Studying the Bible
John MacArthur posts a short little summary that reminds me a lot of his little but very helpful book, How to Study the Bible. I remember reading that little book within 6 months of being saved, and I rejoice as I see the fruits of the truth that I have discovered in Scripture following his advice found therein. I praise God for MacArthur and the ministries of those who he has trained who have had a direct and powerful impact in my life, namely my love for the Word and commitment to study the Word in my pursuit to know, enjoy, serve, and love God.
I just wrote little essay on Bible Study myself to give to my small group for last night's meeting. Click here for the study guide or continue reading it below and let me know what you think:
The end of Bible study is to know God (We come to the Word of God to get the God of the Word") and to have that knowledge of God and the truth that he reveals to us in His word affect our hearts. Our affected hearts will affect all areas of life (Proverbs 4:23): Our actions, our emotions, our relationships, our thoughts, etc. Most Christians know this. Most Christians want this. Unfortunately, modern evangelicalism has been taught that the best way to have this happen is to have devotional Bible study focused on application. This is why short devotionals and power-verses have become so popular. These things are not necessarily bad so long as they are accurate representations of God's Word (many times, sadly, they are not). Unfortunately it reinforces what our entertainment culture teaches us about how we should get what we want: We want it, and we want it now. I want application; I want to be impacted, and I want to be impacted now. We need to get our goals straight when we read the Bible: (1) We are not the center and aim of studying God's word, God is. (2) To have the truth of God's Word affect our hearts is the goal, not simply the experience of having our emotions affected or to have some good advice given.We find God and His truth when we discover the original meaning of a passage. This is the meaning or truth that God intended to communicate to the original audience as he inspired the original author to write what was originally written. So applying the truth to our knowledge of and intimacy with God for the end of sanctification is the goal, but discovering the truth and meaning of that passage in its original context is the means to accomplishing that goal.
Here's an illustration of how I am thinking in regards to approaching God's word. In health care, physicians need to understand their goal. Let's say that that goal is to heal or to treat their patients. We would say that a physician would be foolish if he or she were to just treat patients without first assessing them. A patient complaining of a headache is treated with an appendectomy. The diabetic patient is given antibiotics. The patient with chest pain is given Tylenol. The doctor treats 100 patients in a day and thinks the he's a great doctor. Unfortunately, the treatments don't match the disease. We would say that that doctor is brash, ineffective, foolish, and probably dangerous. Likewise, a believer who reads Scripture and immediately jumps to application may described by the same words. That student of the Word may walk away from Scripture feeling productive, but the extent is likely very limited to which he or she has actually (1) found the true God and not a God-of-their-own-making from their own ideas, and (2) applied the truth of the Word.
In order to treat the patient, the healthcare practitioner must
- Assess the patient
- Make a diagnosis
- Treat the patient: The goal of steps one and two.
In a corresponding way, in order to make application of the Word, the student of the Word, should
- Observe the Word: See what the passage contains.
- Interpret the Word: Discover what the passage means (there can be only one meaning). We want to discover the truth that God intended to convey through the original author in the original context to the original audience of the passage.
- Apply the Word: The goal of steps one and two. It is here that we find God; it is here that our actions, our emotions, our relationships, our thoughts, and most importantly our knowledge of God is impacted.
Observation
For a patient complaining of abdominal pain, we would not accuse the doctor of wasting time if he drew blood and sent it to a lab for a battery of tests even if they did not show anything abnormal; at least he knows what it isn't. He wouldn't be foolish to take a complete health history learning of the patients past; the more information gleaned the better. The doctor wouldn't be too academic and dry to assess all of the patients body systems, not just the abdomen. It wouldn't be out of line with the goal of treating the patient to order a CT-scan, an echo, or an x-ray. This is the assessment stage of the doctor's path toward treating the patient. The doctor hasn't done anything to "treat" the patient, but this is a necessary prerequisite to treatment.
In the world of Bible study, we can call this stage the observation stage. We will want to spend time looking at our passage of Scripture, looking at our passage, and getting to know the passage very thoroughly. We want to know every word of a passage so that we don't miss something critical that might make our meaning known. We'll read it over and over. We should even look outside the passage, studying the context in which a passage lies. The details of the passage should be examined: The grammar analyzed, word choice investigated, repetition noted, and propositions cataloged. The more time you spend in prayerful observation, the more information you will have to draw on as you interpret and apply your text. Just as much of a physician's assessment goes unused in making a diagnosis and treating a patient, many of your observations may not help you discover the meaning of a passage. But there may just be a key observation that you will find that will unlock the passage to you waiting to be found if you just stay in the seat with your Bible open and your mind prayerfully attentive for five more minutes, just like that key piece of information found among the wealth of other assessments that leads the physician to a diagnosis and successful treatment. We spend time and are disciplined learning about the passage and making observations about the passage so that we can discover the truth of the passage that God will use to reveal Himself to us and to sanctify us.
