Method 1: Two Questions And A Statement

As we begin week two of our "How to Study the Bible" Workshop, Rachael and Matt explain and demonstrate strategies the first of four Bible Study methods: "Two Questions and a Statement." 

Click Here for week two homework sheet

AFTER this episode: Complete DAY ONE Homework (Jonah 1:1-3)

Transcript

Vision For Fruitful Christian Living

SPEAKER_01 0:08

Do you ever feel like your life just isn't as productive or effective as it should be? As followers of Jesus, we want our short time on earth to have eternal impact. But often we feel like we're falling short. The good news is that Scripture gives us a promise. A life that's never ineffective or unproductive in knowing Jesus Christ. In 2 Peter 1, we're told to build on our faith, adding goodness, knowledge, self-control, perseverance, godliness, mutual affection, and love. As these qualities grow, they keep us fruitful and effective for God's kingdom. I'm Matt Morrow, and my wife Rachel and I have spent nearly 20 years teaching God's word and walking with people in every stage of faith. Our passion is to see lives permanently and radically transformed by Scripture applied. Adding to your faith is here to help you understand biblical truth, practice it daily, and grow to look more like Jesus. We're glad you're here. Let's walk this journey together.

Meet Matt And Rachel

SPEAKER_00 1:18

Hello friends, this is Rachel and Matt, and we are in week two of How to Study Your Bible. And this is the first week that we are going to introduce a method to study the Bible. And that's what we'll do for the next four weeks. We'll introduce a method, we'll practice it together, and then we'll come back and we'll debrief and we'll introduce a new method and practice that together. So that is what we are going to do tonight. That's the process that we will follow. And hopefully, as that goes ahead, we will learn how to dive a little deeper into God's word together. There are a couple of things

Series Plan: Bible Study Methods

SPEAKER_00 1:58

that I do want to mention, and I know that we have talked about some of these things before, but as we study God's word, one of the things that we always have to remember is that God's word was written in a time and a place to a specific people. And so as we study God's word, we always want to keep in mind the context of what is being said. We want to make sure that we're not taking things out of context, that we are following what God was saying to the people at the time, because things that are that are to be drawn from it would, especially timeless truths, are going to be true then, as true then as they are now. There are also a couple of just guardrails that I think it's really important for us to think about. One, when we read the word, we are not asking questions about what feels right for me, what fits with what I already think or what works for me. So we definitely want to allow the word to inform us, not kind of impute what we already think or feel or believe into it. So that's one thing that I think we always want to have as a guardrail. Secondly, we also don't want to add or take away from

Context Matters: Time, Place, People

SPEAKER_00 3:16

what the word says. So a good example of that is sometimes somebody will do something and their motives are not, are not given to us. What they were thinking or what they were trying to accomplish maybe is not given to us, just what they did is listed. And so we want to be really careful in that sense that we don't go farther than the word goes. So as we kind of study these methods, we can note that, we can observe that, we can ask questions about that, but we don't want to base our conclusions on something that the word does not explicitly tell us. And so I do think that those are good guardrails for us to set up that we're not adding or subtracting from the word. So if something doesn't make sense, we don't just pretend it doesn't say that. But also we don't try to add things to the word that the word doesn't tell us. And so we want to make sure that we stay true to the time, the place, the context, and to the words that are given to us. And let me tell you, friends, that's enough. They're they're really rich words, and they are chosen specifically and purposefully by the Almighty God of the universe. So we we can camp a lot and dive and swim a lot in just the words that we're given without needing to add anything to those. So, with that kind of caveat, which will will kind of over overarch all of these methods, we will start with kind of a method today and and walk through that. But I want to just begin with a word of prayer. So, uh, Matthew, would you like to just open us with a word of prayer?

SPEAKER_01 4:53

Absolutely. Let's just bow our heads and pray so I can pray for us, Rachel, and for for those who are listening. Lord God, thank you so much for your word. Thank you that you are loving enough of us and that you you care so much for us that you would desire a relationship with us, that you want intimacy, that you even want us to know you. And Lord, in that, that you have given us this incredible, precious, supernatural gift

Guardrails: Don’t Add Or Subtract

SPEAKER_01 5:19

of your word. Lord, I pray that you will prepare my heart, Rachel's heart, and the heart of any who are working alongside us in this to come under the authority of your word and to be shaped and formed by it, and ultimately, Lord, to just bring you glory as we draw nearer to you and are formed in your likeness. Lord, we love you, and in Jesus' name we pray. Amen.

