HOW TO STUDY THE BIBLE

Methodical Bible study, then, is concerned with the proper path to be taken in
order to arrive at Scriptural truth

Robert A. Traina, “Methodical Bible Study”

I remember the first course I took on my journey at Dallas Theological Seminary. I was so excited to get started and had the normal anxiety and anticipation that accompanies the first semester for students of any age. When it came time for our first assignment, I wasn’t totally sure what was in store. Perhaps I had heard rumors, but you never know until it happens. You wanna know what my first assignment in seminary was? Make 25 observations of Acts 1:8. 25 observations! Not interpretations or opinions or what I think would be spiritual insights…nope, just plain old observations. You wanna know what my second assignment in seminary was? Make 25 more observations of the same verse! One verse, 50 unique observations! 

What’s the point? Am I suggesting you should make 50 observations of every verse of the Bible? No, but sometimes we are so quick to jump to an application of this verse or that one, that we miss what the Bible is actually saying. Using the words of the author of a given book of Scripture and making it mean whatever we want it to mean is practically tantamount to making our words equal with God’s. Can you imagine if you sent a text to someone and someone else read it and used your words to mean something that you never intended? And yet, so many of us are guilty of this when it comes to Scripture. 

When we approach Scripture, it is a great idea to use the Inductive Bible Study Method: 
1) Observation, 2) Interpretation, 3) Correlation, 4) Application. If we don’t end up at application then we are just engaging in an exercise of pure intellectualism. An intellectualism that doesn’t lead to transformation is just pride. But premature application, can lead to distortion of Scripture and misapplication. Over the course of the next few newsletters, I will briefly consider these steps with the hope that we can, in our own study, “arrive at Scriptural truth” that will be transformative. -Chad

If you would like to go deeper on this subject, check out the following fantastic books:

How to Read the Bible Like a Seminary Professor by Mark Yarbrough
How to Read the Bible as Literature by Leland Ryken
Methodical Bible Study by Robert, A. Traina
Living by the Book by Howard and William Hendricks