(If you want further clarification of anything herein, ask. If you want to add a tip, welcome. If you want to argue, disagree, or refute, say whatever you like but don't expect me to respond.)
Divide the Word
�Study to show thyself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth.� 2 Timothy 2:15
MY BUDDY PAUL and I don�t get to see each other often, so whenever we do get together, we sit up through most of the night solving the world�s knottier problems. During one midnight-to-four discussion, my little pal became a Christian � born again, on fire, hot to trot, with nothing half-way about his commitment to Jesus. We were both away from home at a convention. When we got back to our homes, Paul called me from Illinois:
�First thing I did when I got home was to go out and buy a Bible. How do you read this thing?�
Paul�s question wasn�t comical, but I had to laugh. You have to laugh at some things, just to keep from crying about them. How, indeed, does one read the Bible to get anything but confusion out of it? The Bible stumps everyone who meets it. The trouble is, most of us then turn to books and guides written about what the Bible says and means. The catch-all name for these dubious helps is commentaries.
No one has ever described their value better than an old Negro preacher in the South, one of my unmet heroes. This dear Brother preached powerful sermons, so when his bishop came down on a visit, the bishop was appalled to find that the Bible was all that our Brother had to preach from. When the bishop got back to church headquarters, he sent this preacher a set of commentaries to make ministry easier for him.
On his next visit a year later, the bishop asked our Brother, �What did you think of those books I sent you? �
�Oh, good books � good books! They�s a bit dim in spots, but the scripture throws a lot of light in there.�
That Brother, dear to my heart although we never met, had his heart turned right, his head screwed on right, and his priorities exactly right. He is all too rare in the church; for centuries, church leaders up to and including bishops and popes have reigned, ruled, and established their dogma without ever studying the Bible.
Long before Hugo of Saint Victor stated it as an official rule in these words during the Middle Ages, the official church practice was �Learn first what you should believe, and then go to the Bible to find it there.� This attitude or approach has long been the standard foundation for the commentaries. I no longer own any commentary � they blocked accurate understanding of the Bible more than they helped. Too often, they clearly needed the brilliant flame of scripture to burn away some stupidly wrong �explanation� of scripture that didn�t need to be explained in the first place.
Born again at the age of five, I was also an intense reader as I grew up. But no matter how often or how hard I tried, I couldn�t �get into� the Bible. It just confused me. The first couple of times I tried to go to seminary, I didn�t make it. To make up for not being able to take seminary courses on the Bible, I bought every book and study guide and correspondence course that I could find to help me study the Bible. But they all suffered from the same two basic, major flaws:
� Their authors had long since forgotten how much they didn�t already know when they first tried to study the Bible, so they assumed that all their readers knew a lot more than I did.
� They all swung every study around to their special theological slants, which often required some twisted, illogical reasoning and verbal gymnastics to get around something that the Bible said that didn�t fit their theme.
Next, I tried reading the authoritative writings of all the major church denominations. While I was studying the theology of one denominational persuasion, I saw that they had the right slant on things � but then to be fair, I read everything that I could find on the other side, too. The next problem was that in studying the theology of the other side, I saw that they had everything nailed down straight, too. No matter how hard I tried to figure out which of any two opposites was right, I found myself agreeing completely with whichever side I was studying at the moment.
Obviously, I knew too little about the Bible to see where the world�s best Christian theologians had �missed it� in interpreting the Bible. Just as obviously, some of their theology had to be wrong: they disagreed with each other, and the writings on one side often clearly disputed the other side�s theology on the same subject. It was clear to me that comparative theology, no matter how widely and deeply and carefully I studied it, could clarify nothing.
I had no choice. The Lord had boxed me in. I had to learn how to deal with the Bible on its own terms. By that time, I�d had some cracking good graduate study in literary analysis � mainly the �let the book itself tell you what it means� approach. As it turns out, this is both the easiest and the safest way to study the Bible. It�s natural that we want to look to others for help � but it�s also natural and even inevitable for others to mislead or deceive us sooner or later, whether or not they intend to.
�Then what do we do? Do you mean to say that every Christian has to be a Bible scholar?�
No.
But every Christian should know his teachers and something of how they figure out what they say that the Bible says and means. Every Christian who becomes a teacher owes God and those he teaches the diligent care and attention of responsible Bible scholarship. Any �teacher� who shirks this basic duty is the parrot in the Mexican proverb El perico dice lo que sabe pero no sabe lo que dice � �The parrot says what he knows but doesn�t know what he says.�
Every Christian, including teachers, should listen only to teachers whom he knows to be sound, diligent Bible scholars and should tune out all the Bible-babblers with their funny little axes to grind. I studied for a while several years ago under a famous teacher who recommended using your imagination as you read scripture (not just to �see� in your mind what the scripture presents, which is legitimate, but to �see� what the Holy Spirit has left out). He was teaching things that his imagination had inserted into Genesis 2 and 3 when he came to the old notion that Adam wasn�t with Eve when the serpent beguiled her and she ate of the forbidden fruit. He said that Eve was alone with the serpent. The point that he wanted to make � which I�ve forgotten, now � hinged on the assumption that Adam was off somewhere else, doing his own thing.
When I pointed-out that Genesis 3:6 says �she took of the fruit thereof, and did eat, and gave also unto her husband with her: and he did eat,� this �Bible� teacher slapped that point aside with this astonishing answer: �Yes, I know it says that, there � but I think she was alone then and went to Adam later.�
When any Bible teacher puts I think ahead of it is written, he�s no longer teaching the word of God in faith and truth. He�s teaching another word, his own. Alerted by this, I then noticed that this famous teacher, under whom I�d been eager to study, had developed the habit of teaching his own word (and his wife�s) and setting God�s scriptures aside when they got in the way.
�Study and be eager and do your utmost to present yourself to God approved (tested by trial), a workman who has no cause to be ashamed, correctly analyzing and accurately dividing � rightly handling and skillfully teaching � the Word of Truth.� 2 Timothy 2:15 (The Amplified Bible)
In this advice from Paul to Timothy, the word that the King James Version renders "rightly dividing" is orthotomeo, literally "cut straight." Jesus as a carpenter and Paul as a tent-maker would use this word often in teaching an apprentice to cut shelves for a cupboard or panels for a tent � saw the wood or cut the fabric straight along the lines laid-out on the pattern. In wood, fabric, or scripture, each piece that you cut from the raw must fit exactly every other piece in the whole cupboard, tent, or context. There�s a world of difference between cutting-out a bunch of pieces �by eye� or at random and cutting them out along the lines that the Master has drawn.
