SOAP Method

I am in an online Bible Study.

One of the things we do is called the SOAP method of study.

At first I didn’t think it would be that helpful, but over time I began to see how much I can learn from it.

 

Here’s how it works:

Grab some paper and a pen.

Choose your verse or passage.

S – Scripture. Write out your chosen Scripture. Copy it straight from the Bible.

O – Observation. What do you see? What information or facts are there? What can you pick out of the verse?

A – Application. How can you apply what you observed.? What should you do or stop doing?

P – Prayer. Write out a prayer asking God to help you apply what you are learning.

 

That’s all it takes.

At face value it seems so simple but if you will take your time and really pay attention to what you are reading you will begin to see deeper truths.

 

Don’t worry if you don’t see them at first.

Just keep going.

The more you do it, the easier it is to see things in the passage.

With time you will begin to better understand the Bible and gain a deeper understanding of His Word.

 

Let me know how it goes.

I’d love to hear how it’s working for you.

 

Happy SOAPing!

 

 

For more on studying Scripture, please visit my page, How to Study the Bible

 

 

 

Category: God, Journaling, Lesson Outline, Scripture Study | LEAVE A COMMENT

Bible Study Tools

Studying your Bible is a very important part of your faith walk. (find out more about why here)

Here are some resources and tips to help you better understand what you read so you can have a deeper and more thorough understanding of God’s Word.

 

Chase A Verse

A good way to get a better and deeper understanding is by doing what I call chasing a verse.

Many Bibles have a column of numbers running through the middle of the page. This is called a cross reference. If you will look at the small numbers you will see they coincide with the passages on the page.

These are followed by verses. If you look those verses up you will see they are related to the original verse.

You can also check out the cross reference verses related to the verses you just looked up when you cross referenced the original verse. By “chasing” these verses you can gain a broader understanding of the passage you are reading.

 

Another way to improve and expand your understanding is by looking up the words in the verses you are studying.

There are several good resources to help you  do that.

Blue Letter Bible – www.blb.org  is a website that has several versions of the Bible you can read for free.

It also has a feature that allows you to look at a word’s original Hebrew or Greek, complete with definition.

(To access this feature, you must choose the King James Version (KJV) Bible translation.)

To use this tool begin by using their search box to look up the word or verse you are interested in.

Look at the middle of the upper part of the page and you will see a box marked Strong’s. If you click on it then it will put a blue number by each word.

Clicking that blue number takes you to the original Hebrew or Greek word and definition.

 

Another feature Blue Letter Bible has is a search box so you can look up words and it will show you every time that word is in the Bible.

It does differentiate between tenses so be sure to look at all of those too; for instance run and ran are considered 2 different things.

 

A good resource for studying a particular subject you are interested in is by consulting the Nave’s Topical Index (also called Nave’s Topical Bible) It is also available as a printed book. It is arranged by topic (also known as subject), and gives you virtually all the information from the Bible on that topic. It is arranged similar to an encyclopedia.

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Category: Obedience, Scripture Study, Teaching | LEAVE A COMMENT