Bible Studies by Kathleen Dalton
Simple Question & Answer Bible Studies
1st Timothy Chapter 5 “Who to Honor”
Timothy has a job to do. He will be best able to convey spiritual truths to the people in his congregation if he treats each person as an honored and special creation of God. Will everyone react well to Timothy’s Pastoring? No. Some will not want to be confronted no matter how respectfully Timothy treats them. But Paul’s advice will open the most doors for ministry possible.
Click HERE to view or download the entire 1st Timothy study.
Are you studying with us through Psalm 119? Great! This is Week #7: Psalm 119:49-56 “Memories”.
Your memories of God’s might will serve you well all your life, and into the next. Write them down and every once in awhile re-read them. When you grow old and your memory dims, have someone remind you of them. God Himself is our hope and our joy and our every breath. Think often of what He has done.
That’s really the only question worth starting with. It opens up the door to all the other important questions:
Are we here just by ourselves with no help at all?
Is there really a God in heaven Who is watching? SomeOne Who started it all?
And if so, has He spoken to us?
Has He given us any clues as to Who He is and What He is like? Does He want to speak to us?
Does He want us to speak to Him?
Does He want to have a relationship with us?
And if He has spoken, has He spoken clearly? Can we understand what He has spoken?
If God has not spoken, then we’re on our own, and we just have to do the best with what we receive in this life.
But if God has spoken….if He has spoken….then run as fast as you can to get a copy of His Words. Sell all you have to get just a chance to read them. Read all of His words…don’t miss a thing!
I read a quote by a man named Richard Feynman – a brilliant scientist who helped create the atom bomb. He said: “It doesn’t seem to me that this fantastically marvelous universe, this tremendous range of time and space and different kinds of animals, and all the different planets, and all these atoms with all their motions, and so on, all this complicated thing can merely be a stage so that God can watch human beings struggle for good and evil – which is the view religion has. The stage is too big for the drama.” -Richard Feynman (quote taken from “The Language God Talks”, by Herman Wouk)
I think what he’s trying to say is that our world is just too big and complicated and beautiful to be all about God. He’s just not that important.
In my opinion, Mr. Feynman is wrong. God is bigger and more complicated and far more beautiful than tiny little mankind, or our puny little planet or our unimportant little solar system, or our insignificant, miniscule dwelling place of space and time.
Instead, all of this – time, space, animals, planets, atoms – is about us finding out Who He is, How to be right with Him, and How to know Him.
Our life is a love story.
In Song of Solomon, through the imagery of the Shulamite looking forward to the day her King will come for her, we picture the fulfillment of life’s love story – the part we’re all waiting for…and maybe a little afraid of – when time and space collapse under the plan of God, and we finally see our King face-to-face. When the King comes, it is the culmination of our incredible love story…but the stage, it seems to me, is far too small for the drama.
The Third Letter of John. John is still defending and fighting for the truth of the Gospel in this letter – his 3rd letter to be included at the end of the New Testament.
But his words are very personal and practical….not theoretical. “Yes, you need to speak out against lies….but also, you need to passionately support the spreading of the truth.”
Are you studying with us through Psalm 119? Great! This is Week #6: Psalm 119:41-48 “Salvation”
At some point in our lives, each of us comes to the point that we feel an unrelenting guilt for our sins. This guilt can’t be pushed to the back burner any more. We know we have fallen way short of what the God of the Universe planned for us. We know, deep inside us, that we cannot save ourselves. We long, achingly, for SomeOne to step in and make us right again.
That SomeOne is Jesus – and the way we know He is offering to save us is when we hear Him say it. He says it, over and over again, in His Word – the Bible. We simply have to hear it.
Then, when we hear it, He goes to work. He shows us what it means. He causes great shame to undo our pride. He lets us see what great steps He took to rescue us. He brings us to the precipice of forever, and gives us a choice.
Zephaniah – “Lies We Have Believed”
Here are 3 lies we have believed:
“The LORD will do Nothing, either Good or Bad.”
(He is kind and loving and overlooks evil. He hasn’t done anything so far, has he?)
“All we Need is Self-confidence”.
(The LORD wants us to believe in ourselves.)
“The Future is What We Make It”.
(The LORD helps those who help themselves. Our actions determine our happiness.)
Zephaniah may not have had our century in mind when he wrote this book, but the LORD did….
The advice in Proverbs is sometimes hard to follow – it might “go against the grain” occasionally. But one thing is guaranteed. When followed, God’s wisdom is always “sweet”. In other words, you can’t go wrong taking this advice. It always brings peace inside and gives you hope for the future.
When something is going wrong in your life, it is so sweet to know what God would have you do, and then to be able to look forward to the future.
Are you studying with us through Psalm 119? Great! This is Week #4. Psalm 119:25-32, “Depression – a Journey”
These 8 verses are a great description of depression. And the Psalmist sees the solution in the Word of God. So in this week’s lesson, I’d like us to consider whether or not the Word of God is sufficient to heal depression.
I think I’ve experienced depression. Not so bad that I couldn’t get out of bed every day….or had to be under a doctor’s care, but bad enough that I knew, even if most people in my life didn’t, that I was not the same as before. That everything was moving very slowly for me. That I didn’t enjoy life very much. That I had no desire to do anything about the way I felt.
It was real…and discouraging…and, well…depressing.
Did reading my Bible heal me? I’ll tell you in a minute.
The job of Pastor is described in this chapter…with a pretty daunting list of qualifications. You’ll probably read through this list and say: “Whoa! Who would ever want to do this job?”
But I can tell you from my own experience as a Pastor’s wife that the man who is called of God to shepherd a church has a burning desire to be the man described above, and wild horses couldn’t pull him away from it.
Click HERE to view or download the entire 1st Timothy study.
Bible Studies by Kathleen Dalton