SPEAKER_00 5:40

Amen. Well, our first method to study the word is probably one that is the most simple method you will ever hear. But I have to tell you, it is one of my favorites. Matt has said that it's one that he is not as he's not ever used and not as familiar with. So as he walks through that, he'll, I think, be able to relate as you all are maybe doing something new as well.

SPEAKER_01 6:06

Yeah, this has been good for me. It's been it's been a good challenge for me and continues to be this week. So I I appreciate that.

SPEAKER_00 6:12

Um, and I think with all of them, this is one that I uh learned early as I was trying to dive into the word. And this is the one that I come back to when I don't know what else to do. So if I am struggling with something else fails, here we go. This is the one I come back to because it's the easiest and it's the easiest to remember. So this question or this method is called two questions and a statement. And that's what you need to know about it. It is two questions and a statement.

SPEAKER_01 6:41

The instruction is in the title.

SPEAKER_00 6:43

Yes, the instruction is in the title. So what that means is that as you read a passage, and you do want to make sure that you're, you know, taking a passage, a complete complete thoughts, you know, but that as you read a passage, when you get to the end of that passage, you one try to write a statement

Opening Prayer

SPEAKER_00 7:10

about that passage. So that might be a summary. So what is this passage saying? Like what does it mean? You know, sometimes, sometimes I write more than one sentence to capture the passage, but it's just a sentence, something that is true based on that scripture.

SPEAKER_01 7:31

So just something you observe, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 7:33

Right? Something that you that's true based on that scripture. So that might be a summary of what it's saying, like trying to put that scripture in your own words in a in a single sentence, or it might be taking pieces of it and trying to to summarize or make an observation about it. So step one, write a statement. Step two, read the passage and ask some questions about the passage.

Introducing Two Questions And A Statement

SPEAKER_00 8:02

And the questions could be as deep or as simple as you want them to be.

SPEAKER_01 8:08

So and we don't have to have answers to these questions, right?

SPEAKER_00 8:11

Right. They're not necessarily even questions that you have answers to at this time. Okay, they may just be questions about I I literally sometimes my questions have been, what does that mean? You know, that phrase or that word. I'm like, what does that mean? I don't know. Sometimes there are questions that that indicate then things that I need to follow up on, or maybe want to would want to research at some point. They can be questions about God. Like what is this, what does this passage show me about God? They can be questions about what's happening in the story. Why, why did this happen? Or what what was the point of sharing this? You know, what what's what is God trying to communicate through that? So just asking questions. Those can be who questions, what questions, where, why, how come? But write two questions. And that's the method.

SPEAKER_01 9:13

So and and of course, as you do this, and I'm learning this, this is my first time implementing this method that you're familiar with, but as you do this, you're you're going to you're going to be working through one piece of the scripture passage at a time. So I one of the things I've noticed is as you as I ask questions, as I write down questions, unanswered questions in the first two or three verses, for example, of a of a passage, sometimes those questions are actually picked up later in that same passage. So I so one thing that I noticed I didn't even think about on this method, Rach, is that is that I would be looking for answers in his word to questions that I had earlier from something else in his word. That's that I guess I noticed that it fostered an alertness in his word that I didn't necessarily anticipate.

SPEAKER_00 10:01

Yeah. I I think it does that. I think you also, as you're asking

How The Method Trains Alert Reading

SPEAKER_00 10:06

questions, what what I have found is often the statements, when I when I go back through and look at statements, those will often be what help help to clarify for me things that that are those timeless truths, the things that are true about God, the things that are true about what he's communicating to his people. So, so as I read through, you know, maybe if I've taken a week and worked through through a chapter and I go back through and look over my statements, that really helps to kind of solidify what God is communicating in that passage.

SPEAKER_01 10:43

Yeah. And I noticed that the the statement itself may not be a timeless truth, but as you sort of work your way through the rest of that scripture, that statement paired with other statements, and I think this is what you're saying, kind of points to a timeless truth eventually, often. I mean, I don't know. I mean, I guess it's I haven't done as many of these as you have, but I noticed that too.

SPEAKER_00 11:04

Yeah, I think those tend to often point us toward timeless truths. And what I have discovered about questions is that those tend to point me often toward application. And sometimes that application is further study.

SPEAKER_01 11:19

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 11:20

You know, sometimes there are just questions. I'm like, where else does God talk about this? Or why did he mention this four times in this passage? Like what's important about that word or about that place or about that term, you know. So sometimes it my application is just I need to dive a little, a little deeper into this to try to understand why God is is communicating this over and over again. Like why is this important to him? What's the why is that important?

