Studying The Word Pt. 2 | Christian Disciplines #5

Introduction: Turn to Psalm 119 (Read 119:33-40). 

We don’t study the Bible to feel better about ourselves, to win arguments, or even to just be able to say we studied the Bible. These words remind us that a deeper knowledge of God’s Word leads us to a more consistent life for the pleasure of God. We study God’s Word so we can be better equipped to live before God’s face. 

In the last couple of lesson we saw the importance of studying the Word, which we defined as taking one unit of Scripture and carefully interpreting its meaning. Today we are laying out a simple, step-by-step process for Bible study. 

Observe the original intent of the text

Compare yourself to the original readers of the text

Identify the central truth of the text

Check the rest of Scripture against your interpretation of the text

Apply the text

I. Observe

This stage of Bible study seeks to answer the question, “What did the text mean to the original audience?” This part of the method usually takes more time than the other four that follow. But this is where you must start if you want to end up at the right destination.

One of the things that makes this a difficult habit to foster is our proclivity to jump to application.

I’ve been in class discussions interpreting passages of Scripture before and you’d be surprised how easy it is to get ahead of yourself. For instance, you could read Matthew 13 about the seed and the soil and the sower and how some seed fell on this ground and other fell on that ground and some took root while others didn’t. When you get into a discussion interpreting that passage, most people will say something like, “A hard heart will keep God’s Word out,” or “If you have a soft heart you will bear fruit.” Those are great applications, but they don’t get to the ground level of the text. The text is about planting seed. Or farming. You get more specific as you go, but you start with simple observations. Matthew 7 tells the story of the wise man building his house on a rock and the foolish man building it on sand and one house stood in the storm and the other did not. As you begin looking at a passage like that don’t immediately jump to, “If I don't build my life on God’s Word I won’t be successful.” Instead, start with something like, “How to build a house.” 

When you read a text in the Bible, you must begin by looking at the text itself and what it would have meant to the first people that read it. To do that requires you to sit down, grab a pen and some paper and start asking questions: lots and lots of questions.

Let your observations begin wide and zoom in: there is no point in doing a word study if you aren’t sure what the paragraph is about. Your first two can always be:

Which division? (Old or New Testament)

Which genre? (i.e, poetry, narrative, epistle, apocalyptic, prophetic, parabolic, etc.)

Then you can maybe explore some more specific questions.

Who? Who is the author? (whether listed or established by the Christian tradition) and who is the implied reader?

What? What is being talked about?

When? When did this happen? 

Where? 

Why? What false beliefs could have arisen if this Book wasn’t in the Bible? What wrong ideas could have come about if this paragraph was not in this book?

You will never get answers if you don’t ask questions, so approaching the text you want to study with lots of questions is the best way to observe the text. Remember, the goal of observing is thinking about what the text originally meant.

II. Compare

After we observe the original intent, we need to answer the question, “What are the differences between the original audience and us?”

We are still not ready for application, because we are not the original readers. There are a variety of distances between the biblical audience and ourselves.

The difference in geography

Turn to Hosea 10. (Read 10:5-9). In just a few verses, the question of “where” is going to leave us a little puzzled. But when we are reading Hosea, we are reading messages from a specific prophet to a specific audience that knew what he was talking about.

Hosea was a prophet in the northern kingdom, maybe even born there.

Israel was actually experiencing financial prosperity despite their sin. The more God blessed them, the more they perverted God’s blessings by setting up new altars.

Bethel had been the house of God, but Jeroboam made it a center of calf worship. But Hosea calls Bethel (house of God) Beth-Aven (house of deception). 

Assyria is the empire that will eventually defeat the Northern Kingdom. Verses 9 and 10 refer to the battle of Gibeah, the civil war at the end of Judges. Hosea is saying “Things haven’t gotten better since Gibeah.”

When you understand where the people literally lived that Hosea was writing to, it helps us understand the context of the book. 

The difference in culture

There is also the distance of culture. A great example is the call to humility in Philippians 2:5.

