How to Study the Bible: Advanced Level - Impact Workshops

[MUSIC] In the past, we have done two videos on how to study the Bible, a beginner level and an intermediate level. And this is the conclusion to that series, the advanced level. So if you haven't watched the other two videos, I highly recommend that you do, because this video will assume that you already understand the previous material covered. And you should watch it because the content may be overwhelming for people who are still beginners when studying the Bible. So in this video, we'll cover the differences between the beginner, intermediate, and advanced level. We'll give you a brief outline of the different advanced level studies that you can do. And then we'll give you an assessment that will tell you if you're ready for this level. And then we'll talk about the amount of time it normally takes. Afterwards, we'll go over an in-depth process and how to complete these studies as well as cover the materials required for each of them. And to close, I will provide some helpful tips that students of God's word should keep in mind as they study at this level. And I would say the overall goal of this video is to help set Christians on the path to greater Bible learning, and to encourage an even deeper walk with God through His Word. So if you were to look at the beginner, intermediate, and advanced levels, and how they relate to each other, I would say that the beginner level focuses more on building the habit of reading the Bible correctly. And the intermediate level transitions students from reading the Bible to studying the Bible, and then the advanced level uses the knowledge from the beginner and intermediate levels to perform a more in-depth study. So note that when it comes to the advanced level, it's not just us reading a certain way like the beginner and intermediate level. It's more like completing specific studies using the skills learned at the beginner and intermediate level. So once you learn the five steps of reading the Bible from the previous videos, which are context observation interpretation application and visualization, you then use these tools to complete these advanced studies, passage studies, word studies, book studies, topical studies, and class studies. And in this video, we're going to cover how you can perform each one of these studies. So now for the assessment, how do you know if you're ready to study at the advanced level? I would say you're ready if you can naturally read the Bible using the steps that we've covered, and that would look like you reading the Bible and automatically using the five W's, tact, reps, and spectrum without really thinking. So once you're at a place where you naturally identify adjectives, commands, repetitions, and you automatically start using picture perspective and can find patterns, terms while noticing characters, settings, and locations that I would say you're ready. That's just a suggestion though. I would say people at the beginner level can do an advanced study. It just may take them a little bit longer and they may not be able to go as deep. I should also note that it would be very helpful if you read the entire Bible, because once you do that, you can decide where in the whole Bible you'd like to do an advanced study. To cover the time it takes to study at this level, I would say on average, a complete study would take bare minimum one hour. I think studies of this depth normally take hours to complete. However, I don't think this needs to all be done in one sitting. Sometimes advanced studies progress a little by little where you spend maybe 15 to 30 minutes today until the study is complete. And then once you're done, you can decide on a different advanced study to work on. All right, so let's go ahead and dive into our first study, passage studies. This advanced study of the Bible attempts to dive deep into a particular passage in the Bible. So here are the steps. Pick a passage, read it quickly to get the big picture, read slowly to identify and label all observations, figure out all question marks, or gain a general understanding of the entire passage, ask questions about the passage, answer those questions, and find the flow of the verses. So the first step you take when doing a study like this is to decide on a passage. In the past, one of my mentors was fascinated with Jesus' sermon on the mount. So for months, you would reread Matthew chapters 5, 6, and 7. In the past, I really loved the parable of the sower, and I dove deep into what each of the four soils represented and read what multiple authors said about this particular parable. And this is where it's important to have learned the five W's, tact, reps, and spectrum. Because you'll utilize these tools to uncover observations that could be easy to miss. So once you decide on a passage, I'd recommend you vary your reading speed when reading through the passage. The first read through, I suggest you read quickly to get the big picture of the passage. And then afterwards, you go back and read slowly. And as you read slowly, you try to make every observation possible and to label them in some way that you can remember them. If you have a Bible you can write on, you can label certain marks with different symbols or highlight them with different colors. For example, you can use an underline to label a term or a double underline to label words that have to do with the theme of the book, or you can circle connectives. Another thing you can do is connect circled words together to identify repetitions. And you can also use zigzag lines, parentheses, or boxes for labels also. And there's also different Bible