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New Year 2023!

www.groundedinthebible.com

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Grounded in the Bible delivers weekly Bible studies to help you "grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ." (2 Peter 3:18)
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New Year 2023!

Karen Hoffman
Jan 2, 2023
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New Year 2023!

www.groundedinthebible.com
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Welcome to a new year!

Photo by BoliviaInteligente on Unsplash

As we transition from 2022 to 2023, I want to take a week to accomplish two things:

  1. Review last year’s studies. This will help those who joined us throughout the year to get caught up.

  2. Talk about plans for the new year. This will help you know what is coming.

I’ll do these two things in reverse order.

Systemic Changes

Study Topics

Witness Wednesday

2022 Study Review

Systemic Changes

As I look forward into another year of writing Bible studies, I’m going to make a couple systemic changes.

  1. Grounded in the Bible has a new logo photo! I took this picture in the mountains around Salt Lake City, Utah. This is a perfect reflection of the essence of what I want as a Christian—to be “grounded” or rooted in the Rock—Jesus Christ.

  2. I will be transitioning Grounded in the Bible to a primarily free newsletter. All content (other than Spontaneous Ponderings) will now be free, including the premium resources. It may take me some time to transition old posts to the new system, but I’ll get it there eventually. I have over 100 Bible study lessons to review for needed updates! However, all the index and premium resource posts have had the paywall removed, so you should be able to access them through the paid subscriber links.

  3. The paid option will still be available, but this is mostly there for those who want to financially support my continued efforts to write and publish Bible studies. If you want to give a one-time gift or smaller gift than the subscription price, you can do that through Grounded in the Bible’s Ko-fi page.

    Gift on Ko-fi

  4. I will continue to create premium resources for long-term studies that already have templates (for example, Bible Essentials and Characteristics of God). However, some of the newer studies may not include premium resources. I will only create them if I feel strongly that a particular resource would be valuable for that study.

Study Topics

As for study topics in the next year, I have several in mind. I’m not sure which ones will end up at the top of the list, but here are some options. If you have one that interests you more, let me know in the comments!

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  1. Characteristics of God in the Psalms – This one will be our January study, and it will be an ongoing study that will appear at the transitions between multi-week series studies. This will be an opportunity for you to practice identifying Characteristics of God in the Psalms!

  2. The sacraments – baptism and communion

  3. The 7 “I AM” statements in John

  4. The “one another” statements

  5. Bible Essentials – Key stories in Genesis

I have so many other ideas, but I can’t tackle them all at once, so these are my top 5 for now. That may change tomorrow!

Witness Wednesday

I plan to add a key component to the Witness Wednesday posts. I’ve come across a resource for encouraging prayer for missionaries working around the world, with short videos to highlight each country. I’ll be sharing a new country in each Witness Wednesday post. If you have a country you want to see highlighted, let me know in the comments!

Witness Wednesday posts are your chance to share what you have seen God doing in the world around you. This can be a story of something that someone did for you, something you did for someone else, something you witnessed or experienced, or even a news article you see that you want to share. I’d love to hear from you in the next year! These posts go out every other Wednesday.

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2022 Study Review

2022 started with finishing two studies that we started in 2021—the overview studies for the Characteristics of God series and a couple added studies to Set 1 of the Bible Essentials series.

Grounded in the Bible
Characteristics of God
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…
Read more
2 years ago · Karen Hoffman
Grounded in the Bible
Bible Essentials Set 1: The Story of the Bible
Since I started writing Bible studies for Grounded in the Bible, I’ve become more aware of the need for Biblical teaching aimed at those who do not have much knowledge about the Bible. Whether it is new Christians, young people, people who are seeking truth, or even those who have been Christians for years…
Read more
2 years ago · Karen Hoffman

I introduced two new features at the start of last year as well—Witness Wednesdays and Songs of Scripture—and we’ve added to these features consistently throughout the year.

Witness Wednesday

Songs of Scripture

I did a couple short studies, with a single lesson on self-forgiveness and a three-part series on what the Bible has to say about children.

Grounded in the Bible
Is Self-Forgiveness a Biblical Concept?
During one of our devotionals for the youth leadership team a while ago, the topic of self-forgiveness came up. One of the leaders was adamant that self-forgiveness is not a Biblical concept. I have heard the term self-forgiveness in many contexts, and I had always thought that it aligned with Biblical truths. My thinking was that the Bible talks about …
Read more
2 years ago · 2 comments · Karen Hoffman
Grounded in the Bible
What Does the Bible Say About Children?
Several years ago, I wrote a Bible study for my niece, who was maybe 10 at the time. Based on her age, I thought an appropriate study would be to figure out what the Bible has to say about children—people just like her. What encouragement does the Bible have for children? What commands does the Bible have for children? What commands does the Bible have …
Read more
2 years ago · 2 likes · Karen Hoffman

Then we got into our two major studies of the year: a word study on self-control and Set 2 of the Bible Essentials series: Sin, Sacrifice, and Salvation.

Grounded in the Bible
Self-Control Word Study
Over the years, I’ve developed a really bad relationship with food. I tend to think about food a lot (you have to come up with something to eat at least three times a day, right?). But my thoughts often aren’t about meal planning. They are more related to what is “good” vs. “bad” to eat, or when I “should” or “shouldn’t” eat – and I always want to choos…
Read more
2 years ago · 1 like · Karen Hoffman
Grounded in the Bible
Bible Essentials Set 2: Sin, Sacrifice, and Salvation
We are back to another Bible Essentials series! The first Bible Essentials series provided a general overview of the story of the Bible. This Bible Essentials series specifically looks at sin, sacrifice, and salvation. If you need a reminder of what the Bible Essentials series is all about, read this post…
Read more
a year ago · Karen Hoffman

In the midst of these, I continued to expand on the Characteristics of God with individual lessons on a handful of characteristics. You can find links to these lessons in the Characteristics of God lesson index.

Characteristics of God Index

We also had a special guest post from my niece, Hannah, who wrote a skit.

Grounded in the Bible
A Model for Jesus
This week, I have something different and fun for you. My 14-year-old niece Hannah wrote a skit to perform at the talent night at junior high camp a few weeks ago. She didn’t get to perform the skit, but I thought she did a great job on it, so I wanted to share it with you…
Read more
a year ago · Karla Hiebert

I even tried my hand at a video lesson!

Grounded in the Bible
Psalm 145
Watch now (12 min) | This week, I’m trying something different. Substack is expanding their audio (podcast) and video tools, which is a great resource for writers. I wrote a lesson for the middle school and high school students at my church about the characteristics of God using…
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a year ago · 2 likes · 2 comments · Karen Hoffman

When I look back, we covered a lot of ground! I’m looking forward to diving into some new topics this year with you!

In Christ,

Karen

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New Year 2023!

www.groundedinthebible.com
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New Year 2023!

www.groundedinthebible.com
Pam
Jan 2

Thank you Karen for all of your deep digging in scripture for us. You do such an awesome job!

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