The passage is not only theological but practical, as Paul is teaching them about Jesus while instructing them in humility. But this is not simply a call to be individually humble: the early church culture had no concept of Christians without congregational community. To have the attitude of Jesus is something that “must take place in the community, although that must be responded to at the individual level.” The Philippians hearing the letter read had no concept of individualized Christianity, like we may have reading this letter today. 

The difference in covenant 

A popular notion in American revivalism sees the behavior of God’s people directly related to material blessings at a national level through what I consider a faulty interpretation of 2 Chronicles 7:12-14. But there is a difference of covenant here. Of course, believers today are covenantal people under the new covenant (Hebrews 10:9-14) but we are not given the same conditions and blessings as those that applied under the old covenant. Read Deuteronomy 28:1, 15. 

The Israelites were under a covenant of material blessings and curses: If they, as a nation, obeyed God and fulfilled their required rituals, He would give them victory in battle, financial prosperity, long life, abundant crops, etc. If they disobeyed, they would have the reverse. 

III. Identify

Identifying answers this question “what is the central truth of this text?” It’s a process of statement and restatement until you get to the core of the truth.

In step two you are trying to think about all the differences between the original audience and us today. In step 3, we are asking, “What hasn’t changed?” 

Turn to Exodus 13 (Read 13:17-22).  (Harnessed - in battle formation)

Can we apply the whole text? No. God’s purposes for his followers today do not include setting up an earthly kingdom - so how can we identity the relevant central truth? 

The key is to think about similarities. Do we serve the God of the Old Testament? Yes. Is God sovereign over the events of our lives? Yes. Does God want us to accomplish things for His kingdom and glory? Yes. So what does this passage tell us about God?

Here is one way to summarize the happenings of the text: God did not take Israel on a direct route because war would have prevented them reaching their destination. 

So here is a relevant central truth: Sometimes God does not take us on a direct route to His plans for us because an obstacle along the route would prevent us from reaching that goal. OR Sometimes God does not take us on a direct route to His plans for us because He must first grow us to the point of readiness to reach the goal.

Every unit of Scripture is relevant for us, because every unit of Scripture has a big idea that reveals something eternal about God and his demands for his people. 

STOP HERE/START HERE NEXT TIME

IV. Check

Checking the rest of Scripture against my interpretation answers this question: “How does this text fit in with the rest of the Bible?”

We do this because Scripture presents a story: it has an overarching narrative. It is not a daily inspiration calendar (each day, you can tear a piece off and it will not prevent you from understanding the next day). 

In Luke 24:24-27, Jesus explains His death and resurrection in light of the law, prophets, and the other Scriptures. Jesus was not proof-texting, but showing that “throughout the whole Old Testament, a consistent divine purpose is worked out.”

If we look at a text in isolation, we are not reading the Bible the way Jesus taught.

Consider Proverbs 10:4, “He becometh poor that dealeth with a slack hand: but the hand of the diligent maketh rich.” That is a true as a principle. God’s world is ordered, and diligent people tend to become wealthier than others. But we must look at the principle through the entire Bible, specifically, for example, through the lenses of the Book of Job. If you apply Proverbs 10:4 literally without checking it against the whole Bible, you could fall into prosperity theology. 

When we look at any text, we must ask “Is there another text that would add to or modify my interpretation of this text?”

V. Apply

Step five answers the question, “How do I live in response to this text?”

Once you derive a central idea and make sure you aren’t violating other teachings of Scripture, you are ready to take that central idea into our Sunday-Saturday existence and ask, “How does God demand I live in light of this central truth?”

Bible study must always come full-circle so that not only are we studying the Bible, but the Bible studies us. Application evaluates everything we do and shows us areas to change, in light of the truth from the text we are studying. Isn’t that precisely what Psalm 119:33-40 seems to have in view? We dig into the Bible not just to explore the Word but so the Word can transform us.

Observe the original intent of the text

Compare yourself to the original readers of the text

Identify the central truth of the text

Check the rest of Scripture against your interpretation of the text

Apply the text

Conclusion

Set aside time to study the Bible. You will need it!

Study subjects you think you already know. You’ll discover them in greater depth than you thought possible.

Don’t be embarrassed to ask for help from others. One of the blessings of being in a church is that you have a community of people with whom you can discuss the Bible.