highlighters with different colors that you can use to mark up your Bible. And then you can designate different colors for different observations. And for all you technologically savvy people, another option is for you to copy and paste your Bible passage from BibleGateway.com to a Word document. And there you can label all your observations, interpretations, and applications on the computer. To give you an example of a topical passage study, you can watch our video, "Are You Luke War?" In that video, I attempt to dive deep into Revelation chapter 3 versus 14 to 22. And if you notice, I take the time to go through and give a thorough explanation for every verse as well as point out multiple observations. And I bring this up because the next step of completing a passage study is to try to figure out every question mark. Or in other words, if there's any part of the passage that doesn't make sense to you, you need to find an explanation for it so that you can understand the whole passage. And one of the ways you do this is by asking questions that you have about your passage. For example, as I studied the passage that talked about the Lukewarm Church, I asked myself, "What does it mean to be Lukewarm?" And what does it mean to be cold? And what does it mean to be hot? So I really spent a lot of time answering those questions through my own reflection and by rereading that passage over and over again. And then afterwards, I used commentaries, Bible dictionaries, and blueliterbible.org to find an answer. So as you read, do your best to draw out as many questions as you can about your passage. And once you do, the next step is to try to answer all those questions. And some ways you answer them is by asking God for wisdom, by reading your passage in different translations, by using other books, commentaries, or studybibles that talk about the passage, or by using the internet to see what other people think about your passage. And one method that helps me personally is by going on prayer walks, where I take the time to meditate on my passage and ask God what He thinks about it. And the last thing to look for in a passage study is the general flow between verses. For example, notice the flow for the Lukewarm passage. In verses 14-15, Jesus addresses the church, tells them who He is, and tells them what they're doing wrong. In verses 16-17, Jesus tells them the consequence of their wrongdoings. Verse 18 tells them how to overcome their wrong doings, and verses 19-22 is an encouragement for them to do the right thing. So see how the sequence and organization of this passage makes sense. To summarize, Jesus tells them they're wrong, then he tells them the consequences of the wrong things that they're doing, and then he tells them how to do the right thing instead, and then he finishes by encouraging them to do what's right. And please note that looking for the flow and how each verse connects to each other can be difficult, especially in books like James. Where it seems like he's jumping all over the place, and he suddenly stops talking about a particular topic, and immediately talks about something else completely different. So one question that you can ask is how do James chapter 2 verse 26, James chapter 3 verse 1, and James chapter 3 verse 2, I'll connect. Because in these three consecutive verses, James talks about three topics that seem like they have nothing to do with each other at first. Like the last verse in James chapter 2 says that faith what that works is dead, and then in the next verse, James says that there's greater judgment for teachers, and then in the next verse he says to control the tongue. So a passage study would try to find out how and why those verses all connect into one cohesive idea as we saw in the lukewarm passage. And to wrap up, one of the ways that you know you're done with the passage study is by having a greater mastery of the passage, and you understand more of what's being said, why it's being said, and how all the verses are related and connected to each other. The next advanced study you can perform is a word study. So instead of diving into a passage, the next thing you can do is to choose a word in the Bible that you want to go deeper in. So here are the steps you take when doing a word study. First, you choose a word that you want to learn about. Then you look at all the times the word is used in the Bible. Then you look at how they're used using the observation interpretation and the application steps, and then you use what you find to build a complete picture of what that word means in the Bible. Some examples for word studies would be faith, love, sin, righteousness, justification, wisdom, and holy. An example of a word study that I've done is one done on worship, and I recorded my findings on our video called how to worship correctly. And in all four points of the video, I used different passages that used the word worship, and then I listed my observations, interpretations, and applications in those passages to develop a complete picture on what worship is. So if you decide to try a word study, choose a word that interests you or a word that you're passionate about. And once you pick a word, the next step would be go to blueletterbible.org and to type in your word in the search bar at the top of the webpage. And once you do this, choose the translation you want to use, and then hit search. And once you do that, blueletterbible shows all the times this word is used in the Bible. And as you look at the list of all the Bible passages, try to find out what's being said about your word in every passage. And then piece together what you find so you can determine