How to Study the Bible - Week 5 Session 1

Study to show yourself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth. (2 Timothy 2:15)

Learning the discipline of inductive Bible study—how to draw out what the text says, what it means, and what it means for us.

Why This Class

Tonight we're talking about something very important for digging into the Scriptures and understanding the meaning of the text: trying to see what the Bible says, what the Bible means, and then what it means for us—observation, interpretation, application.

I've said it every week, and I'll be redundant: the whole purpose of this class is that we might learn to access the Scriptures ourselves so that we might make them accessible to others. It's working, but it isn't easy. It requires work. That's why Paul tells Timothy to study to show yourself approved unto God, a worker rightly dividing the word of truth.

Even if you just begin dedicating a very short amount of time—five, ten, fifteen minutes—and it becomes a daily habit, ideally in the morning, you'll find over time that you enjoy it more and want to spend more time in the Scriptures. But it's an exercise. It takes time.

A Quick Review: Devotional and Purposeful Study

So far we've talked about devotional and purposeful Bible study. Devotional study uses the TIPS acronym: we look for truths to believe (doctrines) and truths to do (commands). Then I examine myself in light of those things—do I believe them, do I do them? When I find that I don't, I move into planning to obey and praying that God by His Spirit would help me do those things.

Ultimately God wants our lives to produce abundant fruit. I always think of Galatians 5:22-23—love, joy, peace, kindness, gentleness, self-control, faithfulness—and that my life and yours would manifest more of that fruit over time, seen by us and by others. And you can guarantee that as you grow in Christ, God will allow you to be tested in these very things.

God Tests What We Study

As you commit to studying God's Word, you discover that God has a way of putting you into situations where the very things you're studying are being worked out and tested. When I first started teaching through the Bible here, I taught through James. I came to that opening section: "Count it all joy when you encounter various trials." How many of us find ourselves joyful in trials? Only Leo!

I was house-sitting for someone—a San Diego police officer with two German Shepherds and a Rottweiler. I went into the backyard to feed the dogs, and the automatic sliding glass door clicked locked behind me. My keys were sitting on the couch inside. Instantly your blood pressure rises. Now I'm going to have to break into a cop's house guarded by three big dogs.

I went around checking every door and window—all locked tight, because he's a police officer. The whole time a nagging voice kept saying, "Miles, just pray." And every time I thought, "That's not going to help." After fifteen or twenty minutes of wrestling, I finally sat down and prayed, "God, please help. There's no way I'm getting into this house." Immediately I had a strong sense: try the door again. In my mind I'm thinking, that won't help—but I walked over and it opened like it was never locked. And it was as if God was speaking to my heart: Count it all joy when you encounter various trials, because the testing of your faith produces patience.

The Refiner's Fire

God wants to do a work in our lives. As you study, you'll be tested on the truths to believe and the truths to do, and His aim is to produce more fruit. Picture the refiner placing the metal into the fire. As the freshly mined ore melts, the impurities rise to the surface. That's what happens in us—the anger, the frustration, the lack of love, the unforgiveness all come up so we can see them. Sometimes we're shocked: "Where did that come from?" God isn't shocked; He knew it was there. But it needs to surface so we can confess it.

When we confess our sin, He is faithful and just to forgive us and cleanse us of all unrighteousness. That gives Him the opportunity to begin His purifying work. But if we harden our hearts, He simply takes us off the fire, and those things settle back into our lives—still there, still needing to be dealt with—and we'll go through the same trial again. It's a continual process. God uses trials, His Word, and other brothers and sisters, and His Holy Spirit is at work in all of it to refine us. His Word is often the scalpel doing that work.

Reading the Original Languages

Last week we talked about different tools for studying the Bible, and you had homework on a word study in John 20:3-10 (the word saw) or John 21:15-17 (the word love). Because this book was written in other languages, there's often more meaning to be found when we look at the originals. You don't have to be an expert in Greek, Hebrew, or Aramaic—you just need to understand the simple tools available to look beneath the surface.

I've been reading the homework you've been turning in, and you're doing a great job. I'm not looking for any of you to do these perfectly—these are exercises. My son recently started Taekwondo. I have a black belt, so I watch him out there, and the moves look terrible, but he's having a good time. When I started, with the same instructors, I got frustrated, and my instructor said something that stuck with me: "Miles, you're exactly where you should be for the amount of time and effort you've put in." Many of you are new to this. Be consistent and persistent, and your understanding will grow.

To this point we've worked primarily with just a Bible, a notebook, and a pen. That's all you need for devotional and purposeful Bible study.

Inductive vs. Deductive Study

Tonight we're looking at inductive Bible study—sometimes called IBS, though that's also a medical condition, so I usually just say the whole thing. At seminary it goes deeper and is called hermeneutics, but it's basically the same thing: getting into the Scriptures to interpret them. What does the text say? What does it mean? What does it mean for me? Observation, interpretation, application.

When you do this systematically and regularly for several months, it becomes second nature. You begin to read the Bible already thinking this way. Next week I'll show you how I teach students to break a passage into all its propositions to see the flow of the text—it may break your brain a little, but I just want you to see how it's done.

