my
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spiritual guidebook.
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I'm also now studying in class to understand its doctrines and I loved it.
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I made straight As and all my biblical study classes because I just loved the subject so
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much.
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But none of that prepared me for what was going to happen when I went to Israel to study
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the Bible there.
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I was so fortunate to have the opportunity between my sophomore and junior year of college
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to go to Israel for a study program.
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I was studying in the land where it all take a place.
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I was surrounded by the Hebraic culture, the Jewish culture, the Jewish people, the very
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people that the book was written about.
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And that's when the Bible stood up.
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It's like it took on flesh and bones and that third dimension for me.
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The third dimension, the 3D level, that's when we read the Bible as a history book telling
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us a very real story about a real people living in an Eastern Hebraic culture.
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When you read the stories, the historical context you realize how completely true and
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accurate this book is.
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Yes, it's a level that takes a little bit more work, but I'm here to help you and I'm
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going to make it easier for you.
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There's something to be said for putting in a little extra effort in getting to that
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3D level.
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The Hebrew term for study is actually the word for search.
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The rabbis have known that to study the Torah means to search it out because then it becomes
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a part of your heart knowledge.
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And that's because God is after a relationship with you, not that you just have head knowledge.
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He wants you to spend time with Him and in His Word.
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He wants you to search out things so that they can drop from your head into your heart.
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He wants to know that you're interested enough in Him to dig a little deeper, to take a little
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bit more time in your study.
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You know, the world-renowned Bible teacher Kay Arthur puts it this way.
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She says, if you're going to read a book written by somebody else about what they've
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learned from the Bible, then all you're going to have is second-hand knowledge.
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But if you're going to take the time to study the Bible yourself and search those things
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out for yourself, then it's going to be in your heart and not just in your head.
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So don't go by what other people write in their books or even sermons.
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Go and search it out for yourself so that it can drop from head knowledge into your
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heart and into your spirit.
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You know, I really think that a lot of the things in the Bible that may confuse people
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or even some of the accusations against the Bible that there's contradictions or this
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or that, a lot of it is easily explained once we look into the cultural context or maybe
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it's the linguistic context of that verse or it's the religious context.
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A lot of those things just make so much more sense.
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For those of you then who do want to know more, stay with me.
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And once your Bible becomes the 3D Bible, I promise you, you're going to say with me
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it's the most exciting book on the planet.
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Now before we close, I want to give you just a few tips and tools that are going to help
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you in your study.
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I know that for a lot of you, if you do not already own a Bible and you want to buy one,
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you're going to be completely confused because there are so many translations and different
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types of Bible.
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So I want to make it very easy for you so you understand.
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There are basically two types of translations.
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One is a word-for-word translation which tries to be much more accurate, word-for-word, from
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the Hebrew or the Greek into English.
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Those translations tend to be a little bit harder to understand because they're trying
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to be so true to another language.
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So then there's another kind of translation which is thought-to-thought.
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And so it takes what that verse is trying to say and puts it into modern English.
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And so those translations are easier to read and understand, but sometimes they lose their
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accuracy because they're not sticking to the word-for-word translation.
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So my advice to you is to get one that's kind of middle of the road, a nice combination
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of the two.
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So word-for-word, the most well-known and gold standard of the word-for-word translation
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is the King James Version.
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The problem with the King James Version is, of course, it was written in old, formal English
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of about 600 years ago.
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So a lot of words don't make sense, the formality of it.
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So the Bible that I use is called the New King James Version.
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And what it has done is taken that King James translation and just made it a little bit
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more modern in its English usage.
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It keeps some of that formality and some of the structure.
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And I really prefer it and like it.
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But there's another Bible that is highly recommendable and it's one of the best-selling
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Bibles.
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And it's called the New International Version, or the NIV.
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It is more of a thought-for-thought translation, but it's a combination and it's very well-respected.
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And those are the two that I know the most and are sort of tried and proven.
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There's many other translations out there and you can't go wrong with a lot of them,
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but I'm not going to go into all of those.
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But these are the two that are the best-selling.
