Customer Reviews

That I May Know Him: Philippians And Colossians (The New Inductive Study Series)

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This is the second Kay Arthur bible study guide that I have used and she does not let you down.
Kay has a way of bringing hidden details to light. Her method of reviewing the material being covered may seem like repetition at times but the end result is that you come away with a better understanding of the study material.
Her suggestion to mark up your bible with all kinds of meaningful symbols, highlighting and notations is merely a suggestion. This may work for some and I don't know if it is a gender thing, but this is too chaotic for me. What I do is print out the chapters being reviewed from the internet and then mark the printed copy instead of my bible.
Once again this is just my preference but I would highly recommend her study guides.

There is no better personnal or group Bible study format than this inductive method. And the Phillipians study is my favorite I've seen yet.

When I first looked this book over, I was a bit disappointed because it seemed extremely simple. It seemed there wasn't much to it, and I'm one of those folks who likes to go deep. However, as I started going through it, following its regimen for daily study, the method revealed more and more depth in Philippians and Colossians than I'd ever suspected.

This is a book whose primary purpose is to get you into the Bible, and to help you see what treasures it contains. It doesn't tell you, but instead shows you the path to see for yourself. It did a wonderful job of putting the Bible into your heart and kept the focus on scripture.

Our group of Bible Study (mid 20s) just couldn't get into this. We all looked at each other and thought, "Yeah, don't think this is our speed." As a matter of fact, we only got through Part I (Philippians). All the busy work includes marking up your Bible with colored pencils and highlighters, tallying up amount of times a word occurs, etc. I started marking up my Bible, but it would only cause confusion for me if I went back later. I would definitely suggest going through this with a pad of paper and writing down words/phrases she wants you to highlight (i.e. anywhere it talks about the Spirit or the Philippians). It just doesn't apply to me or our group as Philippians is pretty straight forward, and we can read through it and discuss on our own.
On a side note, I have done Kay Arthur studies in the past, but I think this has kind of done it for me. I won't be doing one on my own individual accord in the future. Her writing (i.e "Beloved", etc) is too touchy-feely for me. I tried to get past it and to the message, but I can't! I like deeper studies, not emotional based. I get more out straight forward, in-depth studies where God can speak to me not the author. Of course, this is all subjective for anyone who reads an author. I wouldn't discourage you from reading her, but this book might give you a bad initial impression. So try another study if you are a first timer to K. Arthur.

That I May Know Him: Philippians And Colossians (The New Inductive Study Series)

This is an awesome study. Our Women's Inductive Study team is leading this study with a group of women that are seeking to know God's Word and apply it so that we can be shining lights in this dark world.

Our bible study group is doing this now and several of us all have the same complaint...most of it seems like busy work. The "insights" that she leads us to seem like common sense to anyone with basic reading comprehension skills. Philippians, especially, is so straight forward in its message that this word-by-word analysis seems like overkill. The questions in each Day Seven study are the most useful, but only about half to three-quarters of the questions require critical thinking to answer. Also, just a personal pet peeve, it annoyed me when she referred to the reader as "Beloved" all the time.

Our Bible study group has never had a problem with discussion, analysis, and applying lessons from what we've read to our own lives. I think this is why we didn't find this particularly useful. If you or your group has problems with any of these, then this may work for you. It just didn't work for us and, for some of us, caused our weekly Bible study to become more of a annoyance than the richly rewarding experience we were used to.

If I did another Kay Arthur study, I would prefer to do something much more cryptic, such as Revelations, where the word by word analysis would yield something more meaningful.

It's hard to find a good study guide on Philippians. Kay's normal approach is to have the reader do all of the structured study on their own. In this busy world, it's hard to find the time for cooking for scratch approach. I prefer Irving Jensen's do-it-yourself studies that make it a bit easier. Unfortunately, he didn't do one for Philippians.