In this chapter, I�ll give you a simple plan for what you should consider your personal minimum course of Bible study � essentially, reading and repeatedly rereading at least the New Testament and preferably the entire Bible. You may want to go a little or far beyond this minimum. You must, if you teach or preach or prophesy even a little now and then. So this chapter will also cover the basics of higher study, which you should read so that you�ll at least know what minimum standards you should hold your teachers to.
Read this chapter more than once. Don�t expect yourself to soak it all up in one trip through. The time will come when you must step outside the Bible, to study other books for light on what the Bible says and means. But not for a while. The basic rule of Bible study is that you have to know what it says before you can know what it means. Writers through many centuries have written libraries about what it means � the trouble is that they not only contradict each other but also contradict the Bible. Also, if you start with spoon-fed meanings and then look to see what the Bible says, you�ll see those meanings there whether they�re really there or not. You�ll believe a bunch of things that aren�t so, and you�ll be confused about a bunch of others.
The correct general order in practical Bible study is �
� Learn what the Bible says, not what others say it says.
� Learn what these things mean.
� See how these meanings apply to us (including you).
� Live by these and reject all contradictory opinions, traditions, and doctrines, whatever may be their claim of �authority.�
This course of study isn�t an overnight process nor even a four-year process. It stops when you stop it � but even then, it won�t be complete. No man can ever know the entirety of the Bible and its meanings and their significance to us. But each of us must learn what he can, and let the Body-wide variety of our understanding and practice of these truths edify us all. There�s always more for any of us to know; consider this the richness that lies waiting for you, not a formidable barrier that you can never get across. (It doesn�t bother you, when you eat out, that you can�t possibly eat everything that the restaurant cooks and serves that day!)
To learn and know the Bible and what it means, look first to the Bible � and for a while, only to the Bible. Once you learn how to study it � a process that�s simple enough in principle � you�ll find it to be the clear, brilliant beacon that lights up the dimmest corners of the commentaries and the darkest crannies of denominational dogma. You�ll wonder, again and again, how the meanings of certain passages can be so clear to you and yet so stubbornly ignored or even denounced by one church denomination or another.
The difficulties in studying the Bible come from the gulfs that we have to swim across to get over to its meanings. It was clear and simple to the people whom it was written to, but we live on another side of the world, not only thousands of miles away but also separated from those people by great gulfs of culture and language as well as centuries.
We have to study to learn about things that were as familiar to them as cars and electric lights are to us. We have to learn, from scholars, words that were every-day language to illiterate young sheepherders in the Jud�an hills. If we start with the King James Version, even this old form of English is strange, foreign, and difficult � across another gulf from us.
Once we start getting the hang of these, the gates of the Bible start creaking open for us, and out comes a welcoming delegation of angels led by the Holy Spirit to give us a guided tour that will go on as long as we�re willing to follow our Guide around.
He will show us living dramas, battles, adventure, intrigue, travel, love stories, and every-day life that are as lively and clear and exciting as a circus or a rodeo. More � He will show us how to avoid the dark side of eternity and how we can enjoy its glorious side, in a life that will far surpass all the drama and glory and wonder that the Bible reveals.
But all these are meant only for the dedicated participant, so they�re veiled from the view of the casual visitor. Once you demonstrate your dedication through careful, repeated study and continual prayer for the guidance of the Holy Spirit, the veils slide to the ground. He knows the differences between the receptive heart of the disciple, the shallow heart of the casual visitor, and the rebellious heart of the skeptic.
Many beginners like to compare several translations or versions of the Bible. �Parallel� New Testaments, single-volume printings of more than one version in side-by-side columns, are popular � and useful when you�ve learned enough of the Bible to use them properly. Comparing �translations� to decide which rendering you like best is not Bible study but a sure road to deception. No part of the Bible is a taste test or a popularity contest.
After careful word studies (not limited to the key English words) have made the intended meaning of the original passage clear, compare several renderings to see which if any is accurate. An excellent three-volume set for this kind of Bible study, AMG Publishers� Twenty-Six Translations of The Bible, is useful to help set the meanings of key passages clearly in your understanding. It�s also useful in teaching others the intended original meanings of studied passages.
Despite its sometimes awkward language for the modern reader and the numerous flaws in its translation, I strongly recommend that you use the King James Version (KJV) as your basic textbook. It�s still one of the best for sound study.
First, even with its mistranslations and the normal changes in the meanings of some English words since AD 1611, the KJV is still one of the most accurate and dependable translations of all. Most modern translations adopt all the old KJV errors and add new ones of their own, especially in their �translations� of passages that refer to the deity of Christ.
Many newer versions include some denominationally biased interpretations that violate the original meanings of the passages that they allegedly translate. Another reason for using the KJV is that nearly all the best references � concordances, dictionaries, linguistic keys, lexicons, grammars � are keyed to the KJV.
A Bible student of mine, who has gone on far beyond his old teacher, recommends the New American Standard Bible (especially the study version called The Discovery Bible), since it retains the values of the KJV and corrects many of its inaccuracies. Its excellent companion volume for study is the New American Standard Exhaustive Concordance, which similarly retains the strength of Strong�s concordance. I haven�t seen either of these volumes, but I know what criteria govern my Brother�s recommendation and trust his judgement completely.
For your first several readings for background and over-all context, a modern English version will make your reading easier. The Living Bible and the New International Version are good.
Good News for Modern Man or Today�s English Version, which is also available under other titles, is a disaster in spite of all its ballyhoo about being a dependable translation. It isn�t. (If you have a copy, check its rendering of the key verses that I�m about to list.)
I use three key verses to get a quick idea of how reliable any new version of the New Testament is: John 1:1, Philippians 2:6, and Colossians 2:9. Any �translation� that plays fast and loose with any of these isn�t one that I can trust to handle other key verses responsibly and accurately. If the �translator� has trouble with the deity of Christ, his hang-up on that fact usually shows in his handling of these verses. Here, for example, are key excerpts from four that have �em right, according to the literal meanings of the original Greek texts:
� � the Word was God Himself.� John 1:1, The New Testament: A Translation in the Language of the People, Charles B Williams
� � did not cling to his prerogatives as God�s equal ...� Philippians 2:6, The New Testament in Modern English, J B Phillips
� � did not reckon equality with God something to be forcibly retained ...� Philippians 2:6, The Centenary Translation: The New Testament in Modern English, Helen Barrett Montgomery
�For in Christ there is all of God in a human body.� Colossians 2:9, The Living Bible, Kenneth N Taylor
(One of the great ironies of modern Bible versions is that the honest Doctor Taylor calls his rendering of the Bible a �paraphrase� and then gives us a more reliable translation than most of those whose perpetrators thump drums and toot horns about how scholarly and accurate their �translations� are.)
Before you dig into word studies and topical studies, you�ll need a Bible that you can depend on. Few people can read the Septuagint (the Old Testament in Greek) and the Greek New Testament, so one of the best choices for study is still the KJV supplemented with its generally dependable references to the Greek originals.