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Now one of the things that might determine which translation you go for might be based
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on which Bible you're wanting to buy.
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Now what do I mean?
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In addition to translation, there's another consideration for you and that is that there's
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something called study Bibles.
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And study Bibles take your basic Bible and then add to it a lot of study helps.
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So most Bibles, just your basic Bible, will have what we call cross references.
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That means that for every verse there's a little footnote and it cross references you
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to another verse in the Bible that's about that same subject or uses the same word.
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And so if you read a verse you want to know more, you can go to the cross reference and
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see where else you can read about that.
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So you must have that.
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Most Bibles have that cross referencing.
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Most of them also have in the back a few maps and a topical index.
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So make sure even your basic Bible has at least that.
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You really need it.
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But study Bibles go way beyond that and a study Bible can be two, three times thicker
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than just a regular Bible because they've added all kinds of articles and little word
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studies and helps.
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And a lot of the study Bibles have a certain theme to them.
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So there may be the life application Bible.
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So that Bible, the articles and all are going to be about how to apply the Bible to your
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daily life, which sounds very good.
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There's a study Bible out about the cultural, it's the cultural study Bible.
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There's an archaeological study Bible.
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The study Bible that I use is called the Jewish study Bible.
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And I use that because all of its articles and footnotes are there to help me understand
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that Hebraic and Jewish culture and also very good about Hebrew language tips.
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So that's the study Bible that I keep alongside with my smaller Bible that's good for travel
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and everyday reading.
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Now you might be saying books.
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I need books if you are a young person.
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And let me give you my definition of a young person.
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That's anybody that's younger than me.
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So for all you young people, you might be saying, I want an app.
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Is there a Bible app?
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And the good news is, yes, there are a ton of Bible apps.
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I've got two on my phone.
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They're free of charge.
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And you can use them to, I use them to just do a quick word search when I want to look
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up where is a certain verse and I can do a quick search.
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Or maybe I've gone to church and I didn't take my Bible with me and I want to read along
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with the pastor so I can do it on my Bible app.
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For those of you that use your cell phone for everything and you're used to doing many
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things on it, you might prefer to do most of your study on your Bible app.
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Whatever works for you.
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But I'm going to now recommend that every one of you buy one particular Bible.
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It's not available on an app that I know of.
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This Bible I've had for many years, it was originally called the Narrated Bible and they
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are republishing that now and it is called the Daily Bible.
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I'm going to give you a link in the notes to this show so that you can order it for
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yourself.
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The reason I love this Bible and we're going to talk about it again next week because our
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subject next week is the story of the Bible.
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The Narrated Bible or what's now called the Daily Bible.
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It's a chronological Bible and I've had other chronological Bibles but the reason I love
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this one, there's several reasons.
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One is that the editor, Mr. Efflegard Smith, he took all the scriptures and got them in
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chronological order but what you'll find is that there are some stories in the Bible
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that are told twice.
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I mean when it comes to Jesus there's four Gospels so there actually could be four different
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tellings of the same story.
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For sure plenty of them were told three times or two times.
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And so it can get a little laborious when you're trying to read through the Bible chronologically
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because you'll read the same story several times.
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So he has taken these similar stories and put them together into one narrative so that
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if a detail is in one version that's not in the other or vice versa you get all the details
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but you get it in one narrative.
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And of course in the margin he footnotes every verse.
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You know exactly each verse where he got it.
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It is the Word of God but he's put it together in a magnificent way.
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So it's chronological.
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It is written as one narrative but it gets even better than that.
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Most of us when we start reading through the Bible we start in the book of Genesis and
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Genesis is pretty easy to read.
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It's full of interesting stories and bigger than life characters.
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And so it's pretty easy and then we get to Exodus and you know Exodus is pretty easy
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too but then we start getting into the law and we start getting into all these regulations
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and the offerings and the sacrifices and we get bogged down in a lot of detail of things
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that we actually don't understand why a lot of these laws were given.
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We don't understand what's behind it.
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It's not written in an easy format and so Mr. Smith took these laws and this legal portion
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of the Scripture and put it together by subject and by category and explains it beautifully.
