The Daniel Bible Study
Here is a bible study covering the biblical book of Daniel.
You typically hear of stories from this book, like Daniel and his three friends being saved from a burning furnace and lion's den, however, with little about all the life-changing prophecies that cover future events.
I came across this in 2017 and the celebration of 500 years since the start of the Reformation in 1517 through Martin Luther.
I was surprised by how Luther and other Reformers began to understand the world and how true Christian faith should be expressed, and what they believe God was warning about concerning future times, through prophecies in the book of Daniel.
After a slow process of delving into this book verse-by-verse, the Covid-19 lock-down enabled me to finally summarise the following nine sections online, and visually through a wooden display:
Part 1 – Daniel Introduction & Chapter One
Part 2 – Daniel Chapters Three & Six
Part 3 – Daniel Chapters Four & Five
Part 4 – Daniel Chapter Two
Part 5 – Daniel Chapter Seven
Part 6 – Daniel Chapter Eight
Part 7 – Daniel Chapter Nine
Part 8 – Daniel Chapters Ten & Eleven
Part 9 – Daniel Chapters Twelve
There are also video overviews within each section and on Youtube, plus a post here with more detailed Zoom overview videos and slides for each section.
Here is a quick overview video of this bible study:
There are three main points to note about this study:
1. Seeing the Structure of the Book
In simple terms, I’ve placed the chapters of the book of Daniel about God's prophecies in the middle of this wooden display running left to right, and including one dream through a king, and four through Daniel himself.
They match each other time-wise between the top and bottom of the display, with wooden time-lines added where mentioned in the prophecies.
On the bottom is a summary and outline of the first chapter, and then the sides about stories of two kings and the two miraculous incidents of the lion's den and the fiery furnace.
As we go through the book in a certain order, then different pieces are progressively slotted onto this wooden storyboard in order to see the eventual bigger picture.
Even if you come to a different conclusion as to the meaning of this book, this will still help you place things in order and context.
2. Slowly Building-up the Story
This study has ended up feeling more like a user manual as it hopefully takes a simple and logical step through everything.
This has been deliberately done to keep things simple and always linked to direct meanings of the bible verses one step at a time.
Even if someone completely agrees with this and what it concludes, they still need to clearly see this for themselves directly from the Word of God.
If you’re not a Christian believer, then this will hopefully make you appreciate how important the bible is as the believed Word of God for Christians - to include this level of accuracy of future world events, then it must have been very well made-up, or anointed by God.
For Christians, then I believe the Holy Spirit will lead you into further truth as you humbly ask and seek, verse by verse. Even a non-studious person can still go through this at the right Spirit-led pace and be led into revelation.
3. Be Ready for the Implications
I can’t help but conclude what they call a Historicism method of biblical interpretation here, something scarce in modern Christianity today, whereas this was the belief of all the great Reformers of old.
It then develops further with reference for the 'time of the end', and forms a helpful basis of understanding the biblical book of Revelation and End Times concerning Christ’s Second Coming.
Therefore, this leads to huge implications to how Christianity is lived out right now, as these prophecies help identify the wider kingdoms, nations and religious principles at play, either for or against God.
This isn't about individuals no matter what position they're currently in; however, the purpose of these prophecies is to warn people about these bigger forces at play and guide us into greater truth and provision for Christ’s Second Coming.
Therefore, be prepared for this to change you and your walk with Christ, and not just be new biblical knowledge and understanding.
Any queries or feedback, then do contact me and let me know.