what the definition of the word is and what the full picture of the word looks like. For example, in my word study of the word worship, I was able to get the complete definition for worship in four points. Worship can be empty, worship must be done in spirit and truth, and worship belongs to God alone. So the goal for you in a word study is to find all the components that make up the word that you're studying. And this is where you need to take the time and utilize the observation, interpretation, and application steps in the inductive Bible study method. And while I was studying the word worship, my main focus was to carefully observe how worship was used in scripture and to keep doing so until I felt I fully understood what worship was according to God. Another thing that can help you with the word study is to look at the definition of the word in the original language they were written in. For example, the Old Testament was written in Hebrew and Aramaic, and the New Testament was written in Greek. And one of the ways you can look at the definitions is by searching the word again on blueletterbible.org. So first search the word in the search bar, then click on the passage, and in this case it's Genesis chapter 22 verse 5, and then click it again. Once you do that, you'll see the verse in the original language, and you can see how each word is translated. So scroll down until you find the word you're looking for, and click on the number associated with your word. So here the number is 7-8-1-2, and now you can see the definition here, and how the word means to bow down and prostrate oneself. Also, another good tool that you can use if you have the money is the Logos Bible Software. And here you can use the library of resources there and look at the Bible lexicon they have that provide the definitions and meanings of biblical words. So click the link in the description below if you're interested in their program. I use it, and I find it's very helpful. And to close, the way you know you're done with the word study is if you can define the word accurately and generally know what the overall meaning behind what the word is because you see how the word has been used throughout scripture. Well, the back to school season is almost upon us, and for all of you students in the Bible getting ready for a new semester, there's no better way to study your Bible than by using Logos Bible Software. Now, as Miles mentioned earlier, Logos Bible Software is a great way to dive deeper into your study of scripture because it connects you to a massive library of books, commentaries, and study tools. The Logos app is a great resource for anyone, no matter where they are in their spiritual journey, you're just wants to learn more about God's work. By clicking the link in the description today, you can get up to 40% off your first purchase of the newest Logos 10 software. Plus, you'll receive five digital books of your choosing for free from Logos's preset library. Whether you're new to reading the Bible or you're a seasoned veteran, Logos has an option for you. So go to the link in the description to visit Logos Bible Software and get up to 40% off your first purchase today. The next study to cover is a book study, and in this study, you dive deep into one of the 66 books of the Bible. And I'd say that the shorter the book, the easier the study tends to be. So here are the steps to do a book study. First, decide on a book. Next, complete the context of the book that you're reading. Then you read the whole book until you piece together a theme. Then outline the individual chapters, provide subpoints that describe the contents of each chapter. Then you find the flow that connects each chapter, and then you finish by doing individual passage studies on each of the chapters. So when you decide on a book, you can either choose a book that really interests you and want to learn more about, or you can choose a book that's a weak point in your scripture knowledge, and don't really know much about. And if you haven't done a book study before, I would suggest choosing a book that is four to six chapters long. Once I recommend would be Galatians, Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians, James, First and Second Peter, or First John. And Old Testament books that I personally love are Joshua, Ecclesiastes, and Nia Maya. The next step is to complete the context of the book you're reading. And I cover this pre-step in the how to study the Bible intermediate level, nine minutes and 55 seconds into that video. And during the step, you identify the author, date, theme, purpose, and background of the book. Once you complete the context, the next step is to read the entire book to gain a general understanding of the book. And I'd recommend that you keep doing this until you piece together a theme. Note that the theme of the book is a combination of two things, the main idea of the book, and the overall purpose on why it was written. And please note, that while you already got a theme from the context step, I would highly suggest that you find one on your own. And if in the off-chance you agree with the theme that you read about, make sure you have good reasons why. What I don't want you to do is to just turn your brain off and to automatically believe in the theme that someone gives you. And the reason why is because in my studies of different books of the Bible, I found that many commentators disagree on what the theme is for different books. James is one of those books where many Christians have different opinions on what the theme is. Some say wisdom, others say faith, or action, and for me personally, I disagree