Session 2 of The Great Adventure Bible Study

I am really enjoying The Great Adventure Bible Timeline Catholic Bible Study and wanted to post a quick update on how things are going. We meet every other Wednesday and it is a "Women's Group" at a local Catholic Church. It's really nice to be in there with other women, and the 2 hour "get-a-way" is a life saver. Two whole hours to talk about and study God's word, free from changing poopy diapers, crying babies and toddlers and all the distractions of a very busy home and stressful full time job! I sure do need this!

I didn't mention this earlier, but this study is about giving the "Big Picture" of the Bible and Salvation History through studying the 14 narrative books of the bible, starting with Genesis and working through the New Testament. The premise is that once a chronological story emerges, we have a full context for understanding what is really going on, how the Old Testament relates to the New, and how to place everything else into its proper historical context. We spend the first hour discussing our reading and our "homework" questions, and the second half watching an informative video by Jeff Cavins.

During this second session we reviewed Genesis 1-3. We talked about the 2 different accounts of Genesis and what they mean. We talked about the Fall and the promise of a redeemer in Genesis 3:15. It is really great to study Genesis in such detail with slow daily reading. There is so much depth here, it never ceases to amaze me. Right now the 2nd creation account really speaks to me (Genesis 2:5-25) and has me pondering God's original plan for marriage and how men and women relate and compliment each other. And just as an aside, it's really amazing that once you start reading something like this (The opening chapters of Genesis), it starts to appear everywhere, and I mean everywhere! My 6 year old is studying Creation in CCD, so I really enjoyed talking with her about the 6 days of Creation and even got to sit in her class with her. My husband coincidentally rented The Genesis Code, which was a really interesting movie talking about how to reconcile a literal interpretation of the "Days of Creation" with modern day science. In light of my readings, it was very timely. I could go on and on, but you get the idea.

It is also nice that everyone seems to be taking to the Catechism, and understanding that it isn't "just a boring meaningless book". It is really cool how this study ties in a lot of Catechism reference and by going through this course, you aren't only going to learn the Bible, but you are going to learn a lot of what the Church actually teaches as well.