The most important aspect of Bible study isn�t word studies, nor even topical studies � both of which are essential but not the place to start. The most important key of all is context, which is simply another word for the over-all background of the specific people, events, teachings, etc. Context is the entire body of the Bible�s meaning, the entire background against which we see and examine each and all of its foreground details. Keep in mind these two levels of context � over-all and immediate � and you�ll have the most useful of all Bible-study tools always handy.
The immediate context of a word, phrase, sentence, verse, or discussion is the larger passage that it�s a part of. The sentence that a word is in is the most immediate context of that word. The immediate context of the sentence is the paragraph that it�s in, the chapter that paragraph is in, then the book that chapter is in. The immediate context of a teaching or statement or question includes who is saying it to whom, where they are, what�s going on at the time, and what brought all this about.
Nothing in the Bible has any meaning that�s independent of its immediate context, though virtually everything in the Bible has meanings that transcend their immediate scriptural and covenant contexts.
By the way � be especially wary of the pitfalls that lie hidden under the simple, innocent, useful division of the Bible into chapters and verses. Verse division is not a part of the divine inspiration that gave us the Bible. This practical innovation bears the vintage label of about AD 1550 � not a good year for Bible students, as it turns out. Verses printed like Wheat Chex imply that no bite-size morsel is part of any other, that they can exist loosely associated, and that whichever order they may come out of the box makes no difference in their meanings.
Keep in mind that the Bible�s chapter and verse divisions are reference numbers exactly like (in principle) the page numbers and grid references in a Rand McNally road atlas. Just as 56, G-4 is the location reference for one of my favorite towns, which exists inseparable from its county and state, Matthew 16:18 is the location reference for a certain centrally important statement that�s equally inseparable from its verse, chapter, and book.
Some verses are even just parts of longer sentences, and at least one chapter break in the New Testament cuts a sentence apart. Several chapter and verse breaks are terribly poorly chosen. The first sentence in Acts 8:1, for example, clearly belongs right smack after Acts 7:60, not across a bridge from it. It�s like a child who wandered off the street into a row house exactly like its home but a block down the street, got caught there during the census, and has to live there away from its family.
Over-all context is just a wider range of the surrounding scriptures. The entire Bible and God�s entire plan are the over-all context of every word, every teaching, every truth in the Bible. Every piece in this huge structure fits with all the others. Nothing is out of place. Whenever anything seems to be out of place, you can be sure that either you don�t yet understand it at all, or you understand it wrong.
To get your first grip on context, just read. Don�t study � read. Don�t take notes, don�t ask questions, don�t look up words � just read.
The English-language Bible survives a multitude of falsely and mistakenly and weakly translated words simply on the strength of its context. What your first readings give you is not details � which you can easily get wrong or get confused by � but settings, generalities, background, a basic but still largely unfocused sense of what�s going on. When you�ve learned the crucial importance of context, you�ll notice how often one simple look at the context of a particular passage corrects doctrinal errors in the way that passage is generally used.
For as long as I can remember, I�ve heard lessons and sermons, and read devotionals, on the notion that when Jesus says, in John 15:13, �Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends,� He�s speaking of Himself, referring to when He�ll soon lay down His life for His friends � and that His friends are all mankind. But in the next verse, Jesus Himself drastically limits the range of His friends: �Ye are my friends, if ye do whatsoever I command you.�
Almost as common and equally wrong is the old notion that on the day of Pentecost, the hundred and twenty disciples in Jerusalem were all together in the upper room when the Holy Spirit came to them. The context of Acts 2:1�2 clearly shows that they were somewhere else. The only mention of the upper room, in Acts 1:13, refers to where the surviving eleven apostles �abode,� and two obvious context dividers break this over-all account into three parts:
Acts 1:13 says that they abode in an upper room. Looking back to find who they were, you�ll find the antecedent of this pronoun in Acts 1:2, the apostles whom he had chosen. Then, right after mention of their upper room, Acts 1:13 lists these eleven by name.
Acts 1:15 begins a new phase in the account with And in those days, when Peter spoke to a hundred and twenty disciples, but says nothing about where they were. Surely they weren�t in the upper room where the eleven apostles stayed. The Bible doesn�t say where they were.
Acts 2:1 begins yet another new phase in the account with And when the day of Pentecost was fully come, they were all with one accord in one place � another day, the same hundred and twenty, in another place.
Notice how the context dividers (and in those days and and when the day of Pentecost was fully come) show that the upper room, the hundred and twenty, and the day of Pentecost are parts of three separate subcontexts.
Generations of Christians have thought (and have even been taught) that Acts 8:4 refers to the apostles in they that were scattered abroad went every where preaching the word. But Acts 8:1b reveals otherwise: �and they were all scattered abroad � except the apostles.
Context!
Read the Bible often, again and again, even after you�ve become an outstanding authority on what it says and what it means and you now teach it in a Bible school or seminary. Read it clear through, both the Old and the New Testaments, at least once a year. More often is better. Read the New Testament once a month.
The New Testament is the basic spiritual handbook for Christians. It supersedes the Old Testament, which is sort of an appendix that happens to be appended to the front of the New instead of at the back of it. The New Testament doesn�t make the Old Testament obsolete or even less important. The New Testament is clearer, In the New Testament, God has further explained what He presented more symbolically and mysteriously in the Old Testament.
At the same time, the episodes and personalities and relationships in the Old Testament illustrate God�s truths that weren�t so clear until He gave us Jesus and the New Testament. The Old Testament shows us much of what God is like, what He likes and hates � still crucial to us, since He doesn�t change.
In the New Testament, Jesus is the center and the key. The first four books � Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John � give us all that we have of His visit to Earth � His human background, what He taught, whom He taught, what He did here, what He revealed of His will for the future (which is today to us), and what happened to Him. The rest of the New Testament books from Acts up to Revelation explain further, showing the effects or results of (a) following Jesus and His way faithfully, and (b) not following Him so carefully. Revelation looks ahead to the future with the solid reassurance that no matter what has gone wrong, Jesus is still the Master and forever will be.
Now read, read, read! Start with any of the first four books of the New Testament and simply read it all the way through. Go on to Acts, then to Romans, and on through the others in order, to Revelation. You can either read or omit Revelation for now. Try it, if you want to, then if the going gets too rough for you, leave it for later. Just read through all the other books of the New Testament as fast as you can.
One very special experience is worth everything you can put into it, if you can arrange it. I recommend this, emphatically � get records or tapes of the New Testament and listen to them while you read along at the same pace. Just be sure that the tapes and the New Testament are the same translation. I once read the New Testament from Matthew 1:1 through Revelation 22:21 (that�s the whole thing!) in three long days, stopping only to eat, sleep, and go down the hall when I had to.