with those. And I believe the main theme is maturity, and I have my reasons why I believe that. So for you, as you read a book, try to wrestle with the passage to determine what the main theme of the book is, and then know why you think that. And the theme is the overall idea that affects the tone of the entire book. And note that while some themes for books can be difficult and heavily debated, some books do have very clear themes where most people agree. For example, I'd say it's pretty clear that Romans has to do with the righteousness of God. And if you look at every chapter of Romans, you'd find that each chapter has to do with the righteousness of God in some way. So as you read, try to find and develop your own theme, and the next step is to try to outline the chapters. And the way you do that is by creating your own headlines for the chapters of the book you're reading. Here's my personal outline through First Thessalonians. Chapter one, that Thessalonians were a good example. Chapter two, that Thessalonians were witnesses of Paul's example. Chapter three, that Thessalonians were cared for by Paul. Chapter four, that Thessalonians were instructed to please God more. And chapter five, that Thessalonians were encouraged to be sanctified completely. The idea is to encapsulate the entire chapter into a single sentence. And as you do that, write subpoints that describe what the chapter talks about. For First Thessalonians chapter one, I created three subpoints. Verses one to three, Christians should be in Christ, versus four to six, Christians should receive God's word, and verses seven to ten, Christians should spread their faith. So for you, don't concentrate too much on how I did my subpoints, because they don't need to all sound the same like mind do, because that's just how I like to do it. For you, just try to look at a chapter and find all the major ideas that are there, and then list them. And once you do that, the next thing to do is to find the flow of the book. And you look to see how chapter two connects to chapter one, and how chapter three connects to chapter two, and so on. Let's look at Ephesians. In chapter one, there's a repetition of being in Christ or in Him. In chapter two, verse eight, it says that we're saved by grace through faith. Chapter three talks about this idea of a mystery. Chapter four talks about how Christ gave certain people to hold certain offices. Chapter five talks about walking in love, in light, and in wisdom, and in chapter six, it lists the armor of God. So if you were doing a book study on Ephesians, one of the things that you'd try to do is to find out how all of these things are connected, and to determine the reason why Paul structured his letter this way. And doing this correctly may take hours. But this is one of those things that should be done, especially if you're teaching the Bible to an audience. Because books of the Bible aren't just a random list of holy applications, they're organized letters that were written a certain way to accomplish a specific purpose. So a book study tries to unfold why books are organized the way that they are. And honestly, there's tons of ways to do book studies, so I'd encourage you to try to develop your own way of studying through particular books. And in your book study, once you're done finding the context, developing the theme, outlining the chapters, listing sub-points, and finding the flow, the next thing to do is to do individual passage studies on every passage in your book. And I would call this part extra credit if you want to take your studies above and beyond. And the reason why you do this is so you can really understand the entirety of the book. Also, if you were to purchase a commentary on the book of the Bible, that commentary is essentially the author's own personal book study. And you can find a whole list of commentaries on blueletterbible.org/commentaries. And from this list, I appreciate Matthew Henry and John MacArthur. So something else you can do if you want to do a book study is for you to write your own commentary by recording your findings in your thoughts on specific passages. If book studies are something that you want to do but struggle with, the Bible project does a good job at presenting good book overviews. So the goal would be to develop a kind of study like theirs. On YouTube, you can find their videos by searching Bible Project and then write the book that you want to study. So to give you a reference, you can watch one of their book overviews to give you an idea of what a book study looks like. The Bible project has completed a book overview for every book of the Bible and they focus heavily on the background of the book. And then they structure it based on their studies. However, for all you people who are thinking, "Well, why should I do a book study?" Since other people have already done one. One of the things that I've learned as a junior high and high school teacher is that the ones who do the work do the learning. So yeah, you could just watch these studies, but you'd get a lot less out of it than if you were to try to come up with your own book study. So note that the goal for you watching one of these videos isn't for you to just copy and paste all the answers, but for you to get an idea of what one of these studies looks like so that you can draw closer to God through your own personal deep study. The next advanced study is the topical study and has a lot to do with word studies. In this study, you take a topic and you dive deep into that specific topic or question. And the steps of doing a topical study are as follows. First, you decide on a topic or question