[Music] greetings this is Sue Johnson with the James method and I want to welcome you to today's session on filling out the chapter summary sheet which we will be visiting as part of our Colossians Bible study I want to share with you an approach that I have found particularly use useful for people who are just beginning their journey in studying this way by trying to synthesize information from the text and organizing it in a summary fashion to do so for the chapter summary I'm actually going to be utilizing my Bible binder as well as of course a copy of the first chapter of Colossians I happen to have the Berean translation you can use whatever translation that suits you best and the approach I'm taking here is one of what I call zooming in that is to say I begin with the chapter summary information as fed by the Bible binder resources that I have already completed and if you're walking through the study with us on Colossians this would have been one of the first exercises that you had completed and in this information I am looking for three specific things first I'm looking for key themes what were the themes that I identified in my collecting of information on the book of Colossians secondly purpose what was Paul's purpose and intent behind writing this letter to the young church at colasse and then third I'm going to be looking at background information that will provide me with insight and information as I set about completing my chapter summary page I like to think of this as a great introduction to completing a chapter summary sheet to which I can always go back and add additional information as I continue to grow in my skill for filling out this summary information one of the first things that we want to do is read Colossians chap 1 and by now some of us have probably read this chapter multiple times but in reading it I'm looking for where I might find links or connections between the themes the purpose and the background information and in going through the Colossians chapter some of these themes will emerge such as the preeminence of the Lord over all creation as just one example another is that he is Sovereign Jesus Sovereign and sufficient and these are things that I can incorporate into my chapter summary format I also want to draw your attention to the word summary What's Happening Here is we're collecting a lot of information and then we are engaging in this practice of I guess I would call it spiritual distillation where I'm trying to synthesize or distill down into a summary form all of the information that I've compiled the unique design behind the Bible study system developed by the James method is one where we begin with the bigger picture as focused on in the Bible binder and then we begin to zoom in as I like to say by looking at summaries of each one of the four chapters in the book that we're studying in this case Colossians so as a result I want this to be encapsulated and abbreviated in its summary form not that this becomes a whole independent study on its own although if the Lord takes you in that direction by all means do so this is meant to serve the purpose of taking us in that next step of Bible study progression and we'll continue to zoom in along the way as we engage in verse mapping activities and word study activities and character study activities and so hopefully we begin to get the idea that the process starts at an elevated level and it zeros in on a detailed level over time and I would call the approach that I'm taking to filling this out today a 101 level that is for people that are brand new to this type of study what is an easy way that we can approach this chapter summary sheet because quite frankly nothing might be more intimidating than looking at an empty template and scratching our head saying where do I begin and the Temptation is there to get frustrated and to just never start and what we want to do is replace intimidation with invitation and it's to that end that this video tries to provide some easy simple tools and techniques to get us started on our journey that said our starting point as I mentioned is the Bible binder for Colossians and I'll have that resource in in front of me as I'm filling out my chapter summary sheet I'll reread Colossians chapter 1 again trying to highlight and identify those key themes the purpose and background information speaking of key themes purpose and background what did that look like in my Bible binder page well in summary the key themes I identified included the supremacy and sufficiency of Christ the Lord's preeminence over all creation reconciliation through Christ Our Union in Christ Christ's defeat of the powers of darkness and our power and authority that we have in Christ and our Command to grow in maturity in Christ so those are my themes the purpose in some reform was a letter of Paul's encouragement to the young church at colassi in his exhortation to stay true to the pure gospel so as not to be swayed or influenced by false teachings that were in the air as far as background information I noted in particular that the population was diverse ethnically cult culturally and religiously in colasse there was in particular a large number of differing religious beliefs which could have easily found their way into this young Church causing confusion and potential harm in swaying young followers of Jesus it's to that end that Paul is addressing this letter now let's approach the chapter summary sheet from the perspective of working in threes in fact this is one of my favorite ways to study when I'm entering into some new form of Bible study approach and we can work through the categories on the summary sheet noting not all of them lend their lend themselves to the series of Threes but many of them in fact do let's begin at the beginning with the chapter summary again paying attention to the word summary I'm looking for a concise in my own words series of events and activities that are ongoing in this very first chapter of Colossians now I can approach this a number of ways I've written out some b a body of text other people could do this with bullet points or numbers an outline even would work the key is to try to craft this on our own so that we're engaging in biblical critical thinking and when we are able to draw conclusions from our reading of the chapter now here's a little tip to get us started almost every new testament letter has the same structure or conventions in fact there are very few exceptions to this norm and so we could write in the chapter summary that there is first a greeting second a Thanksgiving and third the body of the letter and there would be our three items we could identify those if we wanted to as bullet points and then maybe add a few elements under each one of those note what I had written in my chapter summary this is a letter and so Paul begins it with a standard greeting as well as a standard Thanksgiving to God except for the church at galatia followed by the body of the letter so there's that series of three we also find included a prayer in fact it's an intercession for the church for the fullness of spiritual wisdom and that word fullness is one you're going to find repeating itself throughout the course of this letter so not just a fullness of spiritual wisdom because they have been rescued by the sun there's then a poem where some Scholars refer to it as a hymn that declares the sovereignty and sufficiency and those should sound familiar those are terms that are themes we identified in our Bible binder in fact Christ is is Sovereign sufficient and preeminent over creation and Reconciliation all of this ties beautifully with the themes that we have identified what follows below is a list of identifying people and places one of the highlighting exercises that we provided in the study was to highlight go through Colossians in its entirety and highlight every personal name and every geographic location and so we simply can pull those out and list those in for chapter one in our