SPEAKER_01 11:53

Yeah, that's a really good point because remember, application is just how I will respond to what is universally true about this. And sometimes that response is, I need to go deeper.

SPEAKER_00 12:03

Yeah, sometimes it is. You know, sometimes it's it's confusion, right? Sometimes I write questions, I'm like, I don't know the answer to that, or or what I think is the answer to that. I'm not sure is the right answer to that. And so then it will drive me into

Questions Lead To Application

SPEAKER_00 12:20

where else do they talk about this in scripture? Or is this mentioned somewhere else? Or I'll be curious. You know, we were talking earlier tonight about Abraham, and in the story in Genesis, there are things that are described about Abraham, but some of his motives or what he was thinking isn't described in the story of Genesis. And so as you work through that, there are some questions that that are left a little unanswered.

SPEAKER_01 12:45

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 12:46

But then that story is referred to in Hebrews, and there's all the way in the New Testament.

SPEAKER_01 12:52

Right.

SPEAKER_00 12:52

There's a lot more, there's a lot more indication about what was in Abraham's mind. And so some of those questions get answered elsewhere in scripture. And so you can go back and forth. Moses is another one that that Hebrews talks more about his motive and and what he was thinking in Hebrews than it does than it does in Exodus. You know, an Exodus where we don't know much about how he responded to being raised Egyptian.

SPEAKER_01 13:20

Yeah, right. It doesn't say anything right there about it.

SPEAKER_00 13:23

No, it doesn't. We we learn that in Hebrews. And so it kind of to my point about how we have to be careful, right? We we don't want to just read the story in Exodus and start to make assumptions about what Moses was thinking or why Moses did something and assign that if the Bible doesn't tell us. For Moses, we we fortunately are told what he was thinking in some places, but but we want to be careful with that. So some of that can we we can think about, we can try to relate to that can help us maybe better apply the scripture, but we want to be really careful about making those types of things the the truths that we stand on.

SPEAKER_01 14:08

Really great point. And I think even as I'm listening to you describe that, I'm reminded that there are this is all informed by how you understand God's word to to exist. Like

Scripture Interprets Scripture

SPEAKER_01 14:20

if it's a collection of ancient books, you wouldn't necessarily do that. But if it's one universal coherent work with one author, God, who works through all of these writers over thousands of years, then it makes perfect sense that we might get better insight into the mind of Moses from Exodus sometime later in Hebrews from an author we don't even directly know who that that writer is of Hebrews, and to be able to say, okay, that's what's going on there. That's what's going on there. If it were just a collection of old works, you wouldn't ever be able to do that.

SPEAKER_00 14:56

No. And you see, like as you you study, you start to see that you see Peter and James and Paul referring back to things Jesus said.

SPEAKER_01 15:09

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 15:09

And and then if you go back to where, you know, oftentimes you're like, that's familiar, or that I've seen that concept before. And if you search for it and read it, then you start to notice, wow, a lot of these words are the same. And you know, they're they're actually expounding on what Jesus said. They're they're describing what Jesus was talking about. Paul does that in the Old Testament a lot. He goes back to the Old Testament and then he starts to explain it. And so a lot of times your questions can lead you elsewhere into the Bible to see, oh wow, well, somebody else had that question. Yeah, and Paul answered it. Looky there. So it it is helpful, I think, to do that. So that's to say, you can write questions that you don't today have have the answer for. And oftentimes you'll be reading some other day in some other book, and you'll be like, wait a minute. You're like, I remember something like this. Yeah, you know, and and you can go back. And so as that starts to happen, that's a I think that's really exciting because then you start to see the the wholeness and the completeness of the word of God, and how there is no way this can come from from any man.

SPEAKER_01 16:27

So what we want to do today is we want to we wanted to describe or explain

This Week’s Plan And Homework

SPEAKER_01 16:32

the the method. So Rachel's done an excellent job of that. She's taught me the method also, so I've been practicing that a little bit as well. We have for this week, this is the only the only episode of the podcast this week where you don't have homework coming into the podcast. You're just listening to kind of an overview of how we go about this this particular method, how we apply this method. And we're going to demonstrate that in a couple of passages in the Gospel of John, just to kind of give you a feel for what that looks like. And then the homework for this week is actually in the book of Jonah in the Old Testament. And so each of the subsequent episodes this week, starting with tomorrow, will be you'll you'll have done your homework, we'll come together. We're going to walk through that exact same passage that we have independently done ourselves and talk about what the Lord showed us in terms of the two questions and a statement that we each explored there. And those are just meant to give you a little bit of support to come alongside someone else doing it with you. So that's what we're going to do later in the week. For now, what I think I'd like us,

Practice In John 1:1–3

SPEAKER_01 17:33

well, let's do this. Let's go to the Gospel of John and kind of demonstrate what that looks like. So where are we starting, Rachel?

