How to Study Your Bible, Part 1
Introduction:
Probably most of you have heard the adage, “Give a man a fish, and you feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish, and you feed him for a lifetime.” It’s more beneficial in the long run to provide knowledge and skills to help someone help themselves than to give them a direct solution or a handout. Applying this idea to Bible study, I suggest that although it is good for me to spoon-feed you the truth of God’s word, it is better for you if I can teach you how to feed yourself the word of God. Peter writes,
“Therefore, laying aside all malice, all deceit, hypocrisy, envy, and all evil speaking, as newborn babes, desire the pure milk of the word, that you may grow thereby, if indeed you have tasted that the Lord is gracious.” (1 Peter 2:1-3).
What does that scripture say should be the desire of all born again believers?
What benefit does feeding on the word of God have for us?
We are certainly privileged to live in a time and place where the Bible is so available to us. We not only have access to the word of God in our own language (which many in the past and even today have not), but we even have multiple good translations and study bibles available. We are privileged that most of us today are literate. Yet even with all this available, I fear that many Christians today are spiritually malnourished because they either lack the motivation or the skills to feed themselves.
What do you want to accomplish in this series of lessons?
My goal for this series of lessons is to teach you how to take a portion of scripture, read the text, make observations about what it says, ask questions to understand it, determine what it means, and apply its truth to yourself. By teaching you this method, and practicing it together, my desire is to give you the tools to feed yourself with the word of God and motivate you to desire the pure milk of the word.
What portion of scripture are we going to be studying?
And there is no better place to go for motivation and principles of Bible Study than the Bible itself. Did you know that there is an entire chapter of the Bible that is completely devoted to showing us the priority of the word of God? In fact, it is the longest chapter in the whole Bible at 176 verses—Psalm 119. Today, and for the next few lessons, I want us to focus on the first stanza of this great psalm—Psalm 119:1-8. I will not be teaching you what the passage says, what it means, or how to apply it. I hope to teach you how to do that for yourself.
This is going to take several weeks. So, don’t be concerned if we don’t get through the whole thing today. Next time, we’ll just pick up where we left off. By the time we are done studying this passage, you should have the skills necessary to study other passages in the Bible as well. And the bonus is that in Psalm 119:1-8 you will have discovered for yourself what that passage says about the blessing of seeking, learning, and living the word of God.
Let’s get started.
Bible Study Step #1 – Prayerfully Read the text in context.
What is the primary resource for studying the Bible?
Your primary resource in studying the Bible is the Bible itself. The tendency for many Bible students at the beginning of a study is to rush to secondary resources like Christian books and Bible commentaries that have already done the work observing and interpreting for the reader. There’s a few problems with that method. One, how do you know they got it right? Two, we have a responsibility to understand and obey the word of God. Three, you are short-circuiting the privilege and joy of discovering the word of God personally.
As Henry Ford is reported to have said “Cut your own wood and warm yourself twice”. In other words, as you chop your own firewood, you enjoy not only the heat from the logs glowing in the fireplace, but you also enjoy the physical warmth produced by the exercise of chopping your own firewood. As you learn how to “chop the wood” of God’s Word for yourself, you will experience a supernatural “warmth” of your soul that is beyond description. And in so doing, you will keep the flame of devotion alive as you provide fuel for the Spirit to renew your mind and transform you more and more into the image of God’s Son.
Taking the ax in your hand begins with reading the Bible. But one of the problems with the way we read the Bible is that we often do it mechanically. We move our eyes over the words and come to the end of a column and don’t know what we’ve read. There was no discovery, no life, no breakthroughs to new insight. So first, I need to teach you how to read your Bible effectively. That begins when you …
A. Pray Before You Read and as You Read.
Prayerfully read the Bible.
Why Prayerfully?
I say prayerfully because we should always approach the scripture acknowledging it is God’s word by which He reveals His truth to us. Prayer expresses our need for God’s help in understanding and applying God’s word. Prayer expresses our dependence on God—that He is the LORD and that we need Him.
How does the psalmist express his dependence on the Lord in these verses? Psalm 119:18; 34; 73, 125, 144, 169.
18 Open my eyes, that I may see Wondrous things from Your law. … 34 Give me understanding, and I shall keep Your law; Indeed, I shall observe it with my whole heart. … 73 Your hands have made me and fashioned me; Give me understanding, that I may learn Your commandments. 125 I am Your servant; Give me understanding, That I may know Your testimonies. … 144 The righteousness of Your testimonies is everlasting; Give me understanding, and I shall live. … 169 Let my cry come before You, O LORD; Give me understanding according to Your word. (Psalm 119:18, 34, 73, 125, 144, 169).
