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However, Jesus was clear that believers must love our neighbor – anybody we come into contact with during the course of our day – and we must love our enemy – the people who have hurt us. I know I have people in my life who are difficult to love. But we certainly don’t think fondly of people who have wronged us. I definitely don’t think of myself as having enemies. We may not think of these people literally as our enemies. We’ve all experienced hurtful situations and challenging people. Has this ever happened to you: Someone hurt your feelings? Talked about you behind your back? Someone was difficult to deal with? Made your life hard or unpleasant? When you’re inside the verse you’re studying, click “Bible Comparison” to switch between different translations. Without leaving the app, you can read most of the major translations of the Bible. I’ve mentioned reading different versions of the Bible several times in this post, and BLB app makes it simple to do that. You can do this with many, many verses, and it helps drive home the idea that God is speaking directly to you through His words in the Bible, and that His Word is still relevant today. Here’s an example using Matthew 4:17 – From that time Jesus began to preach, saying, “Repent, Heather, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.” Add your name in the place of mine. You can add your name into the scripture where a personal address might fit.
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*A fun hint I’ve picked up along the way is personalizing scripture. When you feel confident you understand it enough to work with it, then reword it. Really dig deep into the verse before attempting to reword it. To be sure this doesn’t happen, pray through the word study with God, carefully look up each word, read the verse in a variety of translations, read surrounding verses to get context, and read commentary on the verse. *However, be sure you aren’t changing the meaning of the verse when you reword it. When a verse catches my attention, I almost always study the original language (Hebrew for the OT and Greek for the NT) and then reword the verse to help me understand it more fully. I do it almost every time I read something whether I am studying a particular verse or focusing on a certain chapter in a book. This has been a favorite activity of mine for Bible study.
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Once you had a solid understanding of the deeper meaning of the word, reword the verse using the information you found in your study. To do this, go through the verse, using BLB app and look up each word in the scripture or each key word or each word that was important to you. If you find that you love studying the Bible this way, I encourage you to try rewording the verses based on the original meanings you uncover. I added the ESV because that’s the print version I have, and I am used to reading that translation. Once you’ve downloaded the app from the App Store and opened it on your phone, you’ll choose the translation you want to use (you can add a translation if you don’t see the one you want). I use this app when I want to study the scriptures deeper – such as looking up the meanings of words in their original language or looking at one verse in a variety of translations. Note: I don’t read the Bible as a whole from this app, (although you could if you wanted). (I use the smartphone app nearly every day when I study the Bible, so I’ll walk you through using the app I rarely go on the website itself, so I’m not as familiar with it). I want to share them with you because they have added richness to my time in God’s Word.īlue Letter Bible was the first site my friend recommended. Two of those have become constant study tools for me. He pointed me to several online resources and smartphone apps.
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I wanted to know how to look up scripture in its original language, but I wasn’t going to take a course in Greek or Hebrew any time soon, so I asked our life group teacher if there was access to such information for the laity – us “common folk” who aren’t pastors or theologians but who want to look deeper into what the Bible is saying. I came to understand that, at times, when translating Greek or Hebrew to English, something vital was lost in translation. The pastor usually pointed out the original usage of the word when it was different from the way the word would be defined in our culture, when knowing the original usage would give us a deeper understanding of what the verse meant. Then, I started noticing places in sermons where pastors would explain what a word in a Bible verse meant in the original language. I didn’t quite know what that “more” was, but I knew I wanted something else. After I’d been studying the Bible a few years with the help of the commentaries, cross references, and concordances I had at my disposal, I felt a pull for more.
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