Christianity - The Bible in Life

The Psalter, with its 150 Psalms covering almost every human mood and circumstance, was in effect the 'hymnbook of the ancient Jews', known and quoted as such by Jesus himself who had grown up in that heritage. The whole Psalter is set to be read or sung-through every month in the Morning and Evening Prayer cycle of the Church of England and other branches, and in the Benedictine (and probably other) monastic order/s of the Catholic church.

The question did specify 'individual' study ~ so worthy though answers 1 & 2 are, they don't quite fit. Answer 4 may be better than nothing, but there is a hoary story of someone at their wits' end who gave this three tries, and believed they were being told: 'And he went away and hanged himself' ('He' here being Judas Iscariot who had betrayed Jesus); 'Go ye and do likewise' (Jesus' exhortation after telling the Parable of the Good Samaritan); 'That which you have to do, go and do it quickly' (Jesus' quiet cue to Judas before Judas slipped away from the Last Supper).

Meanwhile, there are plentiful Bible study aids available, from physical leaflets to 'apps', from such organisations as Scripture Union and the Bible Reading Fellowship.

The vivid story of Gideon can be read in the Book of Judges ... in any Gideon Bible or other version. You can find out more about the foundation and activities of Gideons International online. As you may know, the Gideons also distribute pocket Bibles to schoolchildren ~ these editions usually consisting of the Psalms and New Testament only, for reasons of space and economy.

There are in fact 365 such instances. No doubt there is a book or course out there somewhere to help one through it, and you would get to know an interesting range of Bible characters and their stories!

This was Jesus' further summary of the 10 Commandments, and is frequently quoted in churches. The underlying reasoning is that if we positively love and honour God, and value everyone we meet, it should rarely occur to us to do anything that would cause harm. We might even allude to the otherwise unconnected song title 'Accentuate the positive' ... at any rate, fewer and simpler affirmative rules for life make it potentially easier to live out one's faith.

We doubt there could ever have been such a material as non-flammable paper; certainly not back then. The chaining (answer 2) was certainly true ~ though one might wonder who, un-Biblically, might wish to steal such a particular text (not least because it was a bulky edition for public display: 40cms or so along its long side).

There has been a Scots New Testament, but never a whole Bible in Lowland Scots. All the other English translations listed are genuine.

Answer 2 may sound like a quotation from the King James Bible but in fact is a platitudinous piece of advice from Polonius in Shakespeare's 'Hamlet'. Another clue about it not being genuine might be that it seems un-Biblically self-centred (there are many Bible characters who behave that way, and tend to end up dead &/or wiser).

Answer 4 may seem a less obvious temptation ~ though if 'worship' is more broadly interpreted as the giving of absolute priority in one's time, energies and money, in an age of celebrities it can be easy to become overly-obsessed with individual performers in the worlds of sport and entertainment, for instance; or with one's own appearance, home, hobbies or even one's IT equipment (versus other people's!).

Although the Creation story in Genesis, and other later passages, suggest God has given 'stewardship' of the created world to humankind, there is little direct preaching on environmentalism (as we now think of it). Modern issues of pollution, population and pandemics were hardly such direct concerns in Bible times, though there were plenty of conflicts and illnesses about. If we regard ourselves as charged with 'honouring God' in not being selfish over the environment ~ i.e. that we should do our best to 'leave it as we found it' for generations who happen to need to occupy/use it after us ~ then some moral imperative does become clear.