The psalmist asks God to open his eyes and give him understanding into His word. He cries out this prayer over and over again. He was acknowledging his inability to observe spiritual truth without the Spirit’s illumination (see 1 Cor. 2:14; Acts 26:18; John 14:26; Luke 24:45).
So, before we read our text, let’s pray. I’ll give you a moment to silently pray that God would open your eyes to His word and give you understanding, then I will ask someone to voice this prayer for all of us.
Now, we are almost ready to read the text. I say almost because before we read it, we want to take a few minutes to …
B. Pre-read the Text for the Context.
What is pre-reading the text?
What I mean by pre-reading is preparing to read the Bible by looking at what we can learn from how and where the passage appears. This exercise will help us to see the setting and context of the passage.
What is “Context”?
The context is the setting in which a passage occurs or where the text is found and what surrounds it. Thus, context includes, first, those verses immediately before and after the passage; then, the paragraph and book in which the passage appears; then, other books by this author; and finally, the overall message of the entire Bible.
Context is key in understanding the Bible. Theologian D. A. Carson has said, “A text without a context is a pretext for a proof text.” Anyone can quote a Bible verse, out of context, and make a case for a particular view or doctrine. This is known as “proof texting”. The great preacher D. Martin Lloyd-Jones wrote,
“…most of the heresies that have troubled the Church throughout her long history have arisen because men and women have forgotten this simple principle. They have taken a text out of its context, and have formulated a doctrine out of it. If they had but taken it in its context they would have been saved from the error they have embraced.”[1]
If we don’t know the context of biblical passages, we may easily succumb to the temptation to find verses that support our own preconceived opinions, feelings, or desires. We could become guilty of reading our own ideas into the text, rather than drawing out of the text what God has revealed.
How do we determine the context?
To determine the context, we are going to ask several questions about our passage and where it is found in the Bible. Keep your Bible open to Psalm 119:1-8. Look at the passage itself and what comes before and after it.
What do you notice about where and how Psalm 119 appears on the page?
Where is Psalm 119 found in the Bible? What do you observe about the book of Psalms as a whole?
Psalm 119 is in the book of Psalms, part of the Old Testament (written before the coming of Christ in the New Testament). Psalms is a collection of 150 ancient Hebrew poems, songs, and prayers that come from different eras in Israel’s history. Seventy-three of these psalms are connected to King David, who was also a poet and harp player (1 Sam. 16; 2 Sam. 23). There were also many other authors involved (Asaph, Sons of Korah, Solomon, etc.). Some of the psalms are anonymous.
If you pay close attention to the headings of the psalms, you’ll notice that in five different places, Bible translators included the headings Book One through Book Five. The whole book of Psalms has been divided into five books or sections (Ps. 1-41; Ps. 42-72; Ps. 73-89; Ps. 90-106, and 107-150), each of them ending with a similar doxology (Psa. 41:13; 72:18-19; 89:52; 106:48; 150:6).
Psalm 119 falls right in the middle of Book Five. The six psalms that precede it are “Hallel” or praise psalms (Psalm 113-118). The fifteen psalms that follow it are Songs of Ascent, or songs and prayers for going up to Jerusalem to worship (Psalm 120-134). So, Psalm 119 is set in the middle of praise, prayer, and worship.
How does this information about Psalms help us in reading Psalm 119?
We can postulate that this psalm was also written with praise, prayer, and worship in mind. It is not just given to inform us, but to move us to devotion to God.
Scripture has a variety of literary styles or genres. In the Bible, we have historical narratives, wisdom sayings, law, prophecy, poetry, gospels, letters, and apocalyptic writings.
What kind of literature is it? (Narrative? Dialogue? Drama? Poetry? Law? Letter? Prophecy?)
Like the rest of the book of Psalms, Psalm 119 is poetry. Many of the Psalms were put to music and sung or chanted in both private and corporate prayer and worship. If you examine it closely, you will find that Hebrew poetry is characterized by parallelism, where successive lines or verses express a similar idea in different ways, or one line contrasts with or completes the other.
Notice these three kinds of parallelism found in Psalm 119:
Synonymous parallelism – The second line expresses the same idea as the first line in different words. Look at Psalm 119:2. There you see that “Who seek Him with the whole heart!” (2b) is another way of saying, “those who keep His testimonies” (2a). Another example is Psalm 119:15, “I will meditate on Your precepts, And contemplate Your ways.” “Contemplate Your ways” is just another way of saying “mediate on Your precepts”.
