The Knowledge of God: How to Study the Bible & Ancient Art

Welcome back to a new episode! The new school year has begun and I am sure you are filled with wonderful dreams and maybe a few nervous jitters! Fall is a wonderful time to begin educational endeavors fresh with new books, supplies, friends, and lesson plans. And while reading one’s Bible tends to always start in January, in our first segments on the TRUE and the GOOD, I am going to propose to you something a little more in depth that can be started anytime, including right now as autumn’s leaves start to color and fall. It’s a step-by-step Bible Study plan that you can use at home, in your Bible class at school, and even in your Sunday School class. And I am going to highlight this simple but vital process with one of our Women’s Bible Study Leaders at Brick Lane Community Church, in Elverson, PA, Kelly Fenton, while using famous author and speaker, Jen Wilkin’s super practical book, Women of the Word: How to Study the BIble with Both Our Hearts and Our Minds. 

Delving into a deep understanding of God is one of the types of knowledge that Classical Education and Charlotte Mason include in their class studies. These pedagogies promote the ideas of forming humanity, virtue, and character and helping our students conform to the cosmos, to the ultimate True, Good, and Beautiful being, that being Jesus Christ. 

In this discussion about the knowledge of God, we are going to focus on building Biblical Literacy in your own hearts and minds so you can also help your students and children to do the same.

Jen Wilkin's 5 P's:

1. Purpose
2. Perspective
3. Patience
4. Process
5. Prayer

For the final segment of the show, the BEAUTIFUL, I share with you some ideas of how you can teach your class about the art of the ancient cultures of Mesopotamia, Egypt, Greece, and Rome.

Favorite Resources:

• ESV Reformation Study Bible
• ESV Scripture Journals (black covers) - Old Testament Set
• ESV Scripture Journals (black covers): New Testament Set
• ESV Illuminated Scripture Journals - Old Testament Set
• ESV Illuminated Scripture Journals - New Testament Set
• ESV Scripture Journals (artwork by Ruth Chou Simons) - New Testament Set
• Rose Book of Bible Charts, Maps, and Timelines by Rose Publishing
• Jen Wilkin website
• Women of the Word: Digging into Bible Study Introduction - YouTube video
• Women of the Word: Digging into Bible Study Day 1 - YouTube video
• Women of the Word: Digging into Bible Study Day 2 - YouTube video
• Women of the Word: Digging into Bible Study Day 3 - YouTube video
• Women of the Word: Digging into Bible Study Day 4 - YouTube video
• Women of the Word: Digging into Bible Study Day 5 - YouTube video
• God of Creation: A Study of Genesis 1-11 by Jen Wilkin
• God of Deliverance: A Study of Exodus 1-18 by Jen Wilkin
• God of Freedom: A Study of Exodus 19-40  by Jen Wilkin
• Ligonier Ministries website
• Everyone's a Theologian by R. C. Sproul
• "Things Unseen" Podcast by Sinclair B. Ferguson
• Foundations of the Christian Faith: A Comprehensive & Readable Theology by James Montgomery Boice
• Institutes of the Christian Religion by John Calvin
• Expositional Commentaries Book Collection by R. C. Sproul
• BibleHub.com
• thegospelcoalition.org
• desiringgod.org
• The New City Catechism
• The Westminster Shorter Catechism
• The Navigators: How to Study the Bible  article
• Art in Story: Teaching Art History to Elementary School Children by Marianne Saccardi
• The Stuff They Left Behind: From the Days of Ancient Egypt by Simply Charlotte Mason
• The Stuff They Left Behind: From the Days of Ancient Greece by Simply Charlotte Mason
• The Stuff They Left Behind: From the Days of Ancient Rome by Simply Charlotte Mason
• Egyptian Art: Art in Detail by Susie Hodge
• The Annotated Mona Lisa: A Crash Course in Art History From Prehistoric to Post-Modern by Carol Strickland
• Cave Paintings to Picasso by Henry Sayre
• The Penn Museum, Philadelphia, PA
• Philadelphia Museum of Art, Philadelphia, PA
• Biblical Tabernacle, Lancaster, PA
• Museum of the Bible, Washington, DC
• Creation Museum, Petersburg, KY
• Ark Encounter, Willimastown, KY
• Ink and Blood: Dead Sea Scrolls to Gutenberg museum collection, Murfreesboro, TN
• U. S. Museums with Artifacts Related to the Biblical World website