This exquisitely rich project wouldn�t have taken so long if I�d simply been reading and listening � I was transcribing a set of very faulty old records onto audio tapes and had to stop now and then to back up and rerecord when the record needle stuck in a groove or skipped grooves.
That was years ago, and for all these years since, I�ve meant to repeat that wonderfully blessed exercise � taking notes this time, not messing around with a record player and a tape recorder. Back then, I noticed connections and relationships that I should�ve written down, but transcribing the sound from the records onto tapes was the project of the moment, and I couldn�t turn aside to make notes whenever I wanted to.
(This would be an excellent way for a group without a teacher to study the New Testament if everybody can discipline himself to keep quiet while the tape is playing. Chatter would be ruinously distracting. Take the 'phone off the hook, too.)
Remember, you�re not studying yet. You�re simply getting the lay of the land, the same way that you might get your first look at a forested mountain from a high aircraft before you come back later for a lower reconnaissance flight in a helicopter, and still later hike in � several times � from below.
Next, pick one of the other three of the first four books, read it through as fast as you can, and go on through Acts, Romans, etc, again. Then go back to the beginning, take on another of the first four books, go on through, up to Revelation or through it, and wind-up your first lesson by reading the fourth of the first four books and on through to Revelation again.
Now you have the gist of the New Testament, and you have begun to pick-up what some of its details mean in over-all context. In your second read-through, it might be wise to start making notes as you begin to see, for example, connections between something that Luke wrote in Luke and something that Paul wrote in 1 Corinthians.
Now you�re a Bible student. You�re still in the first week of your first grade, of course, but you�re a Bible student on your way to deeper studies and fuller understanding that won�t have been mashed, strained, and fed to you in spoonfuls like little bottles of apple sauce for babies.
As context makes the over-all meanings of the New Testament become clear to you, it also brings the puzzling details into sharper focus. Also, it shows you the best routes toward solving the puzzles that you�ve run into. By simply reading and repeatedly rereading, you will begin to develop the several levels of understanding that open the Bible to you more and more as you go on. If you find what seem to be two opposite truths in the Bible, don�t try to decide on your own which of the two is right or wrong. Accept them both in faith as God�s truth, in His name. Then one (or both) of two things will happen �
� The Bible itself, after further study, will clarify the picture and show you where and how you�ve misunderstood one or the other, that they aren�t really contradictory;
or
� you�ll find that they both are indeed true but not contradictory.
They may be opposite sides of the same truth, or they may be truths that apply separately somehow � under separate conditions, to different people, at different times, etc. What you thought was a troublesome contradiction may turn-out to be a vital distinction between two points or two matters.
I�m sure that much false doctrine and their derivative or resulting divisions have afflicted the Body for centuries through the invasion of this virus of men�s deciding for themselves which of two truths they prefer when they should�ve embraced both at the same time with equally fervent welcome and waiting faithfully for the Holy Spirit and further study to clarify the matter accurately.
Let the Holy Spirit leave you confused for a while, if He thinks that�ll help you grow, and let Him decide when it�s time for Him to straighten-out your understanding of the matter. It isn�t likely that you�ll get it right on your own initiative and wisdom alone.
Get a red-letter edition of the New Testament � one that has the words of Jesus (more or less) printed in red. In one sitting if you can manage it, read only the red print in Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. (Just remember this caution: [i\the red print is not holy or inspired[/i]. This special touch came from a Christian magazine�s subscription promotion in the early years of the twentieth century. It isn�t entirely accurate � in at least one place, it has some of John�s words (not Jesus's) in red � but it�s mighty handy as a tool for studying the New Testament.) Read these selected passages again and again to get the full impact of Jesus�s words.
You should now begin to see what the Lord�s most important key words are and get some idea what they meant to Him and to those whom He spoke them to.
You should also begin to see what the Lord�s most important statements are, and you should start to get a feel for their relative importance to each other. You should begin to see how the Lord backs-up, supports, and [i]explains His most important statements.
You should begin to see how the Lord�s teachings applied to His people then � and you should begin to sense how they apply to you and to all the rest of us today.
In your very first reading, you can see connections only between what you�re reading then and what you have already read. This limitation affects your understanding of what you�re reading, because you can�t yet connect anything that you�ve already read with the parts that you haven�t read yet. As you read on, and once you�ve read clear through the New Testament a time or two, the category �already read� includes the entire New Testament � so you�ll begin to see ahead as well as behind, wherever you read in the New Testament.
As you get a better and better grasp of the �big picture,� you�ll automatically start picking-up details and their connections � and you'll probably have developed a robust curiosity about several of them. Meaningful patterns of thought, action, plan, purpose, and relationship will emerge on their own. You won�t have to dig for them. When you notice this happening, it�s time to start thinking a little more systematically as you read.
Whatever else you may do, don�t set up any conclusions or expectations of your own � or anybody else�s � and then try to see how the Bible explains, �gets around,� or otherwise handles them. Let the book itself tell you what it means. Your systematic study, for the moment, should be simple in principle and outline to avoid letting some mental rigidity keep you from seeing what should be bright and clear before you in the Bible�s own words. When you move beyond simply reading and repeatedly rereading, follow these guide lines (chosen and limited to let the Bible speak for itself) �
� Read Matthew, Mark, Luke, John � at least one in depth, preferably all four, in any order. Get the over-all picture first, then look closely at its details.
� Read all the first four books of the New Testament one after another, again and again.
� Concentrate on Jesus�s words, with secondary attention to the authors� words, but don�t ignore the events told about or the words of other persons in these accounts.
� Notice what Jesus says clearly, what He says that�s somehow less clear, what He emphasizes, what He mentions without explaining, and what He doesn�t say.
� Resist the tendency (for now) to puzzle or wonder about the less-clear passages, accounts, and teachings. Instead, pay close attention to the clear passages. Clear teachings will in time clarify the cloudy passages.
The urge to pry meanings out of certain passages will be great and become greater as you read. The more eager you are to learn, the worse you�ll want to hammer some meaning flat and nail it down so �that it move not� before you go on with your basic background reading.
Careful! This is a test!
Satan gives it, through self, and God grades you on how well you can lay self firmly aside and go on in patience and faith � and on whether you can. This is an opportunity to practice obedient faith � to learn how to trust Him, to leave all things in His hands without worrying about them or insisting that you must know how or when He plans to make them clear to you. Self says, �I have to know now!� Faith says, �I�ll sure like to know what this means, when You get around to showing me, Lord!�
�Our own curiosity often hinders us in the reading of the Scriptures, when we desire to understand and discuss that which we should instead pass over.� Thomas � Kempis (ca 1380�1471)
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(the rest later � how soon, I can't even guess!)