Antithetic parallelism – The second line contrasts with the first line. “Before I was afflicted I went astray, But now I keep Your word.” (Psalm 119:67). “Before” contrasts with “But now” and “I went astray” contrasts with “I keep Your word”.
Synthetic parallelism – The second line completes or complements the first line. Look at the familiar verse, “Your word I have hidden in my heart, That I might not sin against You.” (Psalm 119:11). The second line complete the first by telling the result or purpose of hiding God’s word in my heart.
Hebrew poetry also features vivid imagery and metaphor, repetition for emphasis, and a unique rhythm created by parallelism, not by meter and rhyming like in English poetry. These characteristics make it a rich and complex form of literature, full of deep rational, emotional, and spiritual substance.
How is Psalm 119 divided into sections? (See Psalm 119:1, 9, 17, 25, …)
Psalm 119 is an acrostic or alphabetic psalm with 22 stanzas, one for each letter of the Hebrew alphabet. Each stanza has eight verses and the first word of each verse in a stanza begins with the same letter. The first eight verses all begin with Aleph (Psalm 119:1-8), the second stanza with Beth (Psalm 119:9-16), the third stanza with Gimel (Psalm 119:17-24), and so forth through the last letter, Tau (Psalm 119:169-176). So, 8 verses times 22 stanzas gives us the 176 verses. You might say that Psalm 119 gives us the A to Z of the Bible, because the theme of every stanza and each verse is the word of God.
Does Psalm 119 indicate anything about the author?
The author of Psalm 119 is not named. If we had time to read through the whole psalm today we would learn some things about the author. He often refers to afflictions (Psalm 119:67, 71, 143, 153); persecutions (Psalm 119:61, 86, 95, 110, 121, 134, 157, 161); and plots, slanders, or taunts against him (Psalm 119:23, 42, 51, 150). The reality of persecution and affliction faced by the man devoted to God and His word is a recurring theme in Psalm 119. Because of this, most Bible scholars think that it was written by David (at least 73 of the Psalms are attributed to David). Some have speculated that Ezra, Daniel, or Jeremiah wrote it. Each of these godly men suffered serious difficulties in his life that may fit the author of Psalm 119.
Can we tell when or where Psalm 119 was written?
Theologically, we know that God is the ultimate author of all scripture.
16 All Scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness, 17 that the man of God may be complete, thoroughly equipped for every good work. (2 Tim. 3:16-17).
The Holy Spirit of God moved men of God to write His word and so that every word is from the Lord.
20 knowing this first, that no prophecy of Scripture is of any private interpretation (or origin, NKJV footnote), 21 for prophecy never came by the will of man, but holy men of God spoke as they were moved by the Holy Spirit. (2 Pet. 1:20-21).
Does Psalm 119 indicate anything about who it was written for?
Although Psalm 119 does not specify an audience, the collection of the psalms was published for the benefit of all Israelites. These songs formed the spiritual music collection of the nation. From the first and last verses of Psalm 119 itself we can see that it is addressed to “the undefiled in the way, Who walk in the law of the Lord” (Psalm 119:1), but also for the “servant” of God who has “gone astray like a lost sheep” (Psalm 119:176). All of us certainly fall between those descriptions. As Paul says, all scripture is written for our benefit.
What we have been doing here is asking questions about the setting or context of our text, Psalm 119:1-8.
Why is it important to ask questions about the passage before and while you read it?
To properly observe Scripture, we must become spiritually inquisitive. Jesus’ disciples were constantly asking Him questions to better understand what He taught them. On your Bible journey, seek to have the mind of an explorer, not just a tourist on vacation. The difference between an explorer and a tourist is that the tourist travels quickly, stopping only to see the highly noticeable or publicized points of interest. The explorer, however, takes his time to diligently search out and observe all that he can find. What’s the old commercial say? “Inquiring minds want to know.” Be inquisitive. Be curious. As you observe the text, prayerfully ask questions about it.
To discover the context and meaning of a passage, train yourself to constantly ask the “Five Ws and an H.” Ask, Who? What? When? Where? Why? and How?[2]
Five Ws and H
Who: Who is the author of the text? Who was this text originally written to?
What: What is the historical background? What type of writing is this—narrative, prophecy, letter, sermon, song, prayer, quotation, etc.? What is the immediate context of the passage? What exactly is being said? What is the theme or purpose of the writing? What does the writing mean?
When: When was this written or when will this promise be fulfilled? Are there any time references in the text such as before, after, until, then, when, at that time, immediately, etc.?
Where: Where in the Bible and book does the text lie? Where was this text written? Where is the narrative taking place?
