More on Bible study

I mentioned yesterday that every Christian is a theologian, and that all Christians are equipped by the Holy Spirit to read the Bible. But I wanted to make it clear that that does not mean that we shouldn’t to strive to be better able to read and understand God’s word. Part of what it means to grow as a Christian is to grow in our abilities to read the Bible well. We can read the Bible as much as we want to, but if we aren’t understanding what we read (or worse misunderstanding) then it is of little use to us. For that reason I wanted to share a method that was shared with me and has been helpful in my own personal Bible study. It’s a series of questions to answer about any given passage in order to better understand it. Each question builds on the previous question and forces you to go deeper in your understanding of the text. Here are the questions and an explanation for each.

1. What is this? What do we have here?

This is referring to what the text is in a basic and broad sense. In other words, is it a command? a warning? narrative? poetry? etc.

2. What, essentially, is being spoken of here?

The subject or topic of the passage, often times it is the bold subheading in your Bible but this is not always the case. For example, a parable heading in your Bible might be “The Rich Young Ruler”, but the subject that is being spoken about in that parable is actually the cost of discipleship.

3. What is the author saying about the subject?

This is a big one. We’ve just answered what the subject is in question two, now what is the author saying about that subject? What is the author’s purpose for writing this? What point is he trying to get across? Remember that every passage only has one meaning. There may be multiple applications to a given text, but it can only mean what the author intended for it to mean. This is one reason why context is so important; it helps us understand what the author is talking about.

4. What response might the Holy Spirit want from believing readers of the text?

This is the application of the point that was made in question three. How do we take the point made by the author and apply it to our situation. This is subjective and non-authoritative. Applications can change for everyone whereas the meaning never changes and is always true.

5. How does this passage move the reader to make the intended response?

This is how the text breaks down, kind of like an outline. What parts of the passage serve what purposes in order to bring the reader to the response mentioned earlier? This is where we look at the function of individual words and phrases in the passage in order to better understand every part of it.

6. How does this text contribute to the larger picture of redemption?

This is the only question that requires some general knowledge of the Bible as a whole in order to answer it well. There is a single storyline that unfolds between Genesis and Revelation about God’s plan of redemption for mankind and every passage fits into it somehow. Of course, some passages may relate more easily than others (e.g. passages about the resurrection vs. Proverbs).

Generally speaking, if these questions can’t be answered then the passage has not been understood (with the possible exception of the last one). I think it’s worth the effort to go through these with daily Bible readings. For young Christians it helps in understanding how to process the information and go about understanding the passage, and for mature believers it prevents the mechanical reading that comes from habit and has no real study behind it. Quality is always better than quantity when it comes to reading the Bible.

Also, we must continually try not to come to the text with our own presuppositions. Almost everyone who reads the Bible already has preexisting ideas about God and how He works, but if we are not careful, we allow our own ideas of God to interpret His word instead of allowing God to speak for himself. We don’t read the Bible to support our ideas, we read it so it will change us. Changing the Bible by our presuppositions is sin; the Bible changing us in spite of our presuppositions is the Christian life.