How to motivate Bible study

To encourage yourself and others, including family members, to develop a hunger for God’s Word, I would suggest making a full study, over a period of time, of what the Bible says about itself.

This would be a perfect Bible study theme to pursue in home school Bible study.

I must confess that I am not sure that I have been successful myself in motivating others to get into the Word for themselves, though I have certainly tried.

When I was still in high school, I believe it was, I took a summer vacation Bible school class on the subject of “worship” offered at the Highland Park Baptist Church, taught by Professor Schoof (I probably spelled that wrong!) from the Detroit Bible College, later called Tyndale College. [I noted recently that Dr. Norman Geisler mentions Professor Schoof as a major influence in his life in the preface to a book by Geisler I recently purchased].

I had mentioned to Professor Schoof after class was over one evening that I did my own Bible study and kept notes as I did so. He asked to see my notes. He exclaimed, upon seeing them, “Jerry, you are one in a million.”

That statement has always haunted me.

If what I do (or did at that time), which seems so ordinary to me, is so rare among other Bible believing Christians, have I set my sights too high in my expectations for others?

I really don’t think so myself, but apparently for many others such interest in Bible study is rare, or unusual. It should not be.

Now, I don’t expect others to gather the Bible study library I’ve managed to collect over a number of years.

I don’t even expect others to commit their Bible studies to writing. It would help them if they did, though.

But everyone should own The New Treasury of Scripture Knowledge, where on page 1597 under the heading THE SCRIPTURES you will find Topic Numbers 1014 to 1109, which cover the subject “What the Bible Teaches About Itself” in considerable detail.

Unfortunately, the publishers left that index out of the software version of The New Treasury, an omission which is a major loss to the usefulness of the software, compared to the book. Unfortunately, the publishers have stopped publishing The New Treasury of Scripture Knowledge in book form.

I took that list directly from The New Topical Textbook, which may still be in print. That is a most useful modest volume for Bible study. I consider it to be one of the very best resources available for topical Bible studies. It possesses a remarkably spiritually uplifting “tone” throughout that I have not found elsewhere in similar resources: it is never perfunctory or “dry as dust.” I assume John MacArthur may have used the same resource to develop similar material at the back of The MacArthur Study Bible (the first entry in the “Index to Key Bible Doctrines” on page 2039), another Bible study resource which I highly recommend.

At least that valuable information about what the Bible says about itself is still available somewhere in print today.

It is my present plan to carry out an extensive study of this topic, What the Bible says about itself, or what Scripture says about Scripture, in a number of posts under the category here for “What the Bible says about itself.”

I am personally convinced that this is perhaps the most important and the most neglected topic of Bible study today.

If every Bible reader carefully studied this Bible study theme, we would see revival, spiritual growth, greater love for the Scriptures, greater love and commitment to our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, and the blessing of God.

“No revival is more to be desired than that of systematic, personal Bibe study!”