that you want to research. Next, you find all key passages that talk about your topic. Afterwards, you utilize the observation, interpretation, and application steps on the passages that speak on your topic. And then you use your findings to determine what the Bible has to say on the that topic. So first step, decide on a topic. I would recommend doing a topic that highly interests you or one that you don't know much about. Some examples of this study would be our videos on the unforgivable sin and the mark of the beast. And in these videos, I did my best to completely unpackage these topics. Other examples of topical studies can include tithing, being made in the image of God, or being a missionary, or cursing. Actually, I'd say most of our whiteboard videos on our channel are topical studies. However, bear in mind that topical studies don't need to be single word topics like fellowship or ministry. Topical studies can also answer questions. Questions I did my best to answer in previous videos would be who created God, why does God let bad things happen, and do people who don't hear the gospel go to hell. Topical studies are good to do when you really want answers to a specific question. So for you, I'd suggest you thinking about a topic that you've always wanted to dive deeper in. And once you've decided on a topic, the next step is to find all the key passages that talk about your topic. And you can do that either by using the internet or by utilizing blue letter Bible to search for specific words that have to do with your topic. Another tool that you can use for this is chat GPT. And you can ask it something along the lines of list all Bible passages that have to do with church leadership or the holiness of God. The goal of this step is to have a full list of verses that speak about your topic. The next step is to utilize the observation, interpretation, and application steps on the passages that speak on your topic. And this is the step that will probably take the most time and it involves you using the five W's, tact, reps, and spectrum to help you comb through every single verse from your list so you can find out what the Bible has to say. And once you apply the inductive Bible study method to every verse, the final step is to piece together your findings to determine what the Bible has to say on that topic. The key for this step is organization and to sort out what big ideas the Bible is communicating regarding your specific topic. Also be aware that some topics can be more difficult than others. One topic that I struggled through was covered in our video, do people have free will if God is all knowing? In the video, I read specific passages that had to do with the topic, recorded my observations from those verses, consolidated those observations into points, and then I tried to connect all those points together. I would say that many Christian books are actually just topical studies. For example, knowledge of the Holy by AWSer really focuses on the topic of theology. The master plan of evangelism by Robert Coleman focuses on the topic of discipleship and spiritual leadership by Oswald Sanders has to do with leadership. So one thing you can do is maybe write your own book on your findings of a topic that you've always wanted to dive deeper in. And the last advanced study is a class study and this can be done in one of two ways. Either you take a class or you teach a class. The steps for taking a class are as follows. Research the class or program you wish to enroll in, identify your motive for taking the class, balance your class with your life's goals, and then be a good student in class. So when it comes to taking a class that will grow your knowledge with God, you have some options. You can enroll in a program from a university, Bible college, seminary, your local church, or a mission program. And before you take a class, I would encourage you to be very careful when deciding which school or program you enroll in. So don't think that just because it's a class that teaches the Bible that it'll all be safe. I've heard of certain seminaries that teach that the Bible cannot be trusted because it was written by man. And one of my mentors warned me that some Bible colleges actually made Christians turn to atheists because of how horrible their teachings were. So this first step to research your class or program is essential. Because if you're going to spend time, energy, and possibly money on a spiritual investment, you need to make sure it's biblically sound. So I'd recommend you communicating with leaders from your church on what their thoughts are regarding the class you're considering. Or you could talk to some people that have taken a class from there before. The idea is to be careful because no matter who you learn from, you always need to make sure that what you're learning is coming from the Word of God. So once you do your research, the next step is to identify your motive for taking the class. Maybe bad teaching isn't the only danger when taking a class. The next danger to be aware of is spiritual pride. I've met many people who've attended Bible college, who've become spiritually puffed up, and because they have this higher knowledge from the classes they take, they either look down on others, or they pride themselves in their own knowledge to the point where they aren't willing to sit under the leadership of a church. I remember this one time I got done with one of my Bible college classes, and I met a student who was in the program above mine. And as I spoke with him, this guy was smart, and he was well versed in different languages, and he started teaching me about certain