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I'll tell you for the first time I didn't skim through Leviticus in order to get through
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to the rest of the Bible when I was reading.
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I read every word and I understood what I was reading because he helped guide me and
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that leads me to the final point of why I love the daily Bible.
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At the beginning of each day's reading he has it divided up into 365 days so you can
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read one section a day and by the end of the year you have read through the entire Bible.
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And at the beginning of each day's reading he has written you a summary.
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You'll see it in red type and he summarizes for you the story of what you are about to
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read.
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And the reason this is so wonderful is that especially when we're beginning and we don't
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understand the story of the Bible, here we have a Bible that's laid out in chronological
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order in an easy to read narrative and he has summarized each day's portion for us
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so that we'll understand then as we read the Scriptures.
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This is why I highly recommend that every one of you get this.
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Even those of you that are advanced but you'd like to do a read through in a chronological
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order this is the Bible to use.
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It's the new international version translation of the Bible so it's an easier to read,
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translation of the Bible and it's great.
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And for those of you who are absolute beginners you might even say I don't even feel like
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I'm in first grade yet.
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I'm in kindergarten.
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This is the Bible for you because you could actually, if you wanted to just to get started,
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you can't make a commitment of all this reading.
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I'd say it's about 20 minutes a day.
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You could go through and only read the red summary and maybe in several months you could
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have read through the entire story of the Bible and get it and understand it and then
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you could feel ready.
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I'm ready now to go back and start reading the Bible itself and on day one then you can
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start and in 365 days you will have read the entire Bible.
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That would be my suggestion for those of you that feel like you're really, really at the
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beginning stages of this walk that we're on.
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Now I have one more tool that I want to recommend to you and that is this amazing little pencil.
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It is the Pentel 8 Colored Automatic Mechanical Pencil.
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So it's got pencil leads in it.
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It will hold eight different colors and I use this to highlight in my Bible as I'm reading
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and the reason I need eight colors is because I know I'm a little organized and I'm a little
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detail oriented and maybe not all of you are but I highly recommend it that I have a color
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for different subjects.
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So when I open my Bible it's full of highlights but every blue highlight tells me that that's
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something about Israel and the Jewish people that I wanted to remember or if it's yellow
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it's about the Holy Spirit or it's a spiritual principle that I wanted to remember or if
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it's red it's just a historical fact or a number.
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Something is just a fact that I wanted to mark and to remember and I use pink for salvation
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and about Jesus.
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And green, that's when those moments that the Scripture just jumps off the page and into
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my heart and I know that the Holy Spirit is using that Scripture to affirm me, to encourage
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me or to give me direction that day.
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And so I mark it in green.
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So that's why I use this and I love it.
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I've used it from the very very beginning in my Bible that I have now and so this color
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program is all the way through it and I highly recommend it so I'm giving you a link in the
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notes to where you can buy this pen on Amazon.
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Okay, hey, I think we've done it.
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I want to ask you be sure and subscribe to Out of Zion so that you get a notice for next
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week's program.
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Please plan to join us as we talk about the story of the Bible.
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Until then, God bless you.
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We hope you have enjoyed this episode of Out of Zion with Susan Michael.
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Be sure to subscribe to Out of Zion now on Apple Podcasts, cpnshows.com, YouTube or
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wherever you like to listen and learn.
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Out of Zion with Susan Michael is a production of ICEJ USA All Rights Reserved.
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Welcome to Out of Zion with Susan Michael, an exploration of the Bible and the land of
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Israel.
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From ancient biblical sites to the story behind the stories, join Susan on a journey through
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the most exciting book on the planet.
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Hit the subscribe button for future episodes which will deepen your faith and bring the
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Bible to life.
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And now here's our host, Susan Michael.
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Hey there.
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Welcome to Out of Zion.
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I'm Susan Michael, your host.
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And we are talking about the 3D Bible and today, specifically, how to read the Bible.
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But you know, the more time you spend with me, you're going to find I love to answer
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questions and that's because I like to ask questions.
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So I can imagine that a lot of you are asking the question, why is this called Out of Zion?
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What and where is Zion?
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So I'd like to address that before we get into our study today.
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In the Bible, Zion is the name of the hilltop on which the city of Jerusalem was built.
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And so a lot of times it's used interchangeably for Jerusalem or Zion.
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But it's particularly known as the hilltop on which was built the temple.
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And the temple is where the presence of God dwelt and where the people would gather in
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order to come before the Lord.
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So spiritually, we could say that for us, Zion is where the presence of the Lord is,
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from where he's going to teach us.
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You know, the Israelites went up to Jerusalem three times a year for the feast times, so
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the feast of Passover and Pentecost and the feast of Tabernacles.
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And that's because that's where the presence of God was and they came before him.
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The prophet Isaiah even prophesied that one day the nations will come up to Jerusalem
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and says that he'll teach them of his ways.
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And then the famous verse that says, Out of Zion will go forth the law and the word of
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the Lord from Jerusalem.
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So Zion is a holy hill in Jerusalem, but spiritually it's where God's presence dwells
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and from where he teaches us about the word.
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You know, in one sense, the word of the Lord has already gone out of Jerusalem and that's
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what we have written in our Bible.
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So today we want to discuss how to study this Bible, how to read it.
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You know, I looked at many resources about how to study your Bible and one common bit
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of advice that everyone gives in how to start reading your Bible, which I totally agree
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with, is number one, to pray.
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And I want to just take a little side trip here for a minute and then we'll come back
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to our subject about prayer.
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If you are one that has some doubts about the Bible or even doubts about God himself
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and the existence of God, I just want to encourage you that if you really want to know the truth,
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and that's a big if because there are plenty of people that actually don't want to know
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the truth.
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They want to live in their denial.
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They like making accusations against the Bible or against Christianity.
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They don't want to know.
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But if you are a true seeker and you really want to know the truth, then my advice is pray
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and ask God to show you that he exists.
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Ask him to teach you from his word.
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And I say that because he will and your life will never be the same.
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And now back to our study.
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So before you study the Bible, it's always a good idea to pray and ask the Lord to open
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your ears that you might hear and that your heart might receive what he has for you today
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from his word.
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It's a great principle.
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A lot of advice says if you want to just start reading the Bible, this is your first time,
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then start with one of the Gospels and especially the Gospel of John.
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It's a great one to start with.
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And I agree.
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Another piece of advice is that if you also want to and have more time to study the Book
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of Proverbs because there's 31 chapters in Proverbs.
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And that means you can take one chapter every day.
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And every month you can just cycle through.
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And the Book of Proverbs is wonderful.
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It's full of wisdom and great advice for living your life.
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You can also read out of the book of Psalms.
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Now there's 150 Psalms, but nevertheless you can take one or two a day and read them along
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with Proverbs.
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So one Gospel, one Proverb and some Psalms.
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It's a great combination to get started reading the Bible.
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But what I want to teach you is not how to start reading it.
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How to read it.
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What is it that you're reading?
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Because you can be reading John or Proverbs or Psalms and still have no idea what the
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book is that you're reading, what the story is behind all of this.
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And that's what I want to teach you.
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You know, most Bible study is done at what I call level one.
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This is the inspirational or personal application level.
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And most of our reading is at this level because we want to know what does the Bible
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say so we can apply it to our life.
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And most sermons at church, it's about personal application, but rightfully so because the
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pastor wants you to take the principles from the Bible and apply them to your life.
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You know, when I first came to the Lord, I was just 16 going on 17, I knew nothing about
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the Bible.
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But I began to read it and I loved it.
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And I saw it as my spiritual guidebook.
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It was like a book, you know, we're often told, read it as though it's written to you.
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And I did that.
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And I was reading it to see how I should live my life and some of the instructions from
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Jesus or the apostle Paul.
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And sometimes I was reading the Bible and verses would just jump off the page into my
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heart.
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It was as though the Lord was using this Bible to just give me personal affirmation or personal
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direction for my life.
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But the danger in that is that sometimes we can take a verse out of context if we don't
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really know what the Bible says.
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And we can actually end up in error.
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But definitely continue reading your Bible for inspiration and for personal application.
