I’m so excited about this new Bible Study: Wisdom in Proverbs! Admittedly, it’s going to be more like a devotional than a full Bible Study, but my hope is that it brings great encouragement to you as you dig in to learn more about wisdom — what it is, what it looks like… what it isn’t.

For the month of July, we’re going to walk through the book of Proverbs… that’s right, the entire book of Proverbs! It seemed fitting that there are 31 Proverbs and 31 Days in the month of July.

I used to hear this all of the time in my years in Student Ministries: “I want to study my Bible, but I just don’t know where to start.” Me too, friend, me too!

Actually, it took years for me to learn how to study the Bible and read it in a way that brings life change to the surface right away. But I don’t think that studying the Bible should be hard or scary! That’s why I created this Bible Study Worksheet to help you get the most out of your time in God’s Word in a simple format that combines Inductive Bible Study (looking at God’s Word for what it is and learning directly from the text) along with some other simple journaling tools.

There are times in life when we feel so deflated we just want to give up. Many people James wrote to - the poor and the persecuted - felt that way. Can I really go on? Jesus, where are you? Why haven't you come back yet? James opened his letter with the topic of suffering, and he closed his letter with a call for patience in suffering.

James challenges his readers: “Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. Draw near to God, and He will draw near to you” (4:7-8). If we don’t pay careful attention, we miss the fact that this statement is sandwiched between verses encouraging the reader to choose humility as a way of life. This is a spiritual discipline that takes effort, but James knows it is the only way forward.

It is so strange that a tiny part of our bodies, our tongues, can make such a big difference in our pursuit of holiness. If we let ourselves, we can cause serious damage with our tongues. In Chapter 3, James helps us understand just how dangerous our words can be, and he encourages us to seek God's help in taming the tongue.