Thinking Girls Bible Study

If we are going to study thinking girls, we have to look at Mary, the ultimate thinking girl. The first mention of Mary, the mother of Yeshua, by her name is in Matthew 1:16: “And Jacob begot Joseph the husband of Mary of whom was born Jesus who is called Christ. Mary in Hebrew is Miryam and means “rebellion.” It’s from the root word meriy which means “bitterness, i.e. (figuratively) rebellion; concretely, bitter, or rebellious: —bitter, (most) rebel(-ion, -ious). It seems strange in a way that the mother of our Lord would have a name that means rebellion. But when you think about it, how appropriate that the Deliverer would be born from our rebellion. It goes back to the Garden of Eden when Adam rebelled against God and sinned, but God had a plan from eternity that He would send His son to deliver us. Now that plan was finally coming to fruition. Matthew 1:18: “Now the birth of Jesus Christ was as follows: After His mother Mary was betrothed to Joseph, before they ...

Are you waiting on the Lord for something? Have you been waiting a long time? Have you just about given up hope? Don’t. God’s delays are always designed and productive. He is doing something that He couldn’t do without the delay. It’s because He loves you that He delays...He wants to do something more in your life than what you can see. I have been waiting on the Lord for something major in my life for a long, long time. It has been a long, and at times, agonizing journey. Some days feel very dark. The longer I wait, the more I begin to question if I’ve really heard from Him. One particular day not too long ago, I woke up in discouragement. It was one of those days of questioning. I asked the Lord to just speak to me in a way that I would know that it was Him. I opened my Bible to John 11 which is the passage of Jesus raising Lazarus from the dead. My eyes went immediately to a note I had written in the margin, “God has told me what to do —I need to walk in the light He ha...

We often hear of the proverbial “blessing in disguise.” Many times, in fact, I would say every time we are faced with loss and hardship, there will be a blessing attached to it. It’s in our barrenness, our dry times, our wildernesses that we learn things we could not have learned otherwise. But when we come out on the other side, what we learned turns out to be precious stones in our lives. Our study of Hannah begins In 1 Samuel 1. I will be using the New King James Bible and the Blue Letter Bible and Strong’s as references. 1 Samuel 1: 1-2: “Now there was a certain man of Ramathaim Zophim, of the mountains of Ephraim, and his name was Elkanah the son of Jeroham, the son of Elihu, the son of Tohu, the son of Zuph, an Ephraimite. And he had two wives; the name of one was Hannah, and the name of the other Peninnah. Peninnah had children, but Hannah had no children. Right from the start we get a clue for studying the story of Hannah when we look at the Hebrew word Ramathaim ...

As mentioned in the previous study of the Shunanem woman, the first mention in the Old Testament for the word rest is found in Genesis 2:2: "And on the seventh day God ended His work which He had done, and He rested on the seventh day from all His work which He had done." The Hebrew word for rest in this verse is shabath and means "to cease, desist, rest (from labor.) It is where we get the word Sabbath. Another Hebrew word translated as rest is sha'an and means "to lean on, trust in, support, to trust in God, lean, lie, rely, rest on, stay." This word is found in Genesis 18:4: "Please let a little water be brought and wash your feet and rest yourselves under the tree." This verse occurs after Abraham received the Covenant and was circumcised. I'm sure there are many lessons to be mined here, but for now, what I see is a pleasant picture this one verse depicts of rest: sitting in the shade of a tree after a journey, with a ...

This next study is a very personal one for me.  Let me elaborate.  I didn't know until about fourth or fifth grade that I walked "funny." I was made fun of and became very self-conscious as a young girl.  At a time in our lives where we just want to blend into our surroundings, I felt like all eyes were on me with every step I took. My walk would come to define who I was. I wouldn't find out why I walked the way I do until I was in my forties.  And the details don't matter.  What does matter is that God taught me so many things that I wouldn't have known otherwise, simply because of the way I walk.  It began to have a parallel meaning of my walk with the Lord. Also, I don't have pretty feet. It's all related.  So when I was studying Jael, I made a discovery that really spoke to my heart.  You'll see in the lesson when we see that Jael's name means "mountain goat."  These mountain goats are surefooted climbers.  Their feet are designed...