meanings of Bible passages, and I was impressed. And then I asked him where he wants a church, and where he's serving in ministry. And then he told me he wasn't going anywhere, and that he's not serving in any capacity. And I encouraged him to maybe join a Sunday school so he can share the knowledge that he shared with me. And the reason why I bring this up is because it's important for you to remember why you're taking a Bible class. But the most important thing is that you're there to learn about God and grow in your relationship with Him. And while this sounds really simple, it's something worth mentioning. So when all you're learning, don't lose sight of God, and be humble in your learning. So quick summary. Always be careful when it comes to enrolling in a class. And make sure the content you learn comes from trusted and solid Bible teachers. And if the teaching is good, make sure you don't become puffed up and spiritually proud due to your learning. And next step for taking a class is to balance your class with your life's goals. So another thing I should add is to be aware of the fact that you may not be able to make money off of a Bible degree or Bible major. And I know that sounds weird, but hear me out. I also met quite a few people who had the ambition to work full time at a church, so they spent a lot of time, energy, and finances to get a Bible-related degree. And the danger with that is that a Bible degree doesn't necessarily give you a skill that can help you make money. I'm someone who believes that education is an investment that you can make that should help you take care of yourself in the future. So my personal opinion is that if people just want to go to Bible college so that they can learn about God and the higher capacity for a season in their life to take classes part-time, while they balance a full-time job, or by getting a degree somewhere else. For me, I did go to Bible college. But I also own the fact that my Bible degree was unaccredited and most businesses would not acknowledge my degree. So while I went to Bible college, I also went to a regular college, and I received my degree in communication studies with the focus on public speaking so that I can tell my employers that I received my bachelor's. Now don't get me wrong. I have a close friend right now who's in a graduate program so that he can become a pastor. And it's great that he's in college. The reason why I'm bringing up this part-time Bible college idea is because there may be some of you who are thinking, "I want to go to a Bible college so I can learn about God." And that would be great. And if that's you, I would suggest that you try taking one or two classes at a time. And to not drop a job or a degree that you're already pursuing, because doing those other things may help you get a career that you want. The reason why I say to balance your class with your life schools is because I've known people who dropped all the responsibilities for two years to attend a Bible college. But during those two years, they didn't obtain any skills that can help them get the career that they want. Now could God be calling them to attend that school for two years? Yeah, and I'm not against that. I only bring it up because I've found that many people can feel pressured to go to these Bible colleges in order to get closer to God. So again, my personal opinion, if you feel like you want to take a class, be honest with your life's goals and determine how you can balance your goals and this class that you're considering. And now to the last step, be a good student in class. And it's pretty straightforward. If you decided to take a class, understand that you're submitting yourself to their authority. So pay your tuition, get to class on time, do your homework, don't take shortcuts, be aware of your absences, and actively learn what your teacher is telling you. All that to say, if you're going to do something that you feel God may be calling you to do, do it right, and dedicate your time of learning to God. To close this topic, note that while it is advantageous to go to a class that'll teach you more about God, it is possible to learn more about God at a secular college. From my college experience, I went to a secular community college and a four year university. And I learned a lot about God at those places too. And there I learned the arguments of atheists and have learned to present arguments for the Christian faith, to evolutionists, Jehovah's Witnesses, Muslims, and Mormons. However, all of this is just my opinion. So at the end of the day, take the things that I say as suggestions that come from my personal experience. So taking a class is the first way to do a class study. The next way is to teach a class. And here's the steps. Find an opportunity to teach, fully understand the topic you'll be teaching, format your teaching to your audience, know the audience relevance, have learning objectives, utilize public speaking techniques, and be open to learn. So the first step, find an opportunity to teach. And you can either teach a class as a Sunday school teacher or in another ministry. Now, please note that I'll probably cover how to teach a Bible study in another video, but I'll give some short pointers here to help new or aspiring teachers. So start by looking for opportunities to share your faith or teach God's work. And once you have one, the next step is to fully understand the topic that you'll be teaching. So utilize the steps that I previously covered in this video and perform either a passage study or a topical study based on what you're asked to do. In the off chance that you're given a choice on what to