“I long for Your salvation, O LORD, and Your Torah is my delight.” Psalm 119:174
Too many of us who claim the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob as our own are woefully ignorant of the Torah, let alone is it our "delight." Perhaps we know some of the stories in Genesis and we may have seen Cecil B. DeMille's "The Ten Commandments" so we have some concept of what Moses may have been like. But to really see the beauty and splendor of God's Torah, there is no substitute for sitting down and studying it, as He intended. These study guides have been designed to help you do just that, in a small group setting, learning from each other as you go through the entire Torah (Genesis through Deuteronomy) in one year.
The small group study format was chosen because it can accommodate students from a wide breadth of Biblical knowledge and tradition. Instead of listening to a learned teacher expound and explain the Biblical text, in a small discussion group each person can learn at his or her own pace, on their own, directly from the scripture. The questions in the study guide have been designed to help you form your own opinions and make up your own mind about God's Word. The discussion leader is not expected to have all the answers. Instead, the discussion will challenge each person to find out for themselves what they believe. This allows God's Holy Spirit to teach each of us separately, at our own speed.
Only two assumptions have been made in the development of these notes. The first is that Yeshua (the name Jesus used to refer to himself) is God's prophesied Messiah whose sacrificial death on the cross enables each person who believes in Him to be reconciled to God and have a personal relationship with Him. The second is that we believe the Bible, as we know it today, is God's authoritative word to mankind. The objective of this Torah study is to deepen and strengthen the participant's relationship with God through the study of His word.
It is exciting to watch God work in the lives of people who are committed to knowing Him better through the study of His word. Without doubt, God will bless you through your study and you will indeed "delight in the Torah."