summary sheet next is key verses now this can be done in a number of ways I like to read rely on the Holy Spirit to reveal to me what are the pressing verses in this chapter that are Discerning and applicable to me at this time in my life and so for me I chose Colossians 1:9 Colossians 1:13 and 1:15 in fact 115 is so far my favorite verse in Colossians but as I like to tell people I reserve the right to change my mind on that as the study progresses and so we see here I've just chosen three verses I repeat that same pattern of three when it comes to keywords now I could have listed I don't know 20 30 different words here but that that seems to feel less like a summary to me and more like a full-blown study for my purpose purposes to get started and build a confidence level I'm going to continue working in this series of three the words I chose were reconciled filled and firstborn now these are words that jumped out at me as I reread yet again chapter 1 of Colossians I've only given a very brief definition that you see here why these might likely be word studies that I'll do much more in depth so again I'm limiting myself here to summary information finally at the bottom of this page I'm looking at other scriptures that might help my understanding now again I could fill this whole page up with verses however in the name of restraint and creating a list that is manageable for me I just tied together the three verses and took some references from each and I limited those to just two for each verse I can look those up and again that could take me off on a whole other study that's the first page of the chapter summary sheet from there we Mo move over to the second page now the notes and Nuggets page it is an area that I actually would encourage people leave blank until they progress through the study in a little more detail and then they can come back and fill it out it's a great space for commentary quotes bible study nuggets and gems sermon excerpts or other information that we find relevant the next category is what I learned about God and there is a lot revealed about the godhead in the first chapter of Colossians I'm going to continue to limit myself to three what are three truths that I learned about God namely Jesus in the reading of chapter 1 of Colossians and so I list those there that then directs me to perhaps for some people what might be one of the most challenging pieces to fill out in the chapter summary and just in Bible study overall and that is what was the meaning to the original audience now we have to keep in mind this was a letter that would have been brought by a letter carrier and read aloud to the members of this church body who gathered together in a house somewhere as part of their how their their church meeting once again I'm going to go back to my Bible binder background information to help me fill this out I also can consult Bible studies but let's see how much of this I can do on my own before I lean on Bible studies for other information so if I just go back to identify some of the items that I had listed earlier I'll recall that under background in my Bible binder I mentioned that it was a very diverse population in colasse at this time and so that would have impact on the meaning to the original audience the church was both encouraged and instructed indeed if not warned they were encouraged for their faith they were instructed to hold fast to the truth of the Gospel in the midst of false teaching some biblical Scholars say there were up to six different religions being practiced in colasse at the time of the first century this Lent itself to things being added to the gospel hence Paul's point Jesus is enough the gospel is enough we don't need to add anything to it and Paul will continue to emphasize this theme over and over and over again in each and every chapter of Colossians I also want to be mindful as I'm filling out this section on the meaning to the original audience that the text cannot mean to me what it did not mean to the original audience also known as the the then for then and us for now now this is a helpful guardrail for us to keep in mind to make sure we do not pull text out of context if we do so we run the risk of wrongly applying the truth in our lives and that is something we've course course want to avoid the next section deals with application to my life well based on the meaning to the original audience I to into it to adhere through the pure simple true gospel there's nothing to be added to it Jesus is sufficient and if I find myself Sur surrounded by uh Traditions or beliefs or practices that want to add on to the gospel then I should have some warning flags going off in my mind Paul's point was clear as early as the first chapter of Colossians Jesus was sufficient and if that held true for the young church at colasse that has held true for churches across the church age including ours today next is a prayer lots of times people will not fill this out because they believe that's something strictly between they and the Lord which is totally understandable the point I want to emphasize about prayer is this is the place where it seems like it's the end of the study and in some ways it is yet it's the very beginning of this Divine invitation that we extend to God to work in an area of Our Lives we don't want to skip this step it's so important and often times we write out or we Journal in some way these prayers and and then maybe we forget about them but our God does not and in fact it might be days later weeks later or months later that something happens in our lives and we call to mind or rather the Holy Spirit brings back to our mind the prayer we prayed and it can be so life-changing for us the final section of the chapter summary sheet is digging deeper what are verses that again the Holy Spirit brought to my attention that perhaps I want to verse map or do a word study on or memorize or just explore in some way there might be a character that I want to study in addition to the study activities that were suggest Ed in the Colossians study all of those are notes that I can jot down or I could again choose to leave this blank I like to tell people that there's no such thing as a completed chapter summary form just as there's no such thing as a completed verse map each one can be Revisited over the course of time now as I've mentioned we recommend that people try this exercise on their own perhaps using a study Bible if need be but try doing it on our own before Consulting other study helps now once you've composed perhaps a draft of this then you might want to take a look at an online resource such as Bible Hub they have a fantastic chapter summary section and so if you just type in chapter summary Colossians one it will bring up a wealth of information but as many members in our Facebook Community have indicated it wasn't mine doing it ourselves personalizes it it makes it intimate and unique it's tailored to suit exactly where we are in this SE season of our life that said there's an important skill that we're encouraging everyone to grow in Bible Literacy for that reason we support everyone in all of our various learning communities and social media platforms who Endeavor to feed themselves as best as possible gaining lifelong skills in not just reading the Bible but studying it and not just studying it but in this case learning to distill information and applying truths in our lives that lead to our sanctification in a greater measure of Christ likeness it is the best journey of Our Lives this journey with Jesus and knowing him better by knowing his word better 30 years ago I pray pray a oneline prayer God give me a hunger for your word let me tell you friends God answered that prayer and I can honestly say in the last three years I've learned more in the verse 27 I'm mining for treasure in the Holy RIT and I invite you to join us on the journey one that honors God and will bless you I pray that today you live well the word that you have learned