Every beat of my heart belongs to I AM! 💙
My least favorite genre. However, I’ll have to go with James Patterson’s Sundays at Tiffany’s. When my sister loaned me this book telling me that I must read it, I thought I wouldn’t like it because it was a romance and I didn’t care if JP was the author.
I read it and ended up liking it, but didn’t bother to watch the movie.
Jonah getting swallowed by a whale is often ridiculed by people who can’t simply get behind the fact that God is all-powerful and can humble us in ways He sees fit, people who think the story is a myth and by people who don’t understand the symbolic meaning of this incident. Jonah spent three days in the fish’s belly; yes, this ties into Jesus spending three days and three nights in the earth’s belly. This is something I’ll get into later on, but if the story of Jesus isn’t true, then the story of Jonas is false.
Back to the origin of this post.
In primary school, we had a Religious Instructions class where all the faiths came together as one. There was one song that went: I don’t want to be like Jonah. To be swallowed by a whale. Down to Ninevah I must go. When my Savior tells me so…
I loved that song! Until I started studying the Bible and discovering the truth. So did Jonah get swallowed by a whale? Let’s consult our Bible:
Jonah gets swallowed by a GREAT FISH. Not by a whale, not by a mermaid, not by the Loch Ness monster, but by a great fish. This is why it’s important to read and study the Bible. Little details like these are very important.
May God continue to bless and guide you as you seek to enrich your spiritual life.
***Images via Google Search
Today, we’re going to look at resources that can aid in your Bible study and why it’s important to meditate on His Word.
*The Bible. Readers are encouraged to compare different versions of each text of the Bible. I have a King James Version (KJV), but I also enjoy comparing texts with the New International Version (NIV). Online Bibles are extremely useful.
* Biblical dictionaries. This is an excellent resource to have. It allows you to discover meanings of words and reference events, names, places etc. Word searches may include the original Greek and Hebrew word with meaning. I have a Bible dictionary as an app on my phone and it’s helpful when it comes to getting the pronunciation of names right.
* A notebook. Have pen and paper at your disposal for you can never tell what God is going to reveal to you while reading/studying His word.
*Commentaries. Bible commentaries are extremely helpful as they interpret and explain biblical text verse by verse. It helps us to better understand the meaning of biblical texts.
*Concordances. This is an alphabetical listing of phrases and words found in the Bible and it cross-references verses.
One can also consider other resources such as lexicons, maps, and guides.
Take time to meditate on the passages that you’ve read whether day or night (Joshua 1:8) or in your bed (Psalm 4:4). Meditating helps us to fix our eyes upon Him (Psalm 119:15), to understand His way and not ours (Psalm 119:27) and to remember all that God has done for us from the beginning of time to now (Psalm 143:5). Meditating also helps us to take our eyes off the world (1 John 2:15) and to delight in God’s Word (Psalm 1:2).
T.R. Noble of Inside Cup wrote a wonderful post on how we can meditate on scripture and I recommend checking it out.
Contine to read, study, understand, apply, share, and pray the truth of scripture. God bless.
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