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You know, because I love the Bible so much, when it was time to go to university, I decided
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that I was going to major in biblical studies.
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So now I'm at university and I'm reading it at the second level.
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That is a more theological or doctrinal level.
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We're now not reading our Bible about ourselves and for ourselves, but to learn about God,
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about His character, about His ways, His dealings with His people.
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We want to understand the key doctrines in the Bible of salvation, of righteousness,
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of judgment.
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We might do word studies, we might do topical studies, we might do book studies like the
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whole book of John or the whole book of Galatians and study it that way.
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And that's when we're going more into that second level of study and getting more into
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understand the doctrines of the Bible.
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So here I am, I went to university and so every day I'm still reading my Bible as my
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spiritual guidebook.
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I'm also now studying in class to understand its doctrines and I loved it.
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I made straight As and all my biblical study classes because I just loved the subject so
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much.
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But none of that prepared me for what was going to happen when I went to Israel to study
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the Bible there.
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I was so fortunate to have the opportunity between my sophomore and junior year of college
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to go to Israel for a study program.
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I was studying in the land where it all take a place.
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I was surrounded by the Hebraic culture, the Jewish culture, the Jewish people, the very
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people that the book was written about.
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And that's when the Bible stood up.
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It's like it took on flesh and bones and that third dimension for me.
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The third dimension, the 3D level, that's when we read the Bible as a history book telling
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us a very real story about a real people living in an Eastern Hebraic culture.
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When you read the stories, the historical context you realize how completely true and
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accurate this book is.
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Yes, it's a level that takes a little bit more work, but I'm here to help you and I'm
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going to make it easier for you.
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There's something to be said for putting in a little extra effort in getting to that
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3D level.
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The Hebrew term for study is actually the word for search.
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The rabbis have known that to study the Torah means to search it out because then it becomes
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a part of your heart knowledge.
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And that's because God is after a relationship with you, not that you just have head knowledge.
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He wants you to spend time with Him and in His Word.
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He wants you to search out things so that they can drop from your head into your heart.
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He wants to know that you're interested enough in Him to dig a little deeper, to take a little
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bit more time in your study.
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You know, the world-renowned Bible teacher Kay Arthur puts it this way.
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She says, if you're going to read a book written by somebody else about what they've
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learned from the Bible, then all you're going to have is second-hand knowledge.
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But if you're going to take the time to study the Bible yourself and search those things
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out for yourself, then it's going to be in your heart and not just in your head.
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So don't go by what other people write in their books or even sermons.
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Go and search it out for yourself so that it can drop from head knowledge into your
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heart and into your spirit.
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You know, I really think that a lot of the things in the Bible that may confuse people
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or even some of the accusations against the Bible that there's contradictions or this
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or that, a lot of it is easily explained once we look into the cultural context or maybe
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it's the linguistic context of that verse or it's the religious context.
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A lot of those things just make so much more sense.
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For those of you then who do want to know more, stay with me.
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And once your Bible becomes the 3D Bible, I promise you, you're going to say with me
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it's the most exciting book on the planet.
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Now before we close, I want to give you just a few tips and tools that are going to help
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you in your study.
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I know that for a lot of you, if you do not already own a Bible and you want to buy one,
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you're going to be completely confused because there are so many translations and different
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types of Bible.
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So I want to make it very easy for you so you understand.
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There are basically two types of translations.
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One is a word-for-word translation which tries to be much more accurate, word-for-word, from
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the Hebrew or the Greek into English.
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Those translations tend to be a little bit harder to understand because they're trying
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to be so true to another language.
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So then there's another kind of translation which is thought-to-thought.
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And so it takes what that verse is trying to say and puts it into modern English.
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And so those translations are easier to read and understand, but sometimes they lose their
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accuracy because they're not sticking to the word-for-word translation.
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So my advice to you is to get one that's kind of middle of the road, a nice combination
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of the two.
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So word-for-word, the most well-known and gold standard of the word-for-word translation
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is the King James Version.
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The problem with the King James Version is, of course, it was written in old, formal English
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of about 600 years ago.