Divide the Word
�Study to show thyself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth.� 2 Timothy 2:15
MY BUDDY PAUL and I don�t get to see each other often, so whenever we do get together, we sit up through most of the night solving the world�s knottier problems. During one midnight-to-four discussion, my little pal became a Christian � born again, on fire, hot to trot, with nothing half-way about his commitment to Jesus. We were both away from home at a convention. When we got back to our homes, Paul called me from Illinois:
�First thing I did when I got home was to go out and buy a Bible. How do you read this thing?�
Paul�s question wasn�t comical, but I had to laugh. You have to laugh at some things, just to keep from crying about them. How, indeed, does one read the Bible to get anything but confusion out of it? The Bible stumps everyone who meets it. The trouble is, most of us then turn to books and guides written about what the Bible says and means. The catch-all name for these dubious helps is commentaries.
No one has ever described their value better than an old Negro preacher in the South, one of my unmet heroes. This dear Brother preached powerful sermons, so when his bishop came down on a visit, the bishop was appalled to find that the Bible was all that our Brother had to preach from. When the bishop got back to church headquarters, he sent this preacher a set of commentaries to make ministry easier for him.
On his next visit a year later, the bishop asked our Brother, �What did you think of those books I sent you? �
�Oh, good books � good books! They�s a bit dim in spots, but the scripture throws a lot of light in there.�
That Brother, dear to my heart although we never met, had his heart turned right, his head screwed on right, and his priorities exactly right. He is all too rare in the church; for centuries, church leaders up to and including bishops and popes have reigned, ruled, and established their dogma without ever studying the Bible.
Long before Hugo of Saint Victor stated it as an official rule in these words during the Middle Ages, the official church practice was �Learn first what you should believe, and then go to the Bible to find it there.� This attitude or approach has long been the standard foundation for the commentaries. I no longer own any commentary � they blocked accurate understanding of the Bible more than they helped. Too often, they clearly needed the brilliant flame of scripture to burn away some stupidly wrong �explanation� of scripture that didn�t need to be explained in the first place.
Born again at the age of five, I was also an intense reader as I grew up. But no matter how often or how hard I tried, I couldn�t �get into� the Bible. It just confused me. The first couple of times I tried to go to seminary, I didn�t make it. To make up for not being able to take seminary courses on the Bible, I bought every book and study guide and correspondence course that I could find to help me study the Bible. But they all suffered from the same two basic, major flaws:
� Their authors had long since forgotten how much they didn�t already know when they first tried to study the Bible, so they assumed that all their readers knew a lot more than I did.
� They all swung every study around to their special theological slants, which often required some twisted, illogical reasoning and verbal gymnastics to get around something that the Bible said that didn�t fit their theme.
Next, I tried reading the authoritative writings of all the major church denominations. While I was studying the theology of one denominational persuasion, I saw that they had the right slant on things � but then to be fair, I read everything that I could find on the other side, too. The next problem was that in studying the theology of the other side, I saw that they had everything nailed down straight, too. No matter how hard I tried to figure out which of any two opposites was right, I found myself agreeing completely with whichever side I was studying at the moment.
Obviously, I knew too little about the Bible to see where the world�s best Christian theologians had �missed it� in interpreting the Bible. Just as obviously, some of their theology had to be wrong: they disagreed with each other, and the writings on one side often clearly disputed the other side�s theology on the same subject. It was clear to me that comparative theology, no matter how widely and deeply and carefully I studied it, could clarify nothing.
I had no choice. The Lord had boxed me in. I had to learn how to deal with the Bible on its own terms. By that time, I�d had some cracking good graduate study in literary analysis � mainly the �let the book itself tell you what it means� approach. As it turns out, this is both the easiest and the safest way to study the Bible. It�s natural that we want to look to others for help � but it�s also natural and even inevitable for others to mislead or deceive us sooner or later, whether or not they intend to.
�Then what do we do? Do you mean to say that every Christian has to be a Bible scholar?�
No.
But every Christian should know his teachers and something of how they figure out what they say that the Bible says and means. Every Christian who becomes a teacher owes God and those he teaches the diligent care and attention of responsible Bible scholarship. Any �teacher� who shirks this basic duty is the parrot in the Mexican proverb El perico dice lo que sabe pero no sabe lo que dice � �The parrot says what he knows but doesn�t know what he says.�
Every Christian, including teachers, should listen only to teachers whom he knows to be sound, diligent Bible scholars and should tune out all the Bible-babblers with their funny little axes to grind. I studied for a while several years ago under a famous teacher who recommended using your imagination as you read scripture (not just to �see� in your mind what the scripture presents, which is legitimate, but to �see� what the Holy Spirit has left out). He was teaching things that his imagination had inserted into Genesis 2 and 3 when he came to the old notion that Adam wasn�t with Eve when the serpent beguiled her and she ate of the forbidden fruit. He said that Eve was alone with the serpent. The point that he wanted to make � which I�ve forgotten, now � hinged on the assumption that Adam was off somewhere else, doing his own thing.
When I pointed-out that Genesis 3:6 says �she took of the fruit thereof, and did eat, and gave also unto her husband with her: and he did eat,� this �Bible� teacher slapped that point aside with this astonishing answer: �Yes, I know it says that, there � but I think she was alone then and went to Adam later.�
When any Bible teacher puts I think ahead of it is written, he�s no longer teaching the word of God in faith and truth. He�s teaching another word, his own. Alerted by this, I then noticed that this famous teacher, under whom I�d been eager to study, had developed the habit of teaching his own word (and his wife�s) and setting God�s scriptures aside when they got in the way.
�Study and be eager and do your utmost to present yourself to God approved (tested by trial), a workman who has no cause to be ashamed, correctly analyzing and accurately dividing � rightly handling and skillfully teaching � the Word of Truth.� 2 Timothy 2:15 (The Amplified Bible)
In this advice from Paul to Timothy, the word that the King James Version renders "rightly dividing" is orthotomeo, literally "cut straight." Jesus as a carpenter and Paul as a tent-maker would use this word often in teaching an apprentice to cut shelves for a cupboard or panels for a tent � saw the wood or cut the fabric straight along the lines laid-out on the pattern. In wood, fabric, or scripture, each piece that you cut from the raw must fit exactly every other piece in the whole cupboard, tent, or context. There�s a world of difference between cutting-out a bunch of pieces �by eye� or at random and cutting them out along the lines that the Master has drawn.
In this chapter, I�ll give you a simple plan for what you should consider your personal minimum course of Bible study � essentially, reading and repeatedly rereading at least the New Testament and preferably the entire Bible. You may want to go a little or far beyond this minimum. You must, if you teach or preach or prophesy even a little now and then. So this chapter will also cover the basics of higher study, which you should read so that you�ll at least know what minimum standards you should hold your teachers to.
