Treasure Hunt in Scripture (THIS)
The law from your mouth is more precious to me than thousands of pieces of silver and gold.
Psalm 119:71
Imagine the most wonderful and precious in all of creation for you. And what is more wonderful and precious than that? God our Creator, and His words and truth, are more wonderful and precious than all creation, than lots of gold and silver. We should be thankful that we can read God’s word in our Bibles, available on our bookshelves or even on our smart phones. However, do you find it difficult to read and understand the Scripture to find the precious treasure, the timeless truths of God?
We invite you to join us in THIS, Treasure Hunt in Scripture, an inductive Bible Study group in English at Vardåsen Kirke every Sunday morning at 10.00 - 11.00. In the inductive approach, we lay aside preconceived ideas about the studied Scripture texts and let them speak for themselves. It consists of three steps, OIA: Observation, Interpretation, Application. We focus on studying a specific passage in Scripture from Observation to Application, and people are free to come when they can. With coffee and tea, we take it easy. No hurry.
In the Observation step, we simply look together to see what the text does say. Like being detectives, we look, look, and look until looking becomes seeing. In this foundational step, we observe for example by asking questions like what, where, when, noticing repeated words and key ideas, and searching for patterns such as contrasts, comparisons, connectives, and conditionals.
The second step, Interpretation, asks the core question: what does the text mean to the Original Audience? As it builds on the foundation of Observation, the more thorough the observation, the better it would be. It involves understanding the viewpoints of the author and the original audience. Therefore, understanding the historical, literal, cultural, social, political, geographical and canonical context of the text becomes essential. Resource persons in our group who have formal theological education will provide these data and information for us, the treasure detectives and hunters. In short, the bridge that connects Observation and Interpretation is the question: WHY? Different views are welcome as they enrich us.
Application, the final and deepest step, is the GOAL of our Bible Study. Here, we eventually unearth the treasure, the timeless truths of God, from the text that we study. Moreover, we reflect and share how they apply in our lives today and specific actions to do to put feet on our faith. By spending quality time in reflection and prayer, we move from knowing to doing, in God’s guidance, together in fellowship.
Are you interested? Join us, and we look forward to having a good time hunting treasure in Scripture, together with you!