Three Step Bible Study

This is not the "one ring to rule them all." There are plenty of great ways to study the Bible (and even more really bad ways), so I'm not about to present the one best way that all must follow or be relegated to coach class in heaven. It is one good way. A lot of folks struggle to have a regular Bible study time because they don't have a particular approach they use, so I offer this way as one of many to help us get into a regular habit. When we see success happen, then we no longer have to find motivation - it's already there!

If you've studied Bible study methods, you'll recognize many elements below, perhaps even using different labels and terms.

This approach is simple enough - just three steps. But the order is important. Your rate of success will be orders of magnitude better if you exercise just enough discipline to work on these steps in order. (If a thought jumps at you that is out of order, quickly note it and then come back to the step you were on. You'll come back to that point soon enough and be able to develop it.)

I recommend having your Bible, a notebook, and a pen (or computer) so that you keep all of your notes together. And I do recommend writing (or typing) - there's something about the physical act that helps you ponder your thoughts more thoroughly.

The three steps are Understand, Interpret, and Cultivate. Pick a passage, large or small, read it at least three times, and then begin taking notes.

1. Understand. In this step, you are concerned only with what the text says, not what it means. You're not yet concerned about how it affects you or what to do about it. The only task here is to get a grasp of what the text claims. What do the key words mean? What happened? Who did what? Can I summarize what the passage says in one sentence? What are the main ideas or events? How did people respond? You can't ask all of these questions for every passage, but these are the types of questions to ask. You know you've done a pretty good job if you can succinctly state what the author intended to say (and the author intended to say one thing!).
2. Interpret. Now we talk about meaning (but not how it applies to our lives, yet). For example, what the author said could be "God's right arm" - that's the Understand section. That's what the author said. Now for Interpret, what does this mean? Does it refer to a literal arm? In this case, no - it refers to God's power (which brings victory). Is the author being literal or figurative? Is he being sarcastic? What is the main point? Is he telling us what did happen or is he giving us an example to follow? The parable was about three guys who got some money from their boss and did different stuff with it (Understand), but what is the parable teaching us (Interpret)? You know you've interpreted well when you can succinctly state what the author meant by what he said (and the author meant one thing!).
3. Cultivate. Finally, we talk about how this text affects our lives. How is this text intended to cultivate us into a stronger followers of Jesus? We often talk about application - how the text applies to our lives, but we want to go further than application. How do I learn to obey what this passage says? What does God want me to do or say or think? How does my following Jesus deepen in response to this passage? How can I cultivate this truth into someone else's life? How is this passage like nourishment for growth? You know you've cultivated well when your life actually changes to be more like what the text teaches. I would venture that we don't truly understand a passage until our lives reflect it.

Note that the author's context must be considered to Interpret, and our context must be considered to Cultivate. We should not, for example, take an Old Testament passage about the covenant with Israel and just assume we're supposed to do the exact same thing - like sacrifice a goat!

When I study a passage for my own devotional life, I use this pattern in my notes, whether the passage is large or small. I often try to study a paragraph or a distinct unit, such as a full parable, instead of just a couple of verses or an really long section. It's perfectly OK just to list questions without answers, by the way!

My notes often look something like this brief example:

Passage: John 3:16 (NET)

For this is the way God loved the world: He gave his one and only Son, so that everyone who believes in him will not perish but have eternal life.

Understand

• Who is speaking? Is this a continuation of Jesus' dialog from vv. 10-15, or is this now John giving us his understanding as the author?
• "this is the way" - Some translations have "For God so loved...", but that sounds like quantity, not manner. This phrase is referring to the manner in which God loves us.
• "world" - Who is the "world"? Every person? The rebellious "world" that we're not supposed to love (1 John 2:15)?
• "perish" - What kind of perishing is included here?
• ... and so on ...

Interpret

• Note that God expresses His great love by an act of giving, and that this giving is complete. He did not withhold anything in this gift - He gave us Christ completely, as evidenced by His death on the cross.
• He gave us His Son for a specific outcome - belief that results in eternal life.
• Is this believing a pure act of will or is it the inevitable action for the elect (how Calvinistic is this passage)?
• When does this eternal life begin?
• ... and so on ...