Why: Why was this written? Are there any purpose clauses (these typically begin with so, because, to, for, so that, etc.) which help us discern the author’s purpose in writing a specific text?
How: How does this passage connect with other teachings in Scripture? How should this passage be applied? How should I pray from this passage?
Learning how to ask good questions doesn’t come naturally. It’s something, like any good muscle, must be exercised to see profit from. Another tip in asking good questions is to ask open-ended questions. A “fill-in-the-blank” question will usually give you a one-word answer. So ask questions that give room for response.
See how much you can learn about a text just by asking a few questions! These questions help us to determine the context, the genre, the author, the audience, and the situation of the Bible passage. And we have not even considered what the text says yet! We will also use these types of questions as we observe the text itself to determine what it says, what it means, and how to apply it to our lives.
Now, depending on the Holy Spirit of God who inspired it, let’s prayerfully …
C. Read the text.
1 ALEPH. Blessed are the undefiled in the way,
Who walk in the law of the LORD!
2 Blessed are those who keep His testimonies,
Who seek Him with the whole heart!
3 They also do no iniquity;
They walk in His ways.
4 You have commanded us
To keep Your precepts diligently.
5 Oh, that my ways were directed
To keep Your statutes!
6 Then I would not be ashamed,
When I look into all Your commandments.
7 I will praise You with uprightness of heart,
When I learn Your righteous judgments.
8 I will keep Your statutes;
Oh, do not forsake me utterly! (Psalm 119:1-8).
How should we read the text?
Make sure you have a good Bible translation that you can easily read. Because our next step will be to make observations about the text, you may want to write or print out the passage on a page where you can mark it or make notes. Take your time. Read prayerfully, slowly, deliberately, diligently, and repeatedly.
As we have already seen, reading the text in context is essential. So, you may need to read the whole book or chapter again before you concentrate on the particular passage you are studying.
Why is it important to read the text more than once?
Often it helps to read the text several times at once or several times over a period of days. Since Scripture is living and active (Hebrews 4:12; 1 Peter 1:23), we will find that God continually meets us in the text, no matter how many times we’ve read it before.
Sometimes it helps to read from different translations. There are many good English translations available both in print and digitally. By reading and comparing various translations, you will often find subtle differences that may aid you in understanding the text. You can read any English translation to compare, but I suggest you study from a good modern literal translation like the NKJV, NASB, ESV, CSB, or LSB.
If you are proficient in the original languages, you may want to read the passage in the original Hebrew or Greek. Even if you are not very familiar with the biblical languages, there are good interlinear tools that will give you a more literal rendering of the text. In a later lesson I will talk about some of these tools. If you can’t wait ‘til then, ask me about it after class.
So, the first step in our Bible Study is to prayerfully read the text in the context. Here you are trying to get the big picture, the birds-eye view. Looking from above, you can see the whole forest of the Bible and how your particular branch passage from a specific tree fits in it. There is no substitute for prayerfully reading the scripture for yourself. Take your time. Read carefully. Contemplate what you read. Let it sink deep into your mind and heart.
The great preacher Charles Spurgeon gave this advice on how to enjoy Bible reading …
“True Bible-readers and Bible-searchers never find it wearisome. They like it least who know it least, and they love it most who read it most. They find it newest who have known it longest, and they find the pasture to be the richest whose souls have been the longest fed upon it. When one of our missionaries had to read a certain Book of the Old Testament through a hundred times while he was translating it, he said that he certainly enjoyed the hundredth time of reading it more than he did the first, for he understood it better, and it seemed to him to be fuller and fresher the more familiar he became with it.”[3]
What is the secret to enjoy reading your Bible? The secret to enjoy Bible reading, according to Spurgeon, is to read your Bible. Too simple? Perhaps. But it is truth, nonetheless. The more you read Scripture, the more you fall in love with Scripture. “Blessed are those who keep His testimonies, Who seek Him with the whole heart!” (Psalm 119:2).
Click here to download PDF: How to Study the Bible Part 1 handout
——————————————–
[1] D. Martin Lloyd-Jones, Christian Unity – Studies in Ephesians, page 14, quoted on https://www.preceptaustin.org/observation. The whole text can be found at https://archive.org/details/christianunityex0000lloy/page/14/mode/2up?q=%22a+certain+value%22
[2] Gregory Brown, The Bible Teacher’s Guide, Lesson 12: Observation, https://bible.org/seriespage/lesson-12-observation
[3] C. H. Spurgeon, “God’s Thoughts and Ours,” (April 20, 1911) in The Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit Sermons, vol. 57 (London: Passmore & Alabaster, 1911), 188.
