Welcome
again to the Teleios blog! We have been exploring together practical ways by
which the Bible improves our lives.
“Oh, do
I have to study the Bible every day?” Many people consider Bible study a
time-consuming chore that they must endure to prove their faithfulness to God.
The Teleios team considers Bible study as a wonderful life-enhancing activity
that is part of our vital relationship with God.
We
decided to
evaluate the effect of a Bible study on the wellbeing of 46 healthy young
adults from a Christian community environment. This was a “proof of concept”
study since we don’t know of any prior research about this topic. The design
was a prospective, randomized, active-controlled, single-blind intervention
trial.
Subjects
were randomized to either an active (detailed bible study program) or a control
(minimally detailed bible study program) group in a 3:1 ratio. Ephesians Chapter
1 was chosen as the study text since it details many wonderful characteristics
of our great salvation.
The results showed no differences between the
active and control groups for any general or specific wellbeing measure. However,
when the active group was compared to its own baseline data significant
differences were observed in overall wellbeing.
It is unclear from our results why there was an
increase of overall wellbeing in the active group. We speculate that the gain in
knowledge about the security of their relationship with God, by faith alone, allowed
for less guilt and greater confidence.
Interestingly, increased wellbeing was also
observed in the control group, but did not quite reach significance, possibly
because of the smaller sample size. This group also studied Scripture, but about
events surrounding the creation of man in Genesis Chapters 1-4 that did not
contain the salvation information from Ephesians provided to the
active-intervention group.
Consequently, with a larger sample size it
could be that greater wellbeing would have been statistically significant in both
groups. If true, it might be that studying any Scripture, regardless of the specific
content, could have a positive effect on wellbeing.
This proof of concept study suggests that
increases in short-term well-being potentially can be achieved by a Scripture
study program over the course of 4-weeks in young Christian adults.
More
research is needed to better understand the effect of improved wellbeing
associated with Scripture study both in the short and long term.
Is the content of scripture
studied important in the improvement of wellbeing? If yes, which portions of Scripture are best?
To
participate in our latest poll question - please visit
our website at http://teleiosresearch.com/#anchorpoll
Thanks
for visiting. I look forward to your comments and questions.
WC Stewart
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