EPISODE 0071 | Basics Of Bible Study
THESE NOTES ACCOMPANY EPISODE 0071
The Bible is more than a book—it’s a guide to living a transformed life. In this episode, Pastor Stephen teaches the basics of Bible study, exploring how Scripture helps us make wise decisions, avoid future mistakes, and grow closer to God. If you’ve ever felt overwhelmed or unsure about how to start studying, this episode will equip you with tools to approach God’s Word with confidence.
Jesus, when praying for His disciples said in John 17: 17-19 “Make them holy by your truth; teach them your word, which is truth. Just as you sent me into the world, I am sending them into the world. And I give myself as a holy sacrifice for them so they can be made holy by your truth.”
The truth of God’s word is what changes us - what makes us more set apart.
Have you ever done anything that later you regretted? Made a decision that you wish you didn’t but you learned from it! Insanity doing the same thing but expecting different results. That’s the power of Hindsight!
Hindsight is twenty-twenty, but so is the Bible. - and the Bible doesn’t make you wait until after you’ve made the mistake to learn the lesson like life does. Our hearts are deceitful. The best experience is someone else’s! What we feel may not be real.
And your Bible is a compass to make wise decisions, avoid future mistakes, and grow closer to God than you ever thought possible. The problem then, for many of us, is that even though we already get that the Bible is true and it matters and can bring us closer to God and help us make wiser decisions - for some reason - we still find it hard to read.
So, then, How do we study the Bible? First things first - let’s dispel some myths.
The Bible is not a book. It’s a library. It’s a collection of 66 different literary works, by at least 40 different authors, over the span of about 1,500 years. This doesn’t make it any less impressive or any less God’s word - it’s even more impressive because only God could have kept the message perfectly tied together over that much time.
It does affect how we read it, though. Because it was written by real people living in real cultures across various times and locations - we have to think about what the author’s intended meaning was as we read.
Some parts of the Bible are poetry, others history, and others parable - to read them as something other than what they were intended to be is wrong.
Basics of Bible Study:
1. Pick a Translation. The best translation is one you will use. They range from word for word, to thought for thought and in between. You usually can’t go wrong. I use the New American Standard Version to study (word for word) and the New Living Translation to teach (combination) and from time to time I’ll read a translation like “Message” which is more like a commentary.
2. Interpret scripture with scripture.
Because the Bible is a collection of divinely inspired writings written by a number of authors, living in different geographical areas in some cases, and written over a long span of history, because all the different voices of Scripture make up God’s unified revelation, we want to let Scripture interpret Scripture.
This means looking at what the Bible has to say on a topic as a whole rather than just cherry picking verses here and there to come to the conclusion that we already want.
Scripture often interprets itself.
The NLT gives a great translation of Luke 14: 26 when it says:
“If you want to be my disciple, you must, by comparison, hate everyone else—your father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters—yes, even your own life. Otherwise, you cannot be my disciple.”
When scripture seems to contradict itself - it doesn’t. A study bible goes a long way with helping us understand these.
3. Interpret unclear passages with clear passages.
When your bible says something that you don’t quite understand, it often explains itself, if you keep seeking to understand.
In John 1:1 we read that:
“ In the beginning the Word already existed. The Word was with God, and the Word was God, He existed in the beginning with God. God created everything through him, and nothing was created except through him.”
And while this sounds a bit confusing - just a few verses later in John 1:14 we read that:
“the Word became human and made his home among us. He was full of unfailing love and faithfulness. And we have seen his glory, the glory of the Father’s one and only Son.”
Showing us that “the word” John is talking about in the earlier verse was Jesus.
4. Ask if the passage descriptive or prescriptive.
We know that when 1 Kings 11: 1-11 says: “Now King Solomon loved many foreign women. Besides Pharaoh’s daughter, he married women from Moab, Ammon, Edom, Sidon, and from among the Hittites.” ,
That it wasn’t prescriptive for our lives because Deuteronomy 17:17 says, “The king must not take many wives for himself, because they will turn his heart away from the Lord.“
In the same way, we know that when Jesus said:
Mark: 12: 29-31 “The most important commandment is this: ‘Listen, O Israel! The Lord our God is the one and only Lord. 30 And you must love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, all your mind, and all your strength.The second is equally important: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself. No other commandment is greater than these.”
This is prescriptive for our lives because it is repeated and echoed in other places throughout the Bible.
Whatever you do, don’t get overwhelmed.
The important thing is that you decide to start reading scripture - to start studying your Bible. Even though you won’t be perfect yet at getting everything right, even though you may not understand all of it yet, the word is alive and powerful.
5. Read the whole Bible.
Devotions are great and we all have scriptures that speak to us at times but we can’t get the whole picture without reading the whole thing.
2 Timothy 3:16: All Scripture is inspired by God and is useful to teach us what is true and to make us realize what is wrong in our lives. It corrects us when we are wrong and teaches us to do what is right.
When Satan tempted Jesus it was scripture that Jesus quoted back to him - it was scripture that helped Him resist temptation - and because The condition of your heart dictates the direction of your life. - if you begin the practice of reading and studying your bible - before long, you’ll be doing the same.
Resources
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