Monday, May 4, 2015

SOAP Bible Study Method

 

A while back I had the opportunity to sub in Ladies' Bible Study at our church. This was a last minute situation...like 15 minutes before class started...so I was absolutely unprepared. To keep this introduction short, I'll just say that we ended up doing a little study on the importance of daily time with God. 
 
It seems that most strong Christians have at least at some point had a season of daily time with God. Those solid, steady, seemingly unshakable Christians have a set-in-stone prayer and Bible study time each day. I believe, and have expressed many times, that Satan knows full well that time in prayer and studying God's Word is time well spent for the Christian. These 2 disciplines carry more promise for Spiritual growth than any other. These are our life line to communicating with God and our source of strength and assurance in defeating Satan...and Satan knows this. So, it is no surprise that Satan puts endless distractions in our path to keep us from spending DAILY time in prayer and in God's Word.
 
I will not go into a long dissertation on all the ways Satan distracts us. All I have to do is think through any given day and I will see all sorts of things he tossed in my path to take up time and energy. For the most part, the things that eat  away at my time are good things...blessings God has given me. Still, these were never intended to replace my time with Him.
 
So, in an effort to remind myself of a super simple way to meditate on God's Word, I want to re-introduce the S.O.A.P. method of Bible Study.
 
The concept is WAY easy...
 
S = Scripture (read the scripture)
O= Observe (What's going on?)
A= Application (How does this apply to my life?)
P = Prayer
 
See? Piece of cake. This can be as in depth or superficial as you make it. It is useful to all levels of Spiritual maturity. I think that, over the next few weeks, I will touch on this again, but this is enough for now.

No comments: