Paula Vineyard: Bible Study Tips and Strategies

Jacqui: 0:09

Welcome to the Bible Basics Podcast Today. We are thrilled to have this our special guest, Paula Renee Vineyard, a dynamic woman of God with a wealth of experience and a deep passion for sharing the gospel. Born in the heart of Bluefield, West Virginia, Paula, affectionately known as Renee by her family, brings a rich tapestry of life experiences to our conversation. After her studies at Norfolk State University,P aula embarked on a remarkable journey that led her to the Washington Metropolitan area, where she began her illustrious career with the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the FBI. During her tenure, Paula held various pivotal roles, including serving as a spokesperson, guiding both the public and foreign dignitaries through the intricate history of the FBI. Her dedication extended to supporting her colleagues as an Employee Assistance Program Peer, offering valuable guidance through life's challenges. With over 35 years of federal government service, paula retired from the FBI in July 2020, leaving behind a legacy of encouragement and motivation. However, her retirement marked the beginning of a new chapter devoted to serving her community and sharing her faith.

Jacqui: 1:54

An active member of the First Baptist Church of Glenard in since 2011, paula's commitment to spiritual growth is evident through her involvement in various ministries, including teaching Adult Sunday School and serving as a prayer warrior, altar counselor and facilitator for both women's focus studies and the DDS discipleship ministry. Her journey of discipleship is a testament to her unwavering dedication to empowering others through the Word of God. Beyond her spiritual endeavors, Paula is a devoted mother, writer and fashion enthusiast. Her love for travel and her culinary skills are matched only by her fervent desire to simplify the gospel message, empowering others to live victoriously in the kingdom of God. She's the proud mother of Natavia Vineyard, who is her pride and joy. Residing in Upper Marboro, Maryland. Paula remains deeply rooted in her community and dedicated to the study and application of God's Word.

Jacqui: 3:11

Join us as we delve into Paula's insights and wisdom here on the Bible Basics Podcast. Well, welcome everyone. I'm your host, Jacqui Adewole, and this is the Bible Basics Podcast, where weekly, we break down the Bible into understandable, bite-sized chunks. Greetings listeners. Today it is my pleasure and my privilege to welcome my dear sister and the Lord, sister, Paula Vineyard. Welcome to the Bible Basics Podcast. I'm excited to have you join.

Paula Vineyard: 3:55

Sister Jacqui, I am excited and elated just to be a part of your podcast. I'm so excited. But thank you for the invitation.

Jacqui: 4:04

You are very welcome. Ladies and gentlemen, I'm just blown away by Sister Paula joining us. She's a dynamic, powerful, insightful woman of God. She's a servant. She's a teacher, I need to tell you all. She's also a fashionista, and something else that she didn't put in her bio is that she's a preacher. Now she won't say that, but anybody like me who's been under her teaching would definitely put it that way. So, Sister Paula being such an extraordinary teacher, it reminds me of the scripture in 2 Timothy 2:15, where Paul is saying that we should "study to show ourselves approved workmen's. The need not be ashamed, rightly divide in the Word of God or the Word of Truth and I know, at the level of teaching that you do requires a high level of study as well. So would you mind sharing with us a little bit about your experiences, your background, when it comes to studying, reading or studying God's Word?

Paula Vineyard: 5:19

Okay, well, first of all, sister Jacqui, thank you for that introduction. Wow, okay, I feel like it's a lot that I got to live up to, but I'm going to do my best. But yes, but in regards to your question, I like that question. Study to show yourself approved. So the very first thing that we have to do is we have to study, we have to discipline ourselves to actually get into the Word of God because, as it's said, rightly divide. So there is always a wrong way to divide the scriptures as well. So it's so important that we study and exegete. When I say exegete, the word that means to dive into the scriptures.

Paula Vineyard: 5:54

Use your studying tools. There has to be things that you're going to have to use to help you to understand and study the Word of God. What I mainly do when it comes to studying the Word of God is definitely making sure that I have my items right there at a table. Sit at a table, just like when you're eating. You sit at a table. So when you're reading God's Word, you're eating His Word. So getting a posture to be at a table, being in quiet space, whatever it is. Have your tools there always, have a pen, have a journal, because there are times when God will say something to you and you just need to take some notes. So just to study, and some of the resources is definitely making sure that you have a good study Bible, make sure that you have a dictionary, that you have a concordance and Bibles.

Paula Vineyard: 6:42

They come in so many different forms. We have men's Bible. There's a Bible by Stephen Ottoburn and Pastor Tony Evans that just love, just love, love, love. It's a study Bible so it helps men to study. There's Bibles out there for teenagers, for teens to learn. There are women's study Bibles, there are life application Bibles. So there are a lot of items out there that make you be diligent and actually study them. But first you have to pray and you have to have a desire to want to have a more intimate relationship with the Lord.

Jacqui: 7:18

That's wonderful. I love those tips and I have to tell you I'm a big fan of Dr Tony Evans as well. I love his study Bible, his commentary, Listening to him on YouTube, just whatever talking about taking you to another level and study. He definitely does that. Thank you for sharing. Do you have any specific techniques, step by step approaches or anything that you use for Bible study? Yes, Some of your students might be using.

Paula Vineyard: 7:45

Yes. So one thing when it comes to different techniques first and foremost, definitely pray. Number two, it's repetition. When I say repetition it's like you know you're here with little babies. They sing the songs A, b, c, d. You know they here, but yet they may not know the letter L from the letter X, but it's repetition. So the way to actually study and learn more and to be diligent about your study is repetition.

Paula Vineyard: 8:14

Read the scripture over and over and over. It's like a rose. You give a lady a rose, a small bud, and every day it opens up in blooms into another way that you've never seen it before. In other words, if at any wonder why we call God the Rose of Sharon. So you got to constantly be reading the word over and over. Never think that you have exhausted from studying the word of God. So get your good study Bible techniques that I use study Bible. Make sure you have a person of accountability, a mentor, a coach, someone that is going to be walking alongside with you.

Paula Vineyard: 8:50

Did you read your scripture today? Did you read your word today? Get back out to them to memorize scriptures. I pride myself on memorizing the scripture every week. A new scripture that I've never learned, and the way I do that is I'll play it on my phone thank God for that technology and let it constantly be playing in my ear over and over and over again. Write the scripture. You know when you was in elementary school, you do something wrong. I will not chew gum. You had to write it a hundred times. Write the scripture out because it's repetition, repetition, repetition, repetition, read, read, read. You may not understand everything that you're reading at that very moment. If you keep reading it and reading it, eventually that light is gonna go off and you'll be like oh, that's what that means. Pray, repetition, reading, accountability.

Jacqui: 9:46

Excellent, excellent, love those steps.. The accountability piece is significant. Also, you threw in memorization. That's something I'm really trying to focus on for myself this year the idea of one scripture a week. A bit behind. I do have someone holding me accountable, which definitely helps, but that's a major challenge for me. But I noticed just from your teaching and conversations with you that that memorization serves you well. You have that's God's word on your heart and it just comes out at the right times. It's beautiful. Thank you for setting that example and I hope listeners, I hope you all out there listening to this memorization.

Jacqui: 10:33

We need to do an episode on that topic. Memorization is key and maybe we'll have Sister Paula back to talk to us more about that. And you talked about tools. You talked about having the Bible study, bible commentary, all those kinds of things. Another thing I wanted to talk about was some of the things you might come across as you're studying. What happens when you come across a scripture or passages that don't make any sense or are hard. They seem to be maybe conflicts with other things. You know that just challenge you. What do you do or what do you tell your students to do when they find themselves in that kind of a situation.

Paula Vineyard: 11:16

I like that. Very good question. First of all, once again, everything needs to start off in prayer, because with our finite mind, a lot of times we try to rationalize and say, well, no, that can't be, that can't be. But we have to be mindful that we serve an infinite God. His ways are not like our ways, neither are His thoughts.

Paula Vineyard: 11:37

When we're reading a passage and I don't understand, that's when I get out my commentaries, I get out my dictionaries. I do research, I do cross-reference, because you should never just read one scripture and think, hey, I'm already good with this, I already know what it means. No, you have to do research. So what I do once again is I get my concordia and I get my commentaries, but I tell people be careful now about commentaries.

Paula Vineyard: 12:04

First of all, you pray and ask God to give you an answer, because if you read a commentary, you're gonna go about what somebody else is already saying. So you have to pray, ask God, use your tools, use your resources that you have, use that study Bible, use that dictionary, use your concordance. And then I just sit back and I meditate and I think about it and I'm like, okay, god, speak to me. What is it that I need to hear out of the scripture, how do I need to apply this to my life? And so I just gotta be honest with God. I'm like God, I don't understand what you're saying right now. You know, I see it, I read it, but I don't understand. But at that right moment I'm like that's why what you was trying to tell me.

Jacqui: 12:49

It's like that rose opening up. All of a sudden its open. It's beautiful. That's what it is. I was dealing with the bud. That's why I couldn't see anything, and then God went back to God. That's wonderful. Thank you for that. Along those lines, can you talk about times where, as a result of your study of God's Word, it impacted you in significant ways, that may be even life transforming ways? Can you talk about that a little bit?

