January 2020

BY PETER KROL A few days ago, I outlined the OIA method of Bible study that we follow.  In short, it stands for Observation, Interpreation, and Application. I’ve already made one audacious claim: that everyone has a Bible study method.  Today I’d like to make another: that OIA is the best method one can use to study the Bible.  Let me support this claim with three reasons. 1.  It works for any person anywhere of any age It can be taught to PhDs and other “professionals” and get quite complex and profound.  It can be taught to 3 year olds just learning to talk.  Anyone in between

At the beginning of 2009, John Piper challenged his congregation to memorize Scripture in his sermon entitled If My Words Abide in You…(John Piper began this sermon by reciting Psalm 1, Psalm 16, Psalm 103, Romans 5:1–8, Romans 8, Matthew 6:25–34, and 1 Corinthians 13.) The point of reciting these Scriptures is to motivate you by way of example to memorize Scripture in 2009. This message is a mingling of my testimony of the value of memorizing Scripture with Jesus’ testimony in the Gospel of John. My Testimony My testimony can be summed up in eight short sentences. Memorizing Scripture makes meditation possible at times when I

Do you have difficulty memorizing Scripture? You are not alone. The most common reasons I hear for not memorizing Scripture are “Bible verses are for the children” or “I don’t have a good memory” or “I’m too old to memorize” and probably the most honest “It’s too much work and to tell you the truth I’m just too lazy!” But considering the advantages of memorization and meditation gleaned from just the two verses quoted above should be reason enough to motivate every believer to seriously consider (or re-consider) Scripture memorization as an integral part of disciplining (gymnazo – what does this sound like? what

Beloved, you never know when you might need to recall the memorized Word. Darlene Diebler Rose was a missionary who was captured by the Japanese in WWII and spent four years in a prison camp. Below is her testimony to the power of God’s memorized Word, which truly became to her the “Word of Life!” As a child and young person, I had had a driving compulsion to memorize the written Word. In the cell I was grateful now for those days in Vacation Bible School, when I had memorized many single verses, complete chapters, and Psalms, as well as whole books