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So a lot of words don't make sense, the formality of it.
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So the Bible that I use is called the New King James Version.
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And what it has done is taken that King James translation and just made it a little bit
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more modern in its English usage.
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It keeps some of that formality and some of the structure.
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And I really prefer it and like it.
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But there's another Bible that is highly recommendable and it's one of the best-selling
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Bibles.
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And it's called the New International Version, or the NIV.
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It is more of a thought-for-thought translation, but it's a combination and it's very well-respected.
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And those are the two that I know the most and are sort of tried and proven.
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There's many other translations out there and you can't go wrong with a lot of them,
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but I'm not going to go into all of those.
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But these are the two that are the best-selling.
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Now one of the things that might determine which translation you go for might be based
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on which Bible you're wanting to buy.
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Now what do I mean?
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In addition to translation, there's another consideration for you and that is that there's
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something called study Bibles.
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And study Bibles take your basic Bible and then add to it a lot of study helps.
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So most Bibles, just your basic Bible, will have what we call cross references.
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That means that for every verse there's a little footnote and it cross references you
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to another verse in the Bible that's about that same subject or uses the same word.
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And so if you read a verse you want to know more, you can go to the cross reference and
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see where else you can read about that.
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So you must have that.
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Most Bibles have that cross referencing.
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Most of them also have in the back a few maps and a topical index.
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So make sure even your basic Bible has at least that.
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You really need it.
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But study Bibles go way beyond that and a study Bible can be two, three times thicker
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than just a regular Bible because they've added all kinds of articles and little word
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studies and helps.
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And a lot of the study Bibles have a certain theme to them.
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So there may be the life application Bible.
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So that Bible, the articles and all are going to be about how to apply the Bible to your
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daily life, which sounds very good.
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There's a study Bible out about the cultural, it's the cultural study Bible.
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There's an archaeological study Bible.
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The study Bible that I use is called the Jewish study Bible.
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And I use that because all of its articles and footnotes are there to help me understand
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that Hebraic and Jewish culture and also very good about Hebrew language tips.
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So that's the study Bible that I keep alongside with my smaller Bible that's good for travel
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and everyday reading.
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Now you might be saying books.
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I need books if you are a young person.
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And let me give you my definition of a young person.
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That's anybody that's younger than me.
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So for all you young people, you might be saying, I want an app.
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Is there a Bible app?
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And the good news is, yes, there are a ton of Bible apps.
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I've got two on my phone.
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They're free of charge.
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And you can use them to, I use them to just do a quick word search when I want to look
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up where is a certain verse and I can do a quick search.
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Or maybe I've gone to church and I didn't take my Bible with me and I want to read along
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with the pastor so I can do it on my Bible app.
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For those of you that use your cell phone for everything and you're used to doing many
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things on it, you might prefer to do most of your study on your Bible app.
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Whatever works for you.
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But I'm going to now recommend that every one of you buy one particular Bible.
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It's not available on an app that I know of.
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This Bible I've had for many years, it was originally called the Narrated Bible and they
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are republishing that now and it is called the Daily Bible.
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I'm going to give you a link in the notes to this show so that you can order it for
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yourself.
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The reason I love this Bible and we're going to talk about it again next week because our
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subject next week is the story of the Bible.
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The Narrated Bible or what's now called the Daily Bible.
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It's a chronological Bible and I've had other chronological Bibles but the reason I love
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this one, there's several reasons.
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One is that the editor, Mr. Efflegard Smith, he took all the scriptures and got them in
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chronological order but what you'll find is that there are some stories in the Bible
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that are told twice.
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I mean when it comes to Jesus there's four Gospels so there actually could be four different
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tellings of the same story.
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For sure plenty of them were told three times or two times.
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And so it can get a little laborious when you're trying to read through the Bible chronologically
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because you'll read the same story several times.
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So he has taken these similar stories and put them together into one narrative so that
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if a detail is in one version that's not in the other or vice versa you get all the details
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but you get it in one narrative.
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And of course in the margin he footnotes every verse.
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You know exactly each verse where he got it.