Paula Vineyard: 13:19

Sure. So studying the Word. For me personally, how it really helped me is first of all when I was growing up. You know I was brought in a Christian home. When I was growing up my parents were not the parents that, hey, you go to church. They got up. My father got up. Well, he used to be to hit the floor. Everybody had to hit the floor. It would model that before us, him and my mom. They would take us to church. They would get us busy in the community, get us busy into the church. So what I basically do a lot of times with that is and how it affected me and my life.

Paula Vineyard: 13:54

You know you go to college, sometimes not everybody. You get a little while. You kind of get out there for just a little bit and then life will hit you and then you have to be like, wait a minute, let me get back to the basics, let me get back to my root. Everybody may not have grown up in a Christian home. So, regardless of what status you are in life, there is a greater desire in you and everybody that is trying to tell you. You know this is right, you know this is wrong.

Paula Vineyard: 14:22

If you a little kid, you put your hand in the cookie jar, you know you don't got no business. You might turn around and look to see if anybody's looking, because there is this inner built in consciousness inside of you telling you you need to get back on top of the world. As Donald Lawrence would say, get back to your rightful position, get back up in that penthouse, get on top of the world and life. When life happened then, as I got older and then I had my daughter, I was like you know what? I'm responsible Not only for me. But I looked at my daughter one day and she was about two and I was like I'm responsible for that soul. So it made me dive deeper into the word to get an understanding, because I couldn't lend my faith I can't get to heaven, to the pearly gates on my mom and my dad.

Paula Vineyard: 15:08

You know the Lord is going to talk to me, so you know, what you do, he already know, but I have to give an account for myself. So it made me really and sometimes it may be a divorce, it may be a death. It's certain things that will bring people closer to God. And what brought me closer to God is to realize I had this young daughter. My daughter Natalia is in my heart and I realized I'm going to be guided in this showing. So I came to her something, if I don't know it. So I was like you know what? I need to get diligent in my faith and in my walk with God, because there's so many different beliefs out there nowadays and I don't want somebody trying to tell me. This is one thing I got to study. As you said earlier, I'm studying to show myself a proof unto God so that I can rightly divide the word.

Jacqui: 15:54

Amen. Thank you for that. That's an excellent point. We first of all have to get ourselves in line with God and God's word, get to know him through studying his word. But we didn't have a responsibility to others to be able to share it with them, to let them to model to them what a godly life looks like. And you're not going to know what it looks like if you don't get into that word. And Natalia definitely has a great role model. She definitely has a great model in you.

Jacqui: 16:26

I just thought about something. I just remember another piece of your bio that you worked for the FBI. Yes, I don't know because you're not there now so it's not on the special whatever. So be it. Working for FBI, you know something about investigating or inspecting evidence and looking at things, looking at the big picture. And I wanted to talk about that big picture when it comes to studying the Bible, and what I mean by that is context. Look at that ground, look at the setting, things like that. Do you see a role of context when it comes to studying the Bible? And so how do you see that?

Paula Vineyard: 17:01

Definitely so. I'm glad you said that. So when we're actually doing the context and we're actually studying the word, we really need to know the basics. For instance, Romams you have to understand what era it was written in. Why was it being written? To whom was it being written? What are some of the key phrases? Well, let me give you an example. When it comes to context, let's go to Proverbs 22. I'm going to go there right quick for you. Proverbs 2: 7. And, I'm sorry, Proverbs 22:6.

Paula Vineyard: 17:31

And we hear the scripture all the time. So sometimes we take stuff out of context. It's they "train up a child in the way that he should go and when he is old, he will not depart from it. We use that scripture a lot of times and saying, okay, you got to train your children in the Word of God. Yes, don't get me wrong, we do. But that is not what the scripture is saying. This scripture is actually talking about money and finances, is talking about one's purpose and gifted in life. So when we're trying to understand the context of a scripture, you don't need to read that one verse. You have to read above and below. So when you see that scripture Proverbs 22, and you know, take your time and when you get a chance to read it. Proverbs 22 and five say thorns and snares are in the way of the Ford. He that doeth keepeth his foes should be fat from them.

Paula Vineyard: 18:28

I'm reading from the King James but after you train up a child, verse seven says the rich rule over the poor and the borrower is subject to the lender. So you know how to emphasize the word. It it's that train up a child in the way that he should go, and when he is old he will not depart from it, but that it is that purpose that is inside of that child. In other words, it's parents or guardians, aunts, uncles. If you see this child constantly banging on pots and pans, they may end up being a drummer. If you see the little kid constantly writing and drawing all over the place, they may even be trying to draw on the wall. Okay, after you discipline them, then you just have to say have a talent and an art for drawing. So as parents we have to cultivate what it is that we see in that child. So when they get old it will not depart from them, because whatever their gift and in their purpose is will bring them money in verse seven and that way they don't have to be subject to somebody else, to the lender, to the financial status. You will be able to bring forth wealth to yourself, so that it is what is your gift? what is your purpose? So, because how many times you know people that go to college? They may go to school for accounting, but there ain't no word.