Read this chapter more than once. Don�t expect yourself to soak it all up in one trip through. The time will come when you must step outside the Bible, to study other books for light on what the Bible says and means. But not for a while. The basic rule of Bible study is that you have to know what it says before you can know what it means. Writers through many centuries have written libraries about what it means � the trouble is that they not only contradict each other but also contradict the Bible. Also, if you start with spoon-fed meanings and then look to see what the Bible says, you�ll see those meanings there whether they�re really there or not. You�ll believe a bunch of things that aren�t so, and you�ll be confused about a bunch of others.
The correct general order in practical Bible study is �
� Learn what the Bible says, not what others say it says.
� Learn what these things mean.
� See how these meanings apply to us (including you).
� Live by these and reject all contradictory opinions, traditions, and doctrines, whatever may be their claim of �authority.�
This course of study isn�t an overnight process nor even a four-year process. It stops when you stop it � but even then, it won�t be complete. No man can ever know the entirety of the Bible and its meanings and their significance to us. But each of us must learn what he can, and let the Body-wide variety of our understanding and practice of these truths edify us all. There�s always more for any of us to know; consider this the richness that lies waiting for you, not a formidable barrier that you can never get across. (It doesn�t bother you, when you eat out, that you can�t possibly eat everything that the restaurant cooks and serves that day!)
To learn and know the Bible and what it means, look first to the Bible � and for a while, only to the Bible. Once you learn how to study it � a process that�s simple enough in principle � you�ll find it to be the clear, brilliant beacon that lights up the dimmest corners of the commentaries and the darkest crannies of denominational dogma. You�ll wonder, again and again, how the meanings of certain passages can be so clear to you and yet so stubbornly ignored or even denounced by one church denomination or another.
The difficulties in studying the Bible come from the gulfs that we have to swim across to get over to its meanings. It was clear and simple to the people whom it was written to, but we live on another side of the world, not only thousands of miles away but also separated from those people by great gulfs of culture and language as well as centuries.
We have to study to learn about things that were as familiar to them as cars and electric lights are to us. We have to learn, from scholars, words that were every-day language to illiterate young sheepherders in the Jud�an hills. If we start with the King James Version, even this old form of English is strange, foreign, and difficult � across another gulf from us.
Once we start getting the hang of these, the gates of the Bible start creaking open for us, and out comes a welcoming delegation of angels led by the Holy Spirit to give us a guided tour that will go on as long as we�re willing to follow our Guide around.
He will show us living dramas, battles, adventure, intrigue, travel, love stories, and every-day life that are as lively and clear and exciting as a circus or a rodeo. More � He will show us how to avoid the dark side of eternity and how we can enjoy its glorious side, in a life that will far surpass all the drama and glory and wonder that the Bible reveals.
But all these are meant only for the dedicated participant, so they�re veiled from the view of the casual visitor. Once you demonstrate your dedication through careful, repeated study and continual prayer for the guidance of the Holy Spirit, the veils slide to the ground. He knows the differences between the receptive heart of the disciple, the shallow heart of the casual visitor, and the rebellious heart of the skeptic.
Many beginners like to compare several translations or versions of the Bible. �Parallel� New Testaments, single-volume printings of more than one version in side-by-side columns, are popular � and useful when you�ve learned enough of the Bible to use them properly. Comparing �translations� to decide which rendering you like best is not Bible study but a sure road to deception. No part of the Bible is a taste test or a popularity contest.
After careful word studies (not limited to the key English words) have made the intended meaning of the original passage clear, compare several renderings to see which if any is accurate. An excellent three-volume set for this kind of Bible study, AMG Publishers� Twenty-Six Translations of The Bible, is useful to help set the meanings of key passages clearly in your understanding. It�s also useful in teaching others the intended original meanings of studied passages.
Despite its sometimes awkward language for the modern reader and the numerous flaws in its translation, I strongly recommend that you use the King James Version (KJV) as your basic textbook. It�s still one of the best for sound study.
First, even with its mistranslations and the normal changes in the meanings of some English words since AD 1611, the KJV is still one of the most accurate and dependable translations of all. Most modern translations adopt all the old KJV errors and add new ones of their own, especially in their �translations� of passages that refer to the deity of Christ.
Many newer versions include some denominationally biased interpretations that violate the original meanings of the passages that they allegedly translate. Another reason for using the KJV is that nearly all the best references � concordances, dictionaries, linguistic keys, lexicons, grammars � are keyed to the KJV.
A Bible student of mine, who has gone on far beyond his old teacher, recommends the New American Standard Bible (especially the study version called The Discovery Bible), since it retains the values of the KJV and corrects many of its inaccuracies. Its excellent companion volume for study is the New American Standard Exhaustive Concordance, which similarly retains the strength of Strong�s concordance. I haven�t seen either of these volumes, but I know what criteria govern my Brother�s recommendation and trust his judgement completely.
For your first several readings for background and over-all context, a modern English version will make your reading easier. The Living Bible and the New International Version are good.
Good News for Modern Man or Today�s English Version, which is also available under other titles, is a disaster in spite of all its ballyhoo about being a dependable translation. It isn�t. (If you have a copy, check its rendering of the key verses that I�m about to list.)
I use three key verses to get a quick idea of how reliable any new version of the New Testament is: John 1:1, Philippians 2:6, and Colossians 2:9. Any �translation� that plays fast and loose with any of these isn�t one that I can trust to handle other key verses responsibly and accurately. If the �translator� has trouble with the deity of Christ, his hang-up on that fact usually shows in his handling of these verses. Here, for example, are key excerpts from four that have �em right, according to the literal meanings of the original Greek texts:
� � the Word was God Himself.� John 1:1, The New Testament: A Translation in the Language of the People, Charles B Williams
� � did not cling to his prerogatives as God�s equal ...� Philippians 2:6, The New Testament in Modern English, J B Phillips
� � did not reckon equality with God something to be forcibly retained ...� Philippians 2:6, The Centenary Translation: The New Testament in Modern English, Helen Barrett Montgomery
�For in Christ there is all of God in a human body.� Colossians 2:9, The Living Bible, Kenneth N Taylor
(One of the great ironies of modern Bible versions is that the honest Doctor Taylor calls his rendering of the Bible a �paraphrase� and then gives us a more reliable translation than most of those whose perpetrators thump drums and toot horns about how scholarly and accurate their �translations� are.)
Before you dig into word studies and topical studies, you�ll need a Bible that you can depend on. Few people can read the Septuagint (the Old Testament in Greek) and the Greek New Testament, so one of the best choices for study is still the KJV supplemented with its generally dependable references to the Greek originals.
