Bible Study Resources

You may not know this, but for the last 10 weeks or so, I have been teaching the 75+ age bible study group at my church. It’s an interesting challenge to come up with material that they are not already intimately familiar with. As a result I spend between 8-14 hours in preparation each week for that Sunday’s lesson. I’ve fond that they don’t often speak up, even when prompted with easy questions. So it’s turned out to be more or less a 45 minute sermons.

I am THOROUGHLY enjoying myself and the responsiblity has brought a bit of structure into my normally hap-hazard life. So many many things have improved since I started doing this. I cannot begin to list them all and it probably isn’t entirely appropriate on a mostly technical resource related site.

But, several people have recently spoken to me what resources I use for my lessons, and it seems appropriate that I might share them here. All most all of my resources come from the Blue Letter Bible site. I’ve found this site has more features than most affordable bible software, and it is free. I will probably post recorded audio of my lessons here sometime, because I find some of the knowlege is already fading and if I don’t get my notes and thoughts down somewhere, I’ll lose them. And that is after all one of the main reasons this site is called The Code Cave. It’s not code, but I still need to put this stuff into cold storage before it melts away.

So, here is a quick tour of the links that I’ve used for a recent lesson:
I use the KJV as a base for my research, because it enables all of the blue letter buttons to the left of the text. Here take a look at 1 Corinthians 7:
http://www.blueletterbible.org/kjv/1Cr/1Cr007.html#top

This of course includes the references to the Greek (click the C), including phrase searches and tense notification
http://www.blueletterbible.org/cgi-bin/c.pl?book=1Cr&chapter=7&verse=1&version=KJV#1

From which you can click on the Strong’s number and see the original sense of the word and see all of its uses
http://www.blueletterbible.org/cgi-bin/words.pl?book=1Cr&chapter=7&verse=1&strongs=680&page=

You can see all of the versions side by side
http://www.blueletterbible.org/cgi-bin/versions.pl?book=1Cr&chapter=7&verse=1&version=KJV#1

You can get the sections (in some versions like the NKJV) in paragraph form
http://www.blueletterbible.org/cgi-bin/tools/printer-friendly.pl?book=1Cr&chapter=7&translation=nkjvp&x=6&y=8

Or in verse/table form (this is what I copy into Open office in order to put notes below each verse)
http://www.blueletterbible.org/cgi-bin/tools/printer-friendly.pl?version=nkjv&book=1Cr&chapter=007&navigated=yes

And there’s an audio link at well so that you can hear the whole bible that way.

I’ve not used the K button for a lesson, but the “Treasury of Scripture [K]nowledge” shows related verses.

I mostly use the verse form of the NKJV, the Greek references from the KJV and the [L]ist of commentaries.

Additional helpful links include:
J Vernon McGee’s 5 year audio program in zipped MP3’s
http://throughthebible.ca/zip/
and his notes he spoke from when making the shows:
http://thruthebible.ca/notes/index.htm

He is a good balance to David Guzik
http://www.enduringword.com/1cor_audio.htm
And his notes
http://www.enduringword.com/commentaries/46.html

Sometimes my lessons land somewhere between the two of them, but on some points, I think they both have missed minor points Paul was making.

Anyway, maybe you’ll find those links useful…