I recently heard a discussion about postmodernism, which approaches a text as though it can have an infinite number of meanings—it all comes down to what it means to you. There's real danger in that. God gave us language to communicate ideas. If words can mean anything, even when structured ideally, then language has no meaning at all. The reality is that we have rationality and the ability to communicate so that you comprehend what I am thinking and wanting. So we read the Scriptures rationally, doing our best to understand what the original author intended to say to the original reader—trusting that God was inspiring it. This is sometimes called the historical-grammatical interpretation of the Bible; I'd add cultural as well.

Deductive Study Is Not Bad

There's a difference between deductive and inductive study, and deductive isn't necessarily bad. A deductive approach starts with a premise or proposition—a top-down approach that begins with a theory and moves down to find support for it in the text.

Many of you have heard of systematic theology. Generally there are five kinds of theology: exegesis, biblical theology, systematic theology, historical theology, and practical theology. Systematic theology is very important, and it starts with a concept. Let me give you a premise: Jesus is God. How many of you believe that? Now, how many believe you could prove it from the Scriptures? Hands start going down. To prove it, you'd take that premise back to the Scriptures and show it's provable—that's a deductive approach. That's not bad; it's the basis of a topical Bible study.

Topical studies aren't all bad either, though sometimes within Calvary Chapel people deride them. There are times you need one—especially in theology. If I want to teach the Trinity—one God existing in three persons, the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit—I can't go to a single passage. Perhaps the most challenging theological concept, most mocked by people (especially Muslims), and that which the church thought, wrote, and argued about most for its first 500 years. To teach it, I must use a deductive approach, gathering hundreds of passages to show what the Scriptures teach.

The Danger of Isagesis

The deductive method does have pitfalls. One is that it can become isagetical. You may have heard of exegetical; isagesis is interpreting a text by reading into it your own ideas. You can bias the text and pull things out of context. There are prime-time Bible teachers on channels like Daystar and TBN who are incredibly good at isagesis—using passages out of context to support a presupposition that isn't theologically sound. It needs to be tested and challenged by what we actually find in the Scriptures.

Inductive Study Begins with the Text

Inductive Bible study begins with the text. It's a bottom-up approach. It observes the text through historical, grammatical, and cultural lenses to determine what the original author intended to say to the original reader. Where deductive can be isagetical, inductive is exegetical—drawing out of the text an explanation or interpretation through a systematic, step-by-step approach. We draw out what the text says, what it means for the original reader, and from that our applications.

If I wanted a topical message on marriage, I could write down five or six purposes for marriage, then go back to find verses to prove them—but I could have grabbed those ideas from any pop-psychology book. That's building the points first and then proving them with the Bible. That's not my typical approach. There are times I teach topically, especially at conferences when they assign a theme. But most often I take the text first—the exegetical approach—following a step-by-step plan to see what the Bible says, what it means, and what it means for us.

Step One: Pray

Step one is always prayer. Almost without fail, within twenty or thirty minutes of studying, I can tell whether I've started correctly, because the Word of God is spiritually discerned. So we ask, "Lord, would You help me comprehend this passage? Help me see what is in the text and grasp what it says and means."

Step Two: Observe

After we've prayed and read, we move to observation. Read multiple times in multiple versions. I'd put at the top of your list as-literal-as-possible word-for-word translations: the New American Standard, the New King James, the English Standard, and the Christian Standard Bible. Then add a couple of thought-for-thought versions: the New International Version and the New Living Translation. Every time I open Logos, those six pop up automatically, and reading them helps me see the different ways translators have rendered the text.

Read slowly, prayerfully, carefully, and take notes. This morning I read Deuteronomy 24 and wrote a quick nine-point outline so I'd have a general understanding of what's going on. If you're having trouble grasping a passage, back up a paragraph for more context and pray, "God, help me see the flow of the text."

Then observe the context—what is said before and after. Ask: Who was it written by? Who was it written to? From where was it written? When? Why? A good study Bible answers most of these at the start of the book. For example, Ephesians was written by Paul to the church at Ephesus, a chief city in Asia Minor. First and second Corinthians were largely written in response to questions the Corinthians sent—it's almost like a question-and-answer podcast with the Apostle Paul.

Also identify the genre: law, history, narrative, gospel, poetry, prophecy, epistle. The gospels read like a story; Paul's epistles read like exhortation lists. Different genres call for different questions.

What to Look For in Observation

Look for key words and repeated words. In John 20, the word saw is used three times in verses 3-10 (and a fourth time if you read verses 1-2). In John 21, love is repeated over and over. That's where your eyes should go—the author, inspired by the Spirit, is driving home a point.

Look for theological words. If Paul uses sanctification, circle it and ask what it means—a good topical reference book, free at Blue Letter Bible, will help. Look for locations and temporal markers (time markers). In the prophets, Isaiah 6 says, "In the year that King Uzziah died." In the Psalms, headings like "a Psalm of David when he was on the run from Saul" send you back to Samuel to see what was happening in David's heart. Following Paul's locations in Acts, you can use the maps in the back of your Bible to see where Galatia, Asia Minor, Philippi, and Macedonia are.