SPEAKER_00 17:40

So let's just practice, right? So let's let's practice two questions or let's practice two questions and a statement. Okay. And let's begin in a really familiar passage, one that we probably all know, and maybe many of us could quote by heart. Uh so let's start in John 1, 1 and read through verse 3. So John 1 1 through 3 says, In the beginning was the word, and the word was with God, and the word was God. He was with God in the beginning. Through him, all things were made, and without him, nothing was made that has been made.

SPEAKER_01 18:26

Okay. So we're just gonna stop there and we're gonna try to do a couple of questions and a statement. Is there, Rachel, is there a does it matter whether you do the questions first or the statement first?

SPEAKER_00 18:37

Is it does not?

SPEAKER_01 18:38

Okay. So I might start with a with a question. Is that okay? So when I read that passage earlier, the first question that sort of emerges just in in this, these three verses in isolation for me is who is the word? Because later in that passage or what, but it starts referring to it as him, right? So in this passage, he starts referring. So I'm thinking, who or what is the word? What is that? That's one of the questions that comes to mind. And then, and then I also had this question because it goes in to the in this same, when we get to verse three, it starts talking about how all things were made through him, and without him, it was not anything made that was made. So the next question I had was how does this, the word, how does that, whoever or whatever that is, connect with creation? Because all things are made somehow through the word. So so those are a couple of questions that emerge as I've just look at that text.

SPEAKER_00 19:35

Yep. So if if you are doing this along with us at home, and especially if you were not able to attend the class, what I want you to do is get your Bible out. I want you to read verses one through three, hit pause on this podcast, and and ask yourself can I write a statement and can I write a couple of questions? Emerged to me about this passage. And yeah, I mean, so I when I read it, I started with a statement. And what I did was I tried to summarize

Practice In John 1:4–5

SPEAKER_00 20:12

what those three verses say in one sentence. So I wrote, the word was in the beginning with God, the word was God, and the Word created everything that has been made.

SPEAKER_01 20:23

Okay. Yeah. So I I mean I I did something kind of similar, didn't say as much as your statement says, but I but it it's just an observation that says the word is eternally with God and also eternally is God.

SPEAKER_00 20:40

Yes.

SPEAKER_01 20:40

So that that's something I observe in the text and just wrote down as a statement.

SPEAKER_00 20:44

Right.

SPEAKER_01 20:45

Okay. Okay.

SPEAKER_00 20:46

And I love that you made that distinction that it is God and it was with God.

SPEAKER_01 20:53

Yeah. Which sounds con almost contradictory. Yeah, like a paradox of some kind.

SPEAKER_00 20:58

Right? That it it's the same and different at the same time.

SPEAKER_01 21:03

So I'm just so I'm not trying to solve that. I'm just saying that's what I observe here in the word. So I'm just gonna let it I'm just gonna sit in it for a minute.

SPEAKER_00 21:11

Okay. Right.

unknown 21:12

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 21:13

And maybe that's something that you ask a question about.

SPEAKER_01 21:15

Yeah. Right?

SPEAKER_00 21:16

How can this be? Once you've written us written a statement, you're like, it says that it was with and it was. So how can that be?

SPEAKER_01 21:24

How is that possible? Yeah. So there are there are gonna be, and there are gonna be a lot of those, really. I mean, there are times where where the Bible we know there's there are no contradictions in the Bible, but we do know that there are a number of times where what is stated definitely requires more than what's on the surface to really be able to understand how it all fits together. And so sometimes the question is just how is this possible?

SPEAKER_00 21:45

Right, how can this be? But especially I think if you're reading some of Paul's letters.

SPEAKER_01 21:50

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 21:50

A lot of those, you're like, he is obviously referring to something, and I may not know what he's referring to.

SPEAKER_01 21:56

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 21:56

So sometimes I'm like, I gotta put a pen in this and go go back and read what he's talking about, or you know, or or something similar. But that is the statement that I wrote about verses one through three.

SPEAKER_01 22:09

And what questions did you did you already cover your questions?

SPEAKER_00 22:12

I haven't. So one of the questions that I had initially is like, who is the word?