Cultivate

• How can I love as God loves? How can I love by giving Christ to others as the Father gave us Christ?
• How can I demonstrate that love this week?!? (It's best to actually list something specific here!)
• Who do I know that will perish because they do not believe? Who of these people will I see today? This week?
• ... and so on ...

Devotional books and study guides are often very helpful, but I much prefer that we interact with the text directly on a regular basis. (It can be helpful to refer to these other materials after interacting with the text on your own.) A simple tool such as this one can be used by beginners as well as lifelong students.

An Interpretive Question

We read Scripture ultimately to be changed. We resist change, we put up defenses against change, we make up excuses of why we don't need to change (or can't change), and we sometimes turn to Scripture to merely reinforce what we already believe (whether or not it is true). But truth be told, we want things to be different as the result of reading Scripture, and underneath our defenses is a realization that the real change needed is in us, not just our circumstances. We approach Scripture one way, and want to step from Scripture being a different way ... somehow.

We want Scripture to intersect with real life and make real life better (because there's no way real life can make Scripture any better).

Lynne and I had one Sunday school teacher in Texas who asked the same question at the end of every lesson: "So what?" We just finished taking an excellent look at what the Scripture says, how it spoke into the original context, and what various words and ideas mean. But so what? What does it matter? How do these truths make a bit of difference in my life? Now, that is a bit of an egocentric way to look at Scripture, but it is also one of the reasons God wants us to read Scripture.

Pastors have long been taught to have an "application" with every sermon. Sermons that just relay the facts and historical data may be interesting to a few Bible nerds, but there's no challenge for the listener to aspire to live more biblically, no call to change. So, have an application! Teach the Word, but then show what to do with it. Quite frankly, I find this the hardest part of developing a sermon, and one I rarely do to my own satisfaction.

My preaching professor didn't like the word "application," but rather used the phrase "contemporary relevance." Not that you would want to use that phrase too often in a sermon, but to think in terms of the "CR" for sermon preparation. It differs from "application" in the sense that the CR is not just a "therefore, do this" idea, but rather the more involved process of understanding the congregation and seeing how the eternal Word is particularly relevant to their "here and now."

I have stumbled across another question to ask yourself when reading Scripture. I meet weekly with Brennan Connolly and David Gramling to read and discuss Scripture and challenging books. At least once in every meeting, we ask the same question of what we just read, "Based on this passage, what does it mean to be a fully committed follower of Jesus?" I have discovered this to be a fantastic challenge question for discussion. I have also discovered it to be fantastic to ask myself during my own daily Quiet Time. The question somehow pushes me to dig deeper into the passage in ways I don't do otherwise. And the impact of Scripture has a new angle on me (rather than the other way around - me having a new angle on Scripture).

All of these are good questions and phrases to help us dig into Scripture. Don't just read Scripture - ask challenging questions of Scripture.

A Simple Reading Guide

If you're reading this ... well ... you can read. You know how letters fit together, how punctuation generally works, and what English words mean. You can read. Which also means that you can read the Bible and comprehend much of what it says. Even though intense study of the Bible is rich enough to warrant a legion of men and women to dedicate their careers to the discipline, the plain truth of the Bible is easily understood by anyone who can read. The basic message of the Bible is obvious enough, not hidden behind cryptic clues that only the secret few can decipher.

If this is true, why then do we have so many controversies over what the Bible says?

A short weekly article is never going to be able to resolve this great dilemma, but there are two driving principles: First, if we so determine, we can manipulate the text to say whatever we want it to. Second, even though we know how to read, we don't necessarily know how to read the Bible well.

Let me provide a few helpful practices, even though a short article cannot do justice to a mature discipline. My hope is that we can at least see the kinds of things we need to consider when reading the Bible well.

1. There and Then. What did the author intend to say to the original readers of the book? What the text means is what the author intended it to mean, not "what I got out of it." So, what did the author intend? He was writing to a particular group of people in a particular context of life, living in a particular culture. Perhaps there was a specific occasion or reason for writing that particular book. Every passage of Scripture means one thing. Whether a small passage or a large passage, there is one intended meaning. Before we ever thing about how the Word applies to our lives in our contexts in our culture, we've got to spend a little time understanding what the author intended. Some of this we can do just by observing the text carefully, and some of it we can do just through our accumulation of biblical knowledge over the years. Sometimes, we need to consult other resources, such as Bible dictionaries and commentaries. As you can see, this discipline can be taken to far greater depths than most of us are prepared for, but don't despair - most of the time, we can get a pretty good feel for what the author intended without earning an advanced degree!
   
