It ain't just about the fish! Part 1

Have you ever really studied the book of Jonah?  I just completed a Precepts study on those 4 little chapters, and let me tell you, those were the most jam-packed verses!  I learned so much.

If you've never done a Precepts study, you can learn more about them here.  I find these studies to be very intellectually stimulating.  Plus, it involves coloring and marking in your Bible, like this:

If you don't like to mark in your Bible, you can purchase an Inductive Study Bible or you can simply use the Observation Worksheets that come with each study, the book of the Bible to be studied, typed, and double-spaced to give you room to mark.  My friend Yvonne uses this way of marking exclusively, while I use an Inductive Study Bible for this.  Mine is the older version, International vs. New, with wider margins which I really like; Pastor Brett's blog has a great post that shows the spine of the Bible I have plus a picture of the markings in his Bible.  This Bible doesn't include notes because you are making the notes through your observations of the text and it does have verses for cross-referencing.  It also has blank charts called  "(book of the Bible) At A Glance" to fill in the Chapter Themes, Segment Divisions and anything else you've learned while studying that particular book. There are wonderful maps, timelines and pictures to help understand the geographical, chronological and historical aspects to the books of the Bible.  For example, the timeline of "The Rulers and Prophets of Jonah's Time" shows that God used the Ninevites to capture the Northern Kingdom of Israel but then a hundred years later, Ninevah fell to the Babylonians.

And as a disclaimer, I don't always mark like the above picture shows; sometimes I am just color-coding words.  Some people don't do Precepts because they feel the marking itself can be overwhelming or become an idol.  I get that. Personally for me, this method of study coupled with the leading of the Holy Spirit, really challenges and teaches me much.

At the end of my ladies' Bible study, we were discussing some of the things the ladies had learned about Jonah.  We came to the conclusion that the Veggie Tales Jonah movie was a lot more Biblically and historically accurate then we all thought when it came out.

So before you read Part 2 of my fishy tale,
watch the video with your kids and then
color in your Bible,
Precepts style!