SPEAKER_01 22:21

Yeah. Yeah, because it says him. So who?

SPEAKER_00 22:25

Right.

SPEAKER_01 22:25

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 22:26

That he was with God, the word was God, the word was with God, and then it says through him, which tells us that the word is a person. And so that's a question, like, who is the word? And then the second question I asked is what does it mean that nothing, including me then, was made without the word? Right, because it says that without him, nothing was made that has been made. So if I think about me and everything else that exists, what does that mean that it wasn't made apart from him?

SPEAKER_01 23:11

And again, we're not necessarily trying to answer these questions right now because if the if the text itself doesn't get that far, you just lay the question down and keep going. Which, if we were doing this on doing this section as your daily homework, this is this would be a day right here. Is we'd be asking you and then pray about that, ask the Lord to show you as you go deeper, and then the next day you'd have another section. So you'd work through that as well.

SPEAKER_00 23:36

If you were done, you would You might go further in the same day. You might go

Meditating, Responding, And Daily Rhythm

SPEAKER_00 23:40

further in the same day, but if you were done for the day, then what you would want to do is to to pull out something from that that helps you meditate or think about. So maybe it's one of the questions that you want to meditate on. Maybe it's a phrase that you're like, you know, what does that really mean? That that apart from him, nothing was made that has been made? Like without him, nothing was made that was made. Like, what does that mean? So maybe you want to mull on that today and pray about that and think about that. But at the end of whatever time that you have when you stop, you do want to think about what is this showing me about God? Right? Like, what am I what am I seeing in that about God? And and are there things that I need to to start applying? Those are always good questions to ask. But don't leave the day without focusing on something that you're going to meditate on today.

SPEAKER_01 24:46

Right. And if you can't find it, probably go a little further. Yeah, go a little further. Keep up.

SPEAKER_00 24:50

If there's not anything that's not there yet, kind of standing out to you. But it's okay to meditate on a question about God's word all day long.

SPEAKER_01 25:00

Yeah, sometimes just doing that prepares your heart for him to speak to you tomorrow or later in the week or whatever.

SPEAKER_00 25:08

Or to be watching for it as you continue to read and to be watching for those answers. So it's okay to say, I really am curious, and to pray, to to ask the Lord, like, show me what that means.

SPEAKER_01 25:21

There do you mean, Lord? Yeah, what do you mean? This is your word.

SPEAKER_00 25:24

A lot of times in my personal study when when I've been struggling with something, and and it's later in the day that the Lord starts to give me insight about it and will bring another verse to mind or or bring me an experience and then show me that that's kind of like what this was.

SPEAKER_01 25:44

Yeah. Yeah. And it happens because you've been meditating on that question or that statement through the course of the day. Okay. Let's do another one. We don't go through the we I mean, if you were doing this, you probably you would keep going deeper and deeper. And spoiler alert, if you're not familiar with this passage, because we're only going to go a little bit further, you're if you're wondering who the word is. The word, of course, is Jesus who became flesh and came. That's later. We're not going to get to that today. But what we are going to get to is the next couple of verses. So I'm going to read those and then we'll do the same thing with it. So if we if we move to that next section, which is a couple of sentences, verses four and five, in him was life, and the life was the light of men. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it. So that's verses four and five. Couple of questions and a statement. What did you have, Rachel?

SPEAKER_00 26:39

So my statement is the word is a hymn, and in him is life and light.

SPEAKER_01 26:48

A hymn. H-I-M. Yes, him. H-Y-M-A. So that word, say it again.

SPEAKER_00 26:54

The word is a hymn and and in him is life and light.

Homework In Jonah And Closing Prayer

SPEAKER_01 27:00

Okay. So my statement that I that I made from this is life is found in him or the word. Okay. Life is found in the word or in him. Okay. So that's my that's our statement.

SPEAKER_00 27:16

Right. And it says, right, and his life is the light of all mankind.

SPEAKER_01 27:22

So so I had so questions that I followed up with here, just questions that I observed. What is the light of men? That's a phrase we don't hear very often. What is the light of men? And then what is the darkness that has not overcome it? So these are just questions. These are this language is is you know, it's it almost feels like it's written in code or poetry or something, but it's but all these things mean something. So my questions are, what what is the light of men? That's a different phrase. And then what is this darkness it's referring to that has not overcome it?

