Furthermore, there is a lot of material in the Bible that I rarely hear taught in public because it is a little out of the mainstream of ordinary public discussion. God wants me to know and love and live be every word that comes from His mouth. Therefore, the only way I will be sure to read and understand all of God's word is to study it a book at a time.
I often hear messages taught from the Bible, but it is up to me to evaluate the extent to which the message is true and to what situations in my life it applies. This requires me to evaluate how appropriately the referenced Bible verses apply to the message that was being taught. I can only do this when I understand the books from which the verses are read.
I want to be able to summarize the Bible and explain from the table of contents what each one of the 66 books is about and what its major lessons are. I want to know who, what, when, where, and why each book was written.
When I think about a particular book in the Bible, I want the structure and organization of the book to immediately come to mind. I want to understand the major themes, the author's development of those themes, and the individual "power verses" from the book that I should memorize and keep on my heart at all times.
When I am going throughout my day, I want relevant verses or Bible phrases (verse fragments) to come to mind to guide my thoughts and actions. When I am speaking with people about the Bible, I want to quickly be able to open the Bible to a verse which sheds light on the current discussion. This means I need to know at least the book and chapter of many different principles in the Bible.
This area will contain outlines and commentaries that I develop over time.