2. Everywhere and Forever. The second discipline, which can only come after we've worked on the first, is to ask what the eternal truth is behind what the author meant. For example, when Moses writes about "gleaning the fields" in Leviticus, the first discipline tells us we need understand what this particular farming practice was to understand what Moses intended to say to his original readers. But, most people today don't farm for a living, so does that mean that this passage doesn't mean anything for us? Of course not! The eternal principle behind the gleaning practice was to sacrificially provide for the poor in a way that allows them to work (if they can) in order to labor for their food. That's an eternal truth! It's a very particular kind of compassion. The second discipline is to discover what eternal truths are being expressed by what the author intended to say to the original readers. Sometimes, the contextual meaning is the same as the eternal truth ("don't lie"). Sometimes, the eternal truth is bigger than the specific idea expressed by the author to his original readers.
   
3. Here and Now. The third discipline is one we typically jump straight to, ignoring the first two. More often than not, if we skip the first two disciplines, we will be very inaccurate with the third. This discipline is to discover how the eternal truth applies to our context in our culture in our situations. For example, how can we who do not farm for a living specifically employ the gleaning principle today? (Or the bigger question, how does a modern Christian look at Old Testament laws in general?) Scripture means one thing, but it may have many different applications for our lives. The passage in Leviticus means one thing - exercise a particular kind of compassion. How we do that in our lives could take many different flavors, but still retain the eternal truth (that was originally expressed in a particular context). This is not "what it means to me," but "how this can be lived out in my life?" 

We must exercise the first two disciplines, first. If we skip them, then we could end up with nonsense, such as "God is telling me that my job is like a field, and I need to plow my job carefully by studying hard and working late hours, but not to harvest the 'corners' of my job by making sure I don't report all my hours." That's no where near what we should gain from Leviticus, but we can get there easily if we neglect the first two disciplines.

There are far more disciplines and techniques that I advocate to help us understand what we read in the Bible (for example, reading a passage no fewer than three times). These three, however, work together to show a sequence of thought we should go through every time we read. Sometimes, we can go through all three pretty quickly, but other times, it may take a fair bit of effort.

Resources: There are plenty of good books on reading the Bible well, but two that I recommend are: How to Read the Bible for All Its Worth, and Playing with Fire. Click on the titles to see more information about each.

More on Structure

Last week, we looked at Eph 1:3-14 to see how seeing the structure of a passage can help us to understanding it more fully. In that passage, we saw a threefold structure to highlight the work of each Person of the Trinity. I mentioned then that the next article would look at Eph 2 to look for a structure and see how it helps us understand the passage.

First, read Eph 2. Some of your Bibles likely have some section headings, which were added by the translators or publishers. They are not part of the original text, and sometimes they are not always placed where I would place them. They can be helpful at times, but always check to see if perhaps you think they might be misplaced.

Answer the question (without the help of the added section headings): What is Eph 2 about?

Eph 2 has two main parts to it. Look for them. They might be marked by a topic change, by a phrase that starts a new idea, or other clue that helps the reader know that there's a new thought coming. Try to find the two major sections before continuing.

In this case, most of your section headings are likely correct. The first section is from v. 1 through v. 10, and the second is from v. 11 through v. 22.

These two sections have parallel structures to each other! Each half of the chapter has two subsections. In this case, there's a repeated idea in each section to mark off the beginning of the second half of each section. Look for a repeated key idea that subdivides both vv. 1-10 and vv. 11-22. Try to find it before continuing.

The repeated key idea is "but God..." (in v. 4, "but God," and in v. 13, "but now in Christ Jesus"). So now we have the main structure: vv. 1-10 (with subsections 1-3 and 4-10) and vv. 11-22 (with subsections 11-12 and 13-22).

Now, look at the subsections, and look at how the "but God" idea changes things from one subsection to the next. What was true in vv. 1-3 and 11-12? What is now true in vv. 4-10 and 12-22? What is it that God did so that "but God" changes us from what was true to what is now true?

Now, re-answer the question. What is Eph 2 about?