Print off this week's "More to Explore" sheet and use it all week!
The book of Psalms was written during the time period of the Old Testament. Many, like the one we are studying this week, were written by King David.
When we don’t have words to pray or praise God with, the Psalms are a great place to find ideas. We can use the words of the psalmist to connect to God through worship and prayer.
God’s Word is Truth (John 17:17). It is breathed out by God, powerful, alive and useful for many things (2 Timothy 3:16-17).
Read 1 Peter 1:22-25, 2 Timothy 3:16-17 and Hebrews 4:12.
What is God’s Word useful for?
What does it accomplish in us?
The Bible was originally written in Hebrew and Greek. As Christianity spread through the early church to people who spoke different languages, the need to translate the Scriptures grew. Around A.D. 400, the Bible was translated into Latin, which was the official language of the Roman Empire. It wasn’t until 1384 that John Wycliffe completed the first English translation of the Bible.
According to the Wycliffe Global Alliance, there are now 724 language translations of the complete Bible and 1,617 of the New Testament. We can praise God that up to 97% of people on the earth can read and understand some part of God’s Word in their language.
God told us the Bible is His Word.
The Bible was written by 40 different authors who were inspired by God to write His Words down over a period of 1,500 years. For many years, people carefully preserved God’s Word by hand. By the 1400s, the printing press was invented, which made copying the Bible much simpler.
In 1946, the Dead Sea Scrolls (ancient copies of many of the books of the Old Testament) were discovered in a cave in Qumran. Inside, archaeologists found hundreds of scrolls that contained very few changes from the Word of God we have today.
Find a Scripture verse for each person in your family that could help them in an area of spiritual need (sin, anxiety, fear, trust, etc.) and write it in your journal. Over the next week, pray through the Scripture passage for each member of your family.
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John 1:1-5 calls Jesus the WORD of God, present from the very beginning and Creator of all things. When Jesus came to Earth in the form of a man, He came to shine a light in our darkness, to teach us and to rescue us from sin.
Read the words of Jesus in Matthew 7:24-27.
What makes us wise?
What are the benefits of listening to Jesus’ words?
How should we build our lives?