The most important aspect of Bible study isn�t word studies, nor even topical studies � both of which are essential but not the place to start. The most important key of all is context, which is simply another word for the over-all background of the specific people, events, teachings, etc. Context is the entire body of the Bible�s meaning, the entire background against which we see and examine each and all of its foreground details. Keep in mind these two levels of context � over-all and immediate � and you�ll have the most useful of all Bible-study tools always handy.
The immediate context of a word, phrase, sentence, verse, or discussion is the larger passage that it�s a part of. The sentence that a word is in is the most immediate context of that word. The immediate context of the sentence is the paragraph that it�s in, the chapter that paragraph is in, then the book that chapter is in. The immediate context of a teaching or statement or question includes who is saying it to whom, where they are, what�s going on at the time, and what brought all this about.
Nothing in the Bible has any meaning that�s independent of its immediate context, though virtually everything in the Bible has meanings that transcend their immediate scriptural and covenant contexts.
By the way � be especially wary of the pitfalls that lie hidden under the simple, innocent, useful division of the Bible into chapters and verses. Verse division is not a part of the divine inspiration that gave us the Bible. This practical innovation bears the vintage label of about AD 1550 � not a good year for Bible students, as it turns out. Verses printed like Wheat Chex imply that no bite-size morsel is part of any other, that they can exist loosely associated, and that whichever order they may come out of the box makes no difference in their meanings.
Keep in mind that the Bible�s chapter and verse divisions are reference numbers exactly like (in principle) the page numbers and grid references in a Rand McNally road atlas. Just as 56, G-4 is the location reference for one of my favorite towns, which exists inseparable from its county and state, Matthew 16:18 is the location reference for a certain centrally important statement that�s equally inseparable from its verse, chapter, and book.
Some verses are even just parts of longer sentences, and at least one chapter break in the New Testament cuts a sentence apart. Several chapter and verse breaks are terribly poorly chosen. The first sentence in Acts 8:1, for example, clearly belongs right smack after Acts 7:60, not across a bridge from it. It�s like a child who wandered off the street into a row house exactly like its home but a block down the street, got caught there during the census, and has to live there away from its family.
Over-all context is just a wider range of the surrounding scriptures. The entire Bible and God�s entire plan are the over-all context of every word, every teaching, every truth in the Bible. Every piece in this huge structure fits with all the others. Nothing is out of place. Whenever anything seems to be out of place, you can be sure that either you don�t yet understand it at all, or you understand it wrong.
To get your first grip on context, just read. Don�t study � read. Don�t take notes, don�t ask questions, don�t look up words � just read.
The English-language Bible survives a multitude of falsely and mistakenly and weakly translated words simply on the strength of its context. What your first readings give you is not details � which you can easily get wrong or get confused by � but settings, generalities, background, a basic but still largely unfocused sense of what�s going on. When you�ve learned the crucial importance of context, you�ll notice how often one simple look at the context of a particular passage corrects doctrinal errors in the way that passage is generally used.
For as long as I can remember, I�ve heard lessons and sermons, and read devotionals, on the notion that when Jesus says, in John 15:13, �Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends,� He�s speaking of Himself, referring to when He�ll soon lay down His life for His friends � and that His friends are all mankind. But in the next verse, Jesus Himself drastically limits the range of His friends: �Ye are my friends, if ye do whatsoever I command you.�
Almost as common and equally wrong is the old notion that on the day of Pentecost, the hundred and twenty disciples in Jerusalem were all together in the upper room when the Holy Spirit came to them. The context of Acts 2:1�2 clearly shows that they were somewhere else. The only mention of the upper room, in Acts 1:13, refers to where the surviving eleven apostles �abode,� and two obvious context dividers break this over-all account into three parts:
Acts 1:13 says that they abode in an upper room. Looking back to find who they were, you�ll find the antecedent of this pronoun in Acts 1:2, the apostles whom he had chosen. Then, right after mention of their upper room, Acts 1:13 lists these eleven by name.
Acts 1:15 begins a new phase in the account with And in those days, when Peter spoke to a hundred and twenty disciples, but says nothing about where they were. Surely they weren�t in the upper room where the eleven apostles stayed. The Bible doesn�t say where they were.
Acts 2:1 begins yet another new phase in the account with And when the day of Pentecost was fully come, they were all with one accord in one place � another day, the same hundred and twenty, in another place.
Notice how the context dividers (and in those days and and when the day of Pentecost was fully come) show that the upper room, the hundred and twenty, and the day of Pentecost are parts of three separate subcontexts.
Generations of Christians have thought (and have even been taught) that Acts 8:4 refers to the apostles in they that were scattered abroad went every where preaching the word. But Acts 8:1b reveals otherwise: �and they were all scattered abroad � except the apostles.
Context!
Read the Bible often, again and again, even after you�ve become an outstanding authority on what it says and what it means and you now teach it in a Bible school or seminary. Read it clear through, both the Old and the New Testaments, at least once a year. More often is better. Read the New Testament once a month.
The New Testament is the basic spiritual handbook for Christians. It supersedes the Old Testament, which is sort of an appendix that happens to be appended to the front of the New instead of at the back of it. The New Testament doesn�t make the Old Testament obsolete or even less important. The New Testament is clearer, In the New Testament, God has further explained what He presented more symbolically and mysteriously in the Old Testament.
At the same time, the episodes and personalities and relationships in the Old Testament illustrate God�s truths that weren�t so clear until He gave us Jesus and the New Testament. The Old Testament shows us much of what God is like, what He likes and hates � still crucial to us, since He doesn�t change.
In the New Testament, Jesus is the center and the key. The first four books � Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John � give us all that we have of His visit to Earth � His human background, what He taught, whom He taught, what He did here, what He revealed of His will for the future (which is today to us), and what happened to Him. The rest of the New Testament books from Acts up to Revelation explain further, showing the effects or results of (a) following Jesus and His way faithfully, and (b) not following Him so carefully. Revelation looks ahead to the future with the solid reassurance that no matter what has gone wrong, Jesus is still the Master and forever will be.
Now read, read, read! Start with any of the first four books of the New Testament and simply read it all the way through. Go on to Acts, then to Romans, and on through the others in order, to Revelation. You can either read or omit Revelation for now. Try it, if you want to, then if the going gets too rough for you, leave it for later. Just read through all the other books of the New Testament as fast as you can.
One very special experience is worth everything you can put into it, if you can arrange it. I recommend this, emphatically � get records or tapes of the New Testament and listen to them while you read along at the same pace. Just be sure that the tapes and the New Testament are the same translation. I once read the New Testament from Matthew 1:1 through Revelation 22:21 (that�s the whole thing!) in three long days, stopping only to eat, sleep, and go down the hall when I had to.