teach, pray about it, and ask the person who gave the opportunity what they feel would be a good topic to teach. Once you fully understand it, please check it out. understand your passage and topic and have utilized the observation, interpretation, and application steps, the next step is to pay close attention to who your audience is and to format your teaching to your audience. So if your audience are junior hires, high schoolers, college-aged students, or men and women, try to put yourself in their shoes and think about what they're struggling with and have those things in mind as you prepare your study. The next step is to know the audience relevance. Or in other words, know why your teaching is relevant or useful to your audience. The audience relevance tells the audience why they should care to listen. So if you're teaching about what the Bible says about fellowship, your teaching should include an explicit statement that sounds something along the lines of, the reason why it's important for you to know this is because of this reason or that reason. Remember, no matter who your audience is, it's always important to explain why it's important for them to listen. And another way you can do this is by explaining what the consequences are if they do not apply that specific Bible passage to their life. The next step is to have learning objectives. So before you teach, be aware of what your goals are when you're teaching. So look at your teaching and I'd recommend you pay extra attention on what you've written down during the application step of your studies. So maybe your learning objectives for the people you teach are list three practical steps to avoid sexual immorality, or list five practical steps to pray more efficiently. The idea is to give yourself goals on what you need to cover when you teach, and that helps prevent rambling. After you do that, utilize public speaking techniques. Now while it is good to place much of your attention to the actual Bible study, if you're speaking God's word, you should also learn how to communicate well. So I'd recommend that you look on YouTube how to public speak, and to learn how to form an attention getter, and how to utilize good body language, and how to effectively tell a story. Sorry I'm not covering more, but I do plan on creating a series on how to teach, and how to lead a Sunday school classroom in the future. The final step is to be open to learn, and the reason why I close with this one is because when it comes to teaching, there's always something to improve on. Excluding God, there is no such thing as a perfect teacher. So no matter how long we've taught, we should always be willing to learn and grow. So if you teach, be open to constructive criticism, and look for ways to improve your skill to teach. To close this topic, I have to say that teaching the Bible is one of the best ways to learn the Bible. I've heard it said that you learn 10% of what you hear, 50% of what you discuss, and 90% of what you teach. And after teaching for some years, I found this to be true. It was earlier last year in 2023 that I was asked to teach at theology class. The class was made up of five, two and a half hour sessions with a total of 150 minutes of content per day, with 215 minutes of content per day. And I used my knowledge of the attributes of God, created discussion questions, and made PowerPoints and notes for my students to fill in, and all of that preparation caused my head to be filled with the knowledge of God in a deeper and greater way. So again, I'm not going to teach you how exactly to teach right now, but teaching either through a class or through another ministry is another way that you can study the Bible. Because by doing so, you'll be forcing yourself to learn your content to the point where you can communicate it to an audience. And to close this series, here are some steps that you should bear in mind as you try to study the Bible at an advanced level. Tip number one, pave your own road. The reason why these are advanced studies of the Bible is because you kind of need to learn and develop your own way of studying the Bible in a deeper way. Yeah, I can give you steps, but you need to be the one to dive deep. So if you feel like you're doing a passage, word, book, or topical study wrong, that's okay. The reason why it may feel wrong or uncomfortable is probably because you're not used to it. So like all good habits, it takes some time getting used to. Remember, I'm more like a coach that'll give you some tips and tricks that may or may not help you, but you're the one that has to play, put in the hours, and study out on your own. So be okay with figuring out things as you go. And pretty soon, you'll develop your own style and unique way of going deeper in Bible studies. Tip number two, God is your teacher. With the advanced level, one of the most important steps is to regularly pray and hear from God as you study. So ask God what He wants you to see and ask for help if things don't make sense to you. In my studies, there's a lot of wrestling and feelings of frustration with certain Bible passages. And one of the things that helps with those feelings is by taking a step back and praying through a difficult passage to hear what God has to say about it. Tip number three, space out the levels of study. Advanced levels of study do take time. And I'll tell you that I do not do an advanced level study every single sitting. Sometimes I stay at the beginner level. And I often get to an intermediate level of study, but an advanced level study can take a lot of time and it can take a ton of energy. If for some reason you don't feel like reading the