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It is the Word of God but he's put it together in a magnificent way.
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So it's chronological.
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It is written as one narrative but it gets even better than that.
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Most of us when we start reading through the Bible we start in the book of Genesis and
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Genesis is pretty easy to read.
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It's full of interesting stories and bigger than life characters.
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And so it's pretty easy and then we get to Exodus and you know Exodus is pretty easy
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too but then we start getting into the law and we start getting into all these regulations
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and the offerings and the sacrifices and we get bogged down in a lot of detail of things
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that we actually don't understand why a lot of these laws were given.
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We don't understand what's behind it.
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It's not written in an easy format and so Mr. Smith took these laws and this legal portion
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of the Scripture and put it together by subject and by category and explains it beautifully.
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I'll tell you for the first time I didn't skim through Leviticus in order to get through
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to the rest of the Bible when I was reading.
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I read every word and I understood what I was reading because he helped guide me and
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that leads me to the final point of why I love the daily Bible.
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At the beginning of each day's reading he has it divided up into 365 days so you can
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read one section a day and by the end of the year you have read through the entire Bible.
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And at the beginning of each day's reading he has written you a summary.
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You'll see it in red type and he summarizes for you the story of what you are about to
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read.
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And the reason this is so wonderful is that especially when we're beginning and we don't
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understand the story of the Bible, here we have a Bible that's laid out in chronological
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order in an easy to read narrative and he has summarized each day's portion for us
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so that we'll understand then as we read the Scriptures.
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This is why I highly recommend that every one of you get this.
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Even those of you that are advanced but you'd like to do a read through in a chronological
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order this is the Bible to use.
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It's the new international version translation of the Bible so it's an easier to read,
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translation of the Bible and it's great.
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And for those of you who are absolute beginners you might even say I don't even feel like
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I'm in first grade yet.
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I'm in kindergarten.
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This is the Bible for you because you could actually, if you wanted to just to get started,
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you can't make a commitment of all this reading.
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I'd say it's about 20 minutes a day.
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You could go through and only read the red summary and maybe in several months you could
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have read through the entire story of the Bible and get it and understand it and then
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you could feel ready.
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I'm ready now to go back and start reading the Bible itself and on day one then you can
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start and in 365 days you will have read the entire Bible.
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That would be my suggestion for those of you that feel like you're really, really at the
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beginning stages of this walk that we're on.
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Now I have one more tool that I want to recommend to you and that is this amazing little pencil.
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It is the Pentel 8 Colored Automatic Mechanical Pencil.
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So it's got pencil leads in it.
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It will hold eight different colors and I use this to highlight in my Bible as I'm reading
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and the reason I need eight colors is because I know I'm a little organized and I'm a little
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detail oriented and maybe not all of you are but I highly recommend it that I have a color
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for different subjects.
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So when I open my Bible it's full of highlights but every blue highlight tells me that that's
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something about Israel and the Jewish people that I wanted to remember or if it's yellow
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it's about the Holy Spirit or it's a spiritual principle that I wanted to remember or if
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it's red it's just a historical fact or a number.
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Something is just a fact that I wanted to mark and to remember and I use pink for salvation
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and about Jesus.
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And green, that's when those moments that the Scripture just jumps off the page and into
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my heart and I know that the Holy Spirit is using that Scripture to affirm me, to encourage
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me or to give me direction that day.
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And so I mark it in green.
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So that's why I use this and I love it.
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I've used it from the very very beginning in my Bible that I have now and so this color
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program is all the way through it and I highly recommend it so I'm giving you a link in the
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notes to where you can buy this pen on Amazon.
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Okay, hey, I think we've done it.
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I want to ask you be sure and subscribe to Out of Zion so that you get a notice for next
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week's program.
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Please plan to join us as we talk about the story of the Bible.
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Until then, God bless you.
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We hope you have enjoyed this episode of Out of Zion with Susan Michael.
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Be sure to subscribe to Out of Zion now on Apple Podcasts, cpnshows.com, YouTube or
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wherever you like to listen and learn.
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Out of Zion with Susan Michael is a production of ICEJ USA All Rights Reserved.
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