 

COMMONPLACE QUOTES

“to make a study of our God: what he loves, what he hates, how he speaks and acts. We cannot imitate a God whose features and habits we have never learned. We must make a study of him if we want to become like him. We must seek his face.” - Jen Wilkin, Women of the Word, p. 150 

"But living a just and holy life requires one to be capable of an objective and impartial evaluation of things: to love things, that is to say, in the right order, so that you do not love what is not to be loved, or fail to love what is to be loved, or have a greater love for what should be loved less, or an equal love for things that should be loved less or more, or a lesser or greater love for things that should be loved equally. - St. Augustine, On Christian Doctrine, I.27-28

Regarding young children -- "they should get a considerable knowledge of the Bible text. By nine they should have read the simple (and suitable) narrative portions of the Old Testament, and say, two of the gospels. The Old Testament, for various reasons, should be read to children. The gospel stories, they might read for themselves as soon as they can read them beautifully. It is a mistake to use paraphrases of the text….But let the imaginations of children be stored with the pictures, their minds nourished upon the words, of the gradually unfolding story of the scriptures, and they will come to look out upon a wide horizon within which persons and events take share in their due place and in due proportion. By degrees, they will see that the world is a stage whereon the goodness of God is continually striving with the willfulness of man; that some heroic men take sides with God; and that others, foolish and headstrong, oppose themselves to Him.” - Charlotte Mason, Vol. 1: Home Education, p. 248

“the Bible is not a single book; but a classic literature of wonderful beauty and interest; that apart from its divine sanctions and religious teaching, from all that we understand by ‘Revelation,’ the Bible, as a mere instrument of education, is, at the very least, as valuable as the classics of Greece or Rome.” - Charlotte Mason, Vol. 2: Parents and Children, p. 104

“Biblical literacy stitches patchwork knowledge into a seamless garment of understanding.” - Jen WIlkin, Women of the Word, p. 37

"devotional reading is for the sake of asking what the text is saying to me, while studying the Bible as a text is to look at the Bible as literature in order to understand what it is saying, how it is saying it, and then why is it saying it the way that it is." - Dr. Fred Putnam

. . . give a child a single valuable idea, and you have done more for his education than if you had laid upon his mind the burden of bushels of information . . . - Charlotte Mason, Volume 1: Home Education, p. 174

 

APPLICATION

1. Begin memorizing/understanding basic Bible basics, like the list of the Books of the Bible, the 7 Days of Creation, the 10 Commandments, the 12 Tribes of Israel, Psalm 1, 23, and 100, the Armour of God in Ephesisans 6:14-17, the Fruit of the Spirit in Galatians 5:22-23, the Apostles' Creed, the list of the 12 disciples, the sacraments of the Lord Supper and Baptism, some of the attributes of God, and the Lord's Prayer in Matthew 6:9-13. Begin learning basic theology by using a catechsim like the Westminster Shorter Catechism or the New City Catechism. Learn some classic hymns like "Amazing Grace," "To God be the Glory," "Great is Thy Faithfulness," and "Be Thou My Vision." Don't forget to learn where things are (like the Table of Nations, 12 Tribes of Israel, the migration of Abraham, the route of the Exodus, Jesus's travels, and Paul's missionary journeys) by practicing cartography in the European, Asian and African continents.
2. Pick a short book of the Bible, like the book of James, and go through each chapter practicing the "5 P's" as in Jen Wilkin's "Digging into Bible Study" YouTube videos posted above.
3. Include an Art History class/or Picture Study if you don't have much time and take different Ancient cultures mentioned in the Bible and explore their different types of art throughout the year. Try recreating one famous artifact from each one for an Art Show at the end of the year.