Learning about the different characters in the Bible has always fascinated me. The story of their lives is so interesting. The characters in the Bible are people who lived long ago in another part of the world. They had a different language, political system, and culture.
As we read the Bible, we are looking into their lives. We read how they interacted with people and with God. While it is not our place to put ourselves into the stories that we read, we learn from them about God and what He expects of us.
Doing a character study opens our eyes to how God works in people’s lives and about the people themselves.
So I guess you know that is a character study—a character study studies about a particular person in the Bible.
As with all of our studies, the first step is to pray for understanding and insight from the Lord. If you do not know who to study, you can talk to the Lord about that too.
Resources or tools you might need to do a character study are a Bible, a Bible dictionary, a concordance, a Bible handbook, a map, and maybe a Commentary.
The first step is to look up all of the verses where the person you are studying name appears in the Bible. Make sure the name you are studying is the one you find in scripture. Some people in the Bible have the same name, so you want to make sure you find scripture references on the right person. You can use a concordance to find all of the verses. Then list all of these references on a piece of paper or in a notebook.
Second, read all of the verses about the person. Then study the verses. Reading and re-reading to understand that person.
Lastly, ask questions about the person.
There are three categories you can break your questions down God, family, the person, personal application.
God
How does God work in their life?
How is the character of God displayed in the story?
Family
Who was their family?
The person
Where does their story take place (location)? Where did they live, or where were they from?
What was their occupation?
What conflict or problem did they face?
How does this person encounter/interact with God/Jesus?
How is the person changed or not changed in their life?
Application for use
What lessons can be learned from their life?
How can you apply those lessons to your life?
Asking a question about the text helps you to dig deeper into what the Bible is trying to say. This process is not a short one. It may take you a couple of days or weeks to study the verses you have found. In the end, you would have learned more about God and that particular person.
Have you studied a particular person in the Bible? If so which person? Let me know in the comments!
