LOVE the Word®

Why is the Old Testament so hard to understand? In this show we take a bird’s eye view of the first half of the Bible and break it down into manageable pieces.

Welcome Katherine G, Andrea, Rowena, Kelly K, Elise, Renee L, and Jennifer C, Bible Study Evangelista’s newest friends of the show! Thank you for loving and lifting me :)

LOVE the Word™ is a Bible study method based on Mary’s own practice: lectio without the Latin.

L – Listen (Receive the Word.)

O – Observe (Choose one or more of the following personality approaches to connect the passage to your life and recent events.)

F | Franciscan – Take a few moments to thumb through your Bible. Look at the Table of Contents. Locate the division between the Old and New Testaments. What’s your predominant feeling about it?

I | Ignatian – Below is a video of underground Christians in communist China receiving Bibles for the first time. It is illegal to own a Bible or practice Christianity there. Punishments can include imprisonment with hard labor, detention without trial, torture, beatings, and even execution.

Do you respond this way when you open your Bible? Imagine you could never again have access to a Bible.

A | Augustinian – Thinking back over your life, try to describe your relationship with scripture, especially the Old Testament, in one word. What, if anything, bothers you most about the Bible? What makes you most uncomfortable about it? How do you hope or anticipate your relationship with the Old Testament to change as you work through this series?

T | Thomistic – Commit the genres and covenants of the Old Testament (see below) to memory.

V – Verbalize (Pray about your thoughts and emotions.)

All scripture is ‘god-breathed,’ or inspired by the Holy Spirit (2 Tim 3:16). Take a few moments to talk to Him, the “author” of the scriptures, about the gift of the Bible. What, if anything, bothers you most about it? What makes you most uncomfortable about it? How do you hope or anticipate your relationship with the Old Testament to change as you work through this series?

E – Entrust (May it be done to me according to your word!)

Holy Spirit, thank you for the gift of the scriptures, and the gift of those who teach them to us. + Amen.

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*LOVE the Word™ exercises are offered according to FIAT: the four personalities, or “prayer forms,” explored in Prayer and Temperament, by Chester Michael and Marie Norrisey: Franciscan, Ignatian, Augustinian, and Thomistic: FIAT! These prayer forms correspond to the Myers-Briggs personality types.

Notes and References

Genres

• Law
• History
• Wisdom
• Prophets, Major and Minor

Covenants – not a legal contract but an exchange of persons

• Adamic – with creation, with Adam and Eve in marriage
• Noahic – with a family
• Abrahamic – with a tribe
• Mosaic – with a nation
• Davidic – with a kingdom
• Messianic – with the world

Episode Resources

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Read the Transcript

You can download a complete, word-for-word transcript here, courtesy of Kristie Hynniman who does our transcriptions for you.