An Old Farmer's Advice: * Your fences need to be horse-high, pig-tight, and bull-strong. * Keep skunks and bankers and lawyers at a distance. * Life is simpler when you plow around the stump. * A bumble bee is considerably faster than a John Deere tractor. * Words that soak into your ears are whispered...not yelled. * Meanness don't jes' happen overnight. * Forgive your enemies. It messes up their heads. * Do not corner something that you know is meaner than you . * It don't take a very big person to carry a grudge. * You cannot unsay a cruel word. * Every path has a few puddles.

* When you wallow with pigs, expect to get dirty. * The best sermons are lived, not preached. * Most of the stuff people worry about ain't never gonna happen, anyway. * Don't judge folks by their relatives. * Remember that silence is sometimes the best answer. * Live a good, honorable life. Then when you get older and think back, you'll enjoy it a second time. * Don't interfere with somethin' that ain't botherin' you none. * Timing has a lot to do with the outcome of a rain dance. * If you find yourself in a hole, the first thing to do is stop diggin'. * Sometimes you get, and sometimes you get got. * The biggest troublemaker you'll probably ever have to deal with, watches you from the mirror every mornin'.

* Always drink upstream from the herd. * Good judgment comes from experience, and a lotta that comes from bad judgment. * Lettin' the cat outta the bag is a whole lot easier than puttin' it back in. * If you get to thinkin' you're a person of some influence, try orderin' somebody else's dog around . * Live simply. Love generously. Care deeply. Speak kindly. Leave the rest to God.

* All the sun and rain in the world wont grow yer crops . . Without GOD.

* It jus don’t pay to be lazy.

* At the end o yer life what really matters is family and friends and most of all God.

* Every word in the Book is true, yup every word.

The Bible

Holy Scriptures

The Word of God

Inspired Word of GodWriters not inspired. . .

The Holy Spirits influence brought to bear upon the minds of men who wrote the scriptures into the written and permanent form of the truth which GOD had communicated to them.

2 Peter 1:20-21But know this first of all, that no prophecy of Scripture is a matter of ones own interpretation, for no prophecy was ever made by an act of human will, but men moved by the Holy Spirit spoke from God

Moved - borne along, carried, like a leaf is borne along by the river currents

Book of Books

A Library

Consisting of 66 portions

About 40 Authors . . . . .over 1800 years and from different countries

Old and New Testaments (covenants) with Jesus Christ as its central theme

Hebrews 1:1-2 God after He spoke long ago to the fathers in the prophets in many portions and in many ways,

2605 times the Old Testament claims to be Gods Word

Writers were prophets, priests, kings, farmers, fisherman, exiles, some were rich others poor.

God ‘spoke’ through; visions, direct words, parables, types, symbols, ceremonies, theophanies, angels, and with His own audible voice

Hebrews 1:2 In these last days has spoken to us in His Son whom He appointed heir of all things, through whom also He made all the world

The New Testament writers claim they wrote The Words of God 1320 times

The writers never ‘justify’ or apologize for what they say. . .no self consciousness

God “breathed” out what the writers, 2 Timothy 3:16-17, were to record for all time and eternity

The Power of Gods breath

Psalms 33:6By the Word of the Lord the heavens were made, And by the breath of His mouth all there host.

So what does all this have to with me?

78 hours to read the bible through . . .15 minutes a day

More than half the books (portions) of the bible can be read in less than 30 minutes

Prerequisites to reading and understanding The Bible

Be a Christian

1 Corinthians 2:14 But a natural man does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him, and he cannot understand them, because they are spiritually appraised.

Passion to study/Motivated

1 Peter 2:2Like newborn babies, long for the pure milk of the Word, so that by it you may grow up in to salvation