SPEAKER_00 27:59

All right. And you know, some of the questions that I wrote were similar to that. So I wrote, why why doesn't the darkness overcome the light? Or how does the light overcome the darkness, which implies that the darkness is trying to overcome the light. So you see almost kind of a a battle, like a tension or a battle. And so a question about that. And then I wrote questions about like how is his life the light of all mankind? What is what does that really mean? That his life is light to all mankind. And then what does it mean that in him was life? Is that a reference back to creation? Right? That's earlier in the verses, or does it mean something more?

SPEAKER_01 28:57

Okay. And so again, just as before, these are questions and statements that we would consider, that we would pray about, that we would seek at least the direction toward some sort of timeless truths or possible applications. But more than anything else, we'll meditate on these, repeat these questions and statements to yourself through the course of the day. Consider them, meditate on them, let the Lord speak to you. Yeah. Well, and again, I my statement too is it's like, okay, so life is found. Where is life? Life is in him, it's in the word. Right. Right? That's life. So those are timeless truths. They are. They are. And not not all of our statements are, but they do to your point, they kind of tend to point in that direction. And these actually are timeless truths, they're just as true today as always.

SPEAKER_00 29:47

There are things you can can bank on, can meditate on, can ask the Lord to ask, ask the Lord to help you to apply. If life is found in him, if he is the light of man. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 30:01

What what's my response?

SPEAKER_00 30:02

What's my response to that? What does that mean for me? You know, if I was created by him, and everything that I have was created by him, and that's that is a timeless truth that is clear in this passage. Yeah, what is my responsibility in that to him? Or how should you live in light of that truth? In light of that truth, in light that that me and everything everything in my world was created by him, and in him is life.

SPEAKER_01 30:38

So so that's those are a couple of demonstrations of how to how to apply this technique. And we're gonna we're gonna stop there because we want to get you started on what's next. So there are in the show notes, there is a homework assignment you can download for the week. But essentially what it's doing is walking through the first chapter and the first verse of the second chapter of Jonah

Final Encouragement And Next Steps

SPEAKER_01 31:00

over the next next six six days. And you're gonna you're gonna do this. And we're gonna do this also, right? Yes, we're teaching you how to do it. Well, you're teaching me how to do it, and we're teaching others how to do it. We're learning together. So so when you so the again, the the method here, the approach is download the homework if you don't have it already, work each day. It's labeled day one, day two, day three, day four. So tomorrow it's Jonah one, one through three. That's it. And when you when you study that, we want you to make a statement and two questions in any order, but that's what you're doing. And if it's a little bit clumsy or clunky at first, don't worry about that. Just give it your best shot. And then come back here tomorrow and you'll hear our own clumsy approaches to this. So we'll be working our way through it too.

SPEAKER_00 31:46

And I would say sometimes I call it like two statements and a question.

SPEAKER_01 31:49

Yeah, I do get them mixed up all the time.

SPEAKER_00 31:51

Here's what I will say about that. There's no real rule. Yeah, right.

SPEAKER_01 31:55

It's not like it's scripture, right?

SPEAKER_00 31:56

No, it's not we're asking you to write a statement and two questions, but if that particular passage is easier for you to write two statements and a question, then go for it. You be you. It's not there's value in just thinking about it.

SPEAKER_01 32:11

Right. So Okay, so that's what you're gonna do. So I want you to do that. We want to take a moment to pray for for the study, to pray for the week ahead, to pray for you as you seek the Lord in this two questions in a statement methodology over the week ahead, and and just and then we'll kind of wrap things up. But Rachel, would you would you pray for this study and pray for those who are engaging in it? And then we'll we'll wrap up today.

SPEAKER_00 32:40

Most gracious, heavenly father, we we do just praise you that that you are the word and that the word came and dwelled among us. And Father, we praise you for that. That that as we think about who you are and what you have done, that we know that we have Jesus Christ as the one who shows us the Father. And so, Father, we thank you for the perfectness of your word, that it is um complete from beginning to end, that you are the Alpha and the Omega. And Father, I just pray for each person who opens your word this week, Father, that you will just open their eyes so that they will see wondrous things in your word, that they will love your instruction, that they will draw near to you. And Father, that they will just delight in who you are and what you say. And so, Father, I just pray that you'll go ahead of us this week, that you will be with each of us through this process. And Father, that that ultimately at the end of it, we will know you and your ways and your heart better. And we ask that in Jesus' name.

unknown 33:46

Amen.

SPEAKER_01 33:47

Amen. Hey, I'm excited about what's ahead. So uh go ahead, get into your Bibles, open to the book of Jonah, and we'll explore that story starting tomorrow.