This exquisitely rich project wouldn�t have taken so long if I�d simply been reading and listening � I was transcribing a set of very faulty old records onto audio tapes and had to stop now and then to back up and rerecord when the record needle stuck in a groove or skipped grooves.
That was years ago, and for all these years since, I�ve meant to repeat that wonderfully blessed exercise � taking notes this time, not messing around with a record player and a tape recorder. Back then, I noticed connections and relationships that I should�ve written down, but transcribing the sound from the records onto tapes was the project of the moment, and I couldn�t turn aside to make notes whenever I wanted to.
(This would be an excellent way for a group without a teacher to study the New Testament if everybody can discipline himself to keep quiet while the tape is playing. Chatter would be ruinously distracting. Take the 'phone off the hook, too.)
Remember, you�re not studying yet. You�re simply getting the lay of the land, the same way that you might get your first look at a forested mountain from a high aircraft before you come back later for a lower reconnaissance flight in a helicopter, and still later hike in � several times � from below.
Next, pick one of the other three of the first four books, read it through as fast as you can, and go on through Acts, Romans, etc, again. Then go back to the beginning, take on another of the first four books, go on through, up to Revelation or through it, and wind-up your first lesson by reading the fourth of the first four books and on through to Revelation again.
Now you have the gist of the New Testament, and you have begun to pick-up what some of its details mean in over-all context. In your second read-through, it might be wise to start making notes as you begin to see, for example, connections between something that Luke wrote in Luke and something that Paul wrote in 1 Corinthians.
Now you�re a Bible student. You�re still in the first week of your first grade, of course, but you�re a Bible student on your way to deeper studies and fuller understanding that won�t have been mashed, strained, and fed to you in spoonfuls like little bottles of apple sauce for babies.
As context makes the over-all meanings of the New Testament become clear to you, it also brings the puzzling details into sharper focus. Also, it shows you the best routes toward solving the puzzles that you�ve run into. By simply reading and repeatedly rereading, you will begin to develop the several levels of understanding that open the Bible to you more and more as you go on. If you find what seem to be two opposite truths in the Bible, don�t try to decide on your own which of the two is right or wrong. Accept them both in faith as God�s truth, in His name. Then one (or both) of two things will happen �
� The Bible itself, after further study, will clarify the picture and show you where and how you�ve misunderstood one or the other, that they aren�t really contradictory;
or
� you�ll find that they both are indeed true but not contradictory.
They may be opposite sides of the same truth, or they may be truths that apply separately somehow � under separate conditions, to different people, at different times, etc. What you thought was a troublesome contradiction may turn-out to be a vital distinction between two points or two matters.
I�m sure that much false doctrine and their derivative or resulting divisions have afflicted the Body for centuries through the invasion of this virus of men�s deciding for themselves which of two truths they prefer when they should�ve embraced both at the same time with equally fervent welcome and waiting faithfully for the Holy Spirit and further study to clarify the matter accurately.
Let the Holy Spirit leave you confused for a while, if He thinks that�ll help you grow, and let Him decide when it�s time for Him to straighten-out your understanding of the matter. It isn�t likely that you�ll get it right on your own initiative and wisdom alone.
Get a red-letter edition of the New Testament � one that has the words of Jesus (more or less) printed in red. In one sitting if you can manage it, read only the red print in Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. (Just remember this caution: [i\the red print is not holy or inspired[/i]. This special touch came from a Christian magazine�s subscription promotion in the early years of the twentieth century. It isn�t entirely accurate � in at least one place, it has some of John�s words (not Jesus's) in red � but it�s mighty handy as a tool for studying the New Testament.) Read these selected passages again and again to get the full impact of Jesus�s words.
You should now begin to see what the Lord�s most important key words are and get some idea what they meant to Him and to those whom He spoke them to.
You should also begin to see what the Lord�s most important statements are, and you should start to get a feel for their relative importance to each other. You should begin to see how the Lord backs-up, supports, and [i]explains His most important statements.
You should begin to see how the Lord�s teachings applied to His people then � and you should begin to sense how they apply to you and to all the rest of us today.
In your very first reading, you can see connections only between what you�re reading then and what you have already read. This limitation affects your understanding of what you�re reading, because you can�t yet connect anything that you�ve already read with the parts that you haven�t read yet. As you read on, and once you�ve read clear through the New Testament a time or two, the category �already read� includes the entire New Testament � so you�ll begin to see ahead as well as behind, wherever you read in the New Testament.
As you get a better and better grasp of the �big picture,� you�ll automatically start picking-up details and their connections � and you'll probably have developed a robust curiosity about several of them. Meaningful patterns of thought, action, plan, purpose, and relationship will emerge on their own. You won�t have to dig for them. When you notice this happening, it�s time to start thinking a little more systematically as you read.
Whatever else you may do, don�t set up any conclusions or expectations of your own � or anybody else�s � and then try to see how the Bible explains, �gets around,� or otherwise handles them. Let the book itself tell you what it means. Your systematic study, for the moment, should be simple in principle and outline to avoid letting some mental rigidity keep you from seeing what should be bright and clear before you in the Bible�s own words. When you move beyond simply reading and repeatedly rereading, follow these guide lines (chosen and limited to let the Bible speak for itself) �
� Read Matthew, Mark, Luke, John � at least one in depth, preferably all four, in any order. Get the over-all picture first, then look closely at its details.
� Read all the first four books of the New Testament one after another, again and again.
� Concentrate on Jesus�s words, with secondary attention to the authors� words, but don�t ignore the events told about or the words of other persons in these accounts.
� Notice what Jesus says clearly, what He says that�s somehow less clear, what He emphasizes, what He mentions without explaining, and what He doesn�t say.
� Resist the tendency (for now) to puzzle or wonder about the less-clear passages, accounts, and teachings. Instead, pay close attention to the clear passages. Clear teachings will in time clarify the cloudy passages.
The urge to pry meanings out of certain passages will be great and become greater as you read. The more eager you are to learn, the worse you�ll want to hammer some meaning flat and nail it down so �that it move not� before you go on with your basic background reading.
Careful! This is a test!
Satan gives it, through self, and God grades you on how well you can lay self firmly aside and go on in patience and faith � and on whether you can. This is an opportunity to practice obedient faith � to learn how to trust Him, to leave all things in His hands without worrying about them or insisting that you must know how or when He plans to make them clear to you. Self says, �I have to know now!� Faith says, �I�ll sure like to know what this means, when You get around to showing me, Lord!�
�Our own curiosity often hinders us in the reading of the Scriptures, when we desire to understand and discuss that which we should instead pass over.� Thomas � Kempis (ca 1380�1471)
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(the rest later � how soon, I can't even guess!)