Identify commands, promises, if-then conditions, warnings, and contrasts. If-then conditions become especially important in the prophets and in Deuteronomy, where many statements are clearly conditional. You're simply observing what is there. When you finish, if you closed your Bible, you should be able to summarize what you read—which is why you do this with a paragraph or a chapter at most, not five chapters.

Step Three: Interpret

Step three is interpretation: what does the text mean? A few crucial things to remember.

The text cannot mean what it did not mean. You've probably sat in a Bible study where someone reads a passage and says, "This means to me…" with no connection to what it actually says. I'm the one who'll say, "Help me see how you got that." So we seek the author's originally intended meaning—what we call authorial intent.

Let the text speak for itself. The more you observe, the more clearly the interpretation flows directly out of the text. God is not trying to hide His meaning from you—He's gone to great lengths so that you could have His inspired Word. Some years ago a book called The 70 Meanings of Torah circulated, claiming every passage has seventy layers of meaning. That sounds more like a postmodern literature class than biblical interpretation. When the plain sense makes sense, seek no other sense.

Rules for Faithful Interpretation

Do not interpret Scripture by your experience. This becomes important with spiritual gifts or the baptism of the Holy Spirit. Some of you came out of streams of Christianity where you had experiences that conflict with the Bible, and you interpret the Bible by your experience. We should do the opposite—judge our experience by the Scriptures.

Do not be dogmatic where the Bible is not. We're given to dogmatism. For example, much of what we believe about eschatology is speculative—possibly well-grounded in good exegesis, but others have exegeted the same texts and reached different conclusions. Some of those things may make us blush when we stand before Jesus, and they're non-essential to salvation. I can teach a college-level class on eschatology from every perspective, but I hold those things open-handedly, with humility. We should have a generous orthodoxy about non-essential doctrines disputed by good scholarship.

Do not over-rationalize the Scriptures. From our Western, 21st-century perspective we tend to cut everything apart scientifically. Sometimes the honest answer is, "We don't know all the details about what this means." And do not over-spiritualize the Scriptures. I try to find the middle ground.

Interpret literal language literally and figurative language figuratively. When Jesus says, "I am the door," He doesn't have a handle. When He says, "If your right eye causes you to sin, pluck it out," He's not literally calling you to do that. We Protestant evangelicals want to read the Bible literally, but we read only what is literally there literally, and the figurative figuratively. The Bible is also not a science textbook—when you get into the first eleven chapters of Genesis, strong Christians with great scholarship interpret those passages differently regarding creation, the flood, and the Nephilim. Read it according to its genre, and don't be dogmatic where you needn't be.

Let Scripture interpret Scripture. This is vital with the parables of Jesus. If He gives the parable of the sower and explains it in the next section, it's foolish to derive your own meaning while ignoring His explanation. The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge, which I showed you last week, helps here—I can interpret a difficult statement in Ephesians by seeing how Paul spoke in Colossians, written about the same time with common themes.

Step Four: Correlation

This leads to correlation—looking at other passages of the Bible. The Bible is a hyperlinked text. Things said in Genesis are referenced throughout. The Book of Revelation is nearly impossible to understand without Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Obadiah, and the other prophets, because John is speaking in Old Testament apocalyptic language drawn from them. When you encounter a beast with many horns and eyes, correlating those passages gives amplified meaning. Let Scripture interpret Scripture.

Step Five: Application

The final step is application: what does the text mean for us? God does want to speak to us through His Word. Seek a primary application from the text, and your applications should flow logically out of your interpretations, which flow logically out of your observations. There's a clear methodology: observation, interpretation, application—each flowing out of the previous, all pulled right out of the text. This is exegesis.

Ask questions: What is the text saying to me or us? What did the original author intend for the original reader? Some applications require finding general principles, because the specifics may have applied to that particular time. What does the text say about me—my condition, my position? Ephesians 2 says we were dead in trespasses and sins, but now by grace we are saved—so something has changed. What does the text reveal about God? What does it call me to believe and to do?

SPACE PETS

As I look for application, I ask: Is there a sin to confess? A promise to claim? An attitude to change? A command to obey? An example to follow? A prayer to pray? An error to avoid? A truth to believe? Something to praise God for? That gives you the acronym—SPACE PETS—which I got from our friend to the north, Rick Warren, who's great with these things.

Do not start with application. Take the time to pick the passage apart inductively first. And other than correlating for understanding, the goal is to stay in that text. My friend David Guzik told me years ago that if you're invited to speak at a conference and you simply speak on what they asked you to speak on, you'll probably be the only one who does. I've been to many conferences on, say, Nehemiah, where nine of ten speakers gave the message they preached at their own church the week before, and only Guzik spoke on the actual passage. So stay in your text, and avoid the temptation to wander off into a different one unless it amplifies your understanding.

You can search "Bible application questions" online and find dozens of these basic questions from great pastors and teachers. After the break, we'll go through John 20—Peter and the other disciple going to the tomb—and I'll show you how I break a text apart. I don't go through every step each time anymore, because I've done it so often I simply see the text this way. Let's take a ten-minute break.