Bible because you feel like it's too much, go back to a beginner level of study and just read a chapter while looking for an application for the day. So all that to say, if the thought of doing an advanced level Bible study causes you to lose motivation for reading the Bible for the day, save the advanced study for another time when you have more time and strength. Tip number four, advanced level studies are about creation. Either you create a little commentary or an outline or answers to questions you had or a Bible study. Essentially, the beginner level focuses on making observations, the intermediate level focuses on making deeper observations, and the advanced level focuses on owning what you find so you can create a tool or resource that can help you in the future. So one big part of doing an advanced level Bible study is to be a creative scholar, if you will. So as you begin an advanced level study, think of what you want to create that will either help you or the people around you. And tip number five, learn to marinate. One of the most important things to do when studying at this level is to just read, reread, and meditate on the passage that you want to study. So don't rush when it comes to learning and be okay with taking your time. And as you take your time, make little habits here and there to help you go deeper and learn to enjoy the process. Studying the Bible in a deeper way should be a lifetime skill that you learn and develop over the years. So try to build that little by little. Okay, I know this is a lot, but it wouldn't be the advanced level if it wasn't, right? So if you want to study at the advanced level, remember these five different studies. Passage studies, word studies, book studies, topical studies, and class studies. You know, learning to study at this level is still something that I'm learning to master and my studies and methods are constantly changing. So I hope you enjoy the process like I do. And if you're struggling to figure it out, good. This is one of those healthy struggles that will bless you immensely in the long run. Closing to series, I hope and pray that our videos bless your studies through God's Word. And as you read and study, may you always remember that Jesus loves you. All right, guys, we finally finished the How to Study the Bible series, Beginner, Intermediate, and Advanced Level. And it was definitely a team effort. Joseph was the one who's like, come on, Miles, you got to ride it. You got to ride it. And I was just like, uh, good. I have to. So we're very glad that we can finally release it. And again, guys, it is a team effort, especially with this last one. I don't even know how long it's going to be like what, 30, 40 minutes or so. And so a lot of drawing what involved. It actually helped my OCD a little bit because I drew the beginner and intermediate level. And so I was able to actually draw the advanced level too. So it was a lot. And I just got off the phone with Nick who was, who is editing it right now. Well, not when you guys watch it. But it's, oh my goodness, it was difficult. But you know what? Uh, I, we all personally believe that this video is just such a valuable. Resource for, for Christians because just in my time working as a teacher, a lot of young people. And a lot of just people in general, it's, it's hard to find a very straightforward way on how to read the Bible. So when I went to Bible college, like I took inductive Bible study, hermeneutics, homolytics, all these different Bible courses. And in my time of ministry for the last, you know, 10 years or so, I was able to consolidate everything. Into three videos, the beginner, the intermediate and advanced level. And honestly, I would say out of all of the video, all of the videos that I helped write. Um, on impact, I would argue that these three videos for me personally can't speak for everybody on the team. But I would say they're the most valuable, the most valuable resource that I've contributed in my lifetime. Yeah, sounds really dramatic, but I just feel like if I were to die, which I don't want to, but if I were to, I feel like this is a good resource to give to people because it's not just a teaching. It's a skill. It's a skill that people can learn and, you know, for a time. And then they can just run with the teaching and just like, and then learn how to follow God on their own. Kind of like that, you know, that fish analogy, give them an a fish, eat for a day, but you teach them an a fish, eat for a lot of them. That sort of thing, you know, like these videos are intended to help people be independent in their walk with God. Not isolated, but to be able to read God's word and go deeper on their own. So I'll have to say I really hope they bless you guys. Just a huge thanks to everybody on the impact team. Like we all worked really, really hard to bless our viewers. So we hope that it encourages you guys. We hope it's used in, you know, Bible studies are in small groups so that people can know how to go deeper in their walk with God. So we as a team just want to encourage you. Thank you so much. much for your support and for all the shares and the likes and the positive comments. And thankful for all the negative comments too because they boost the algorithm. Next on the list, I probably, I don't know after finishing this series it makes me want to think like, what's the next series? Part of me really wants to do that how to teach the Bible. So, that might be a good workshop series and it might even be longer than this one. So, I don't know. We'll see though. Anyways guys, thank you so much again for your support. And we'll see you guys next time. God bless.