Paula Vineyard: 19:52

I went to school for accounting. Now, now granted, in my position, you know I was a budget analyst. I dealt with work, but I really enjoyed the part where we had to dive in. You know, you had to see the money trail. What did that money come from? Where did it begin? The investigation part when I grew up, I used to love Greek mythology. In high school never understood why, but now that I'm in the world, it's like oh, how am I?

Paula Vineyard: 20:16

doing it. That I like Greek, you know. So the contents of the scriptures you have to dive, you have to read before, after and definitely do cross-reference, but, like I said, training up a child in the way that he should go, not the way that we want them to go, the way that he should go, and then that way it will bring them well.

Jacqui: 20:39

Wow, wow, we got a powerful study today. Thank you so much for that wisdom. That's what the book of Proverbs is all about wisdom. And if we don't study, we're gonna miss this. It's gonna go right over. That one definitely went over my head. So I don't know about anybody else. So thank you so much for that. I can't wait. After this session's over, I'm gonna grab that scripture and dig into it. So thank you for that. Thank you so much. Well, we're moving on, times passing by and we're getting so much knowledge, but just to take an opportunity to know a little bit more about you, do you have a favorite scripture, a favorite Bible verse?

Paula Vineyard: 21:22

Yes, yes, it comes from Lamentations 3:21 - 23. It is of the Lord's grace and mercy that we are not consumed because his compassion fail not. They are new each and every morning. Great is the faithfulness." The reason why I love that scripture is my daughter.

Paula Vineyard: 21:40

I cannot tell y'all enough how she really impacted my walk of God. She was probably about four or five and in the kitchen we had a little easel, because she likes drawing and even to this day she is I mean, she's very artsy, just amazing, and she knows how to draw. I can't even draw a straight line with the ruler, but she knows how to draw. And so the night before she had did something that I couldn't remember. I don't know what it was that she did, but the next morning she comes into the kitchen. I'm making breakfast and she comes in and she's like good morning and I'm looking at it like you don't remember what you did last night and I was like good morning and I had even sent her to bed early because she was on punishment. But that's my love about children they don't keep a hold of stuff, they're doomed and they're keeping moving. So she could have came and woke up with an attitude, but she didn't.

Paula Vineyard: 22:26

And she comes in the kitchen, good morning, mommy. I'm like good morning. And she's like what's wrong? I was like do you remember what you did last night? And she was like oh yes, but I'm sorry.

Paula Vineyard: 22:39

I said uh-huh, so she's drawing on her little easel board. And then she's drawing, she's making all these little hearts and everything. And I'm looking at her like, oh, how dare her try to make me feel good and try to just smooth me out. So then she's like mommy, look. And I looked over. And so she takes her little eraser and she erases the board. And I'm like why is she erasing the board? Is she gonna put some emails? She don't love me anymore.

Paula Vineyard: 23:05

And she was like and this is how children they listen. She's like this is what God does, so this is what you should do for me. Oh, was she going to use the word against me. I was like and that night is so ironic that scripture came to my mind, because God said you know what we all fall short, but every day and every morning, I give you new grace and I give you new mercies, was nothing else to be said. I was like you're right, baby Mommy's sorry. She's like okay, but she was so forgiving and when she erased that board I was like, what is she doing? And then she's like, just like God, he forgives, mommy, you gotta forgive me. I was like, wow, so that's been my scripture ever since, and Lord knows, I need grace and mercy. You need to do it every day, so that's my favorite scripture.

Jacqui: 23:55

Wow, that was great. What a great another again a lesson Just how your daughter was able to demonstrate visually how God just erases the board. Great is his faithfulness. Thank you so much, Sister Paula. This has been amazing. I don't even know where to go after that. I was gonna ask her a couple other things. Wow, I just don't want us to move off of that. I don't want us to move off of that. I want us to walk away from this episode with that scripture in mind. Thank you so much. Would you mind just repeating it again?

Paula Vineyard: 24:37

Sure Lamentations 3: 21- 23. "It is the Lord's grace and mercies that we are not consumed, because his compassion bells not. They are new mercies each and every day. Great is thou faithfulness, amen.

Jacqui: 24:54

And with that we'll end this episode. We just pray for those. That grace and mercy be with each and every one of you for this day forward, thank you. Thank you so much, sister Paula. Thank you, sister Jacqui. If you found this episode helpful, informative or inspirational in any way, would you please share with someone you know who needs to hear it? You can do that by sharing the podcast website bible-basics. org, or you can click on the share button right where you're listening. Now. For those of you listening on YouTube, go ahead and like, subscribe and leave us a comment. In closing, may the grace and peace of God be with you, now and always.