Interpretation
After a doctor has all of the pieces to the puzzle, he or she must piece them together to discover what is the disease process behind the symptoms. Sometimes the assessment that has been completed is sufficient to yield a diagnosis and treatment can begin, but perhaps, when analyzed, the doctor discovers that more tests are in order...back to observation. In the same way, we must not look at the grid for Bible study of observation, interpretation, and application as if they are linear and there is no overlap. You will probably have a good guess as to what some basic application is before you even start; hold that idea to see if it holds up to the evidence. Probably shortly into your observation work you will begin to understand what the passage means (interpretation); ok, with that idea in mind gather more evidence. Perhaps, when you think that you've finished observation and have observed your passage to death, as you begin to ask questions in the interpretation stage you will realize that you are missing some critical information: Back to observation.
A doctor will either be wrong or right about the diagnosis that he or she has made. If he says, "To me these symptoms mean indigestion" but the problem was heart attack, there is a problem. If the correct diagnosis is made, life saving interventions can be implemented. If not, the patient dies right there in front of him. But oh what joy when that right diagnosis is made and successful treatment begun.
There is a meaning, you may or may not discover it, but there is a singular truth to be found. God is to be found, and what joy when He is found. Pray with all your heart every time that you come to the Scriptures that you will see Christ there. If you are a believer God has already overcome an obstacle toward you gaining the correct understanding of the Scripture that you never could have overcome. Read 2 Corinthians 3:12-4:6 to see what a glorious thing God has accomplished by taking the veil away that would have forever blinded you from seeing God in His Word. Pray that God would illuminate the Word and guide your process of interpretation as you give him free reign to reveal truth and then wield the sword of His Word to change you and shape you into the person he would have you be, application (see Hebrews 4:12-13, 2 Tim 3:16-17, John 17:17).
You can't approach interpretation asking, "What does this passage mean to me?" Here is a quote from Zuck (pp 10-12) that reveals why making the wrong interpretation can be so dangerous.
"Interpretation is perhaps the most difficult and time-consuming of these three steps (Observation, Interpretation, & Application). And yet cutting bible study short in this area can lead to serious errors and faulty results. Some people knowingly "distort the Word of God" (2 Cor. 4:2). Some even "distort" the Scriptures "to their own destruction" (2 Peter 3:16). Other unknowingly come away from the Bible with faulty interpretations. Why? Because of inadequate attention to the principles involved in understanding the Scriptures. In recent years we have seen a great surge of interest in informal bible study. Many small groups meet weekly in homes or in churches to discuss the Bible - what is means and how it applies. Do people in those groups always come away with the same understanding of the passage studied? Not necessarily. Some may say, 'To me this verse means this,' and another person in the group may respond, 'To me the verse doesn't mean that; it means this.' Studying the Bible in this way, without proper hermenutical guidelines (rules that you follow when you study), can lead to confusion and interpretations that are even in direct conflict...
The Mormon leader Brigham Young justified his having more than 30 wives by pointing to the fact that Abraham had more than wife...The Mormon practice of being baptized for dead relatives and others is based, they argue, on 1 Corinthians 15:29. Some people handle poisonous snakes, based on their reading of Mark 16:18. Whether women should teach men is based on how one interprets 1 Corinthians 11:5; 14:34-35; and 1 Tmothy 2:12...Of course it is true that people can make the Bible say anything they wish so long as they disregard normal approaches to understanding written documents (emphasis mine)."
- thousands of years
- language (Greek, Hebrew, or Aramaic)
- culture
- location
So before you ask, "What does this mean to me?" You must ask "What does this mean?" Your answer to that question will be focussed on the context of the Scripture. Once you can answer that question, you have truth. God's Word is truth (John 17:17). I call this truth, transcendent truth; it is truth that transcends time, place, culture, and location. If we find God declaring something about His nature, that is a truth that transcends time. If we discover a statement of the nature of man, that is a transcendent truth. Once a statement is understood in context, we must sort out what aspect of a statement was for a particular context only and what aspect of that statement is transcendent truth. If a command is highly context-specific, what is the transcendent truth to be gleaned from it? This is what we will take with us into application.
If you skip interpretation and jump to application as we are often tempted to do, you risk apply falsehood to your life, which could end in ruin. Worse, you may apply falsehood to your understanding of God, which results in idolatry. For this reason, always seek to understand Scripture in the context that it was originally written. Look at the data you gathered in your observation phase. Look for repeated words. Ask "Who is the audience?" Make sure you can follow the flow of thought.
Application
Once you understand what a passage means you can start to determine what it means to you. Do not jump ship from what you determined that a passage meant. If a doctor discovered that the cause for abdominal pain is cancer, how irreponsible would it be to treat the pain only. He must treat the cancer. He must prescribe the antibiotic. He must set the broken bone or provide a cast. It's easier to treat what hurts and not address underlying causes, but you must take what you discover to be true and apply that. How many times in devotionals and sadly in many sermons (Praise God our pastor is careful not to do this), do we hear a sermon that rips a verse from its context and application is drawn based more on our needs than the truth in the verse! Zuck has another helpful paragraph on this (p. 282):
Unfortunately many people go to the Bible for a "blessing" or for guidance for the day, ignoring the interpretive process altogether. In their intense desire to find something devotional or practical, Christians sometimes distort theh original meaning of some passages of Scripture. To bypass the original meaning of the passage, looking for a subjective impression, can lead to a serious misuse of the Bible. Without proper interpretive controls, people can attempt to make the Bible mean almost anything thy want it to mean.
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