Characteristics of God
Characteristics of God
Overview
A couple years ago, I was writing Bible studies for my niece, and she requested a “Choose Your Own Adventure” Bible study. I wasn’t sure that quite fit with the Bible – it’s not like you can pick and choose what you want to believe (although some people try!). When it comes to believing the Bible, it’s all or nothing. You believe it’s true, or you don’t. Then I decided that maybe this is a concept that would work for Bible study – not to choose what you believe, but to choose to study the topic trail that holds the most interest for you, then come back to other topics later.
So I set about writing a “Choose Your Own Topic” Bible study. The main topic was the Trinity, and you could choose to learn about God the Father, God the Son, or God the Holy Spirit, in whatever order you wanted. Then within each of those, there were another 2-3 layers of studies (29 lessons in all). Turns out, the study as a whole was way too intense. Lesson learned. I got all the way to lesson 2 – I chose God the Father – and that one-page study netted me about 6 pages of notes from 12 Scripture passages.
The passages themselves were meant to highlight the characteristics of God. As I wrote page after page of notes, I started to get overwhelmed by what the Bible had to say about the characteristics of God. I needed some way to refine what I was learning. So I started labeling and categorizing, grouping characteristics into categories that I could wrap my mind around (as much as you can ever wrap your mind around God). I guess that’s my academic training coming to my aid.
What I ended up with was four categories: God is Sovereign, God is Judge, God is Relational, and God is Worthy.
Those categories have since morphed into six categories:
Each category then has several characteristics grouped under it (so far, I have over 50). My goal for this study is to eventually cover each one of these characteristics in a separate study. Do I think that these studies will cover the totality of who God is? Probably not. But it will at least give us a start! For now, I am going to provide an overview for each category. The individual studies will be posted randomly over time.
With each category, I plan to offer a monthly “Bible Bingo” premium resource – 25 Scripture passages that support the characteristics in that category (thanks to the kids ministry at my church for this idea!). I would encourage you to print this resource and read a passage each day, with the goal to read every passage by the end of the month. For this reason, I have scheduled these studies so that you will be ready to go when the beginning of the month rolls around.
Growing in your knowledge of who God is should be one of your primary goals as a Christian. I’m hoping this study will be as meaningful for you as I’m sure it will be for me!