Personal Bible Study

Read Part 2.

What Am I Supposed to Do with This?

“Why is our time in God’s Word not as life-transformative as it should be?”

Read Part 1.

Interpretation is the process of understanding 1) what a Biblical text means and 2) how the text was meant to be applied. Once you have gathered the necessary information to discover what a passage is saying, you can then begin to understand its meaning through careful study of the book’s historical context, literary context, and actual content.

The first step in studying God’s Word is to carefully observe what the passage is saying. In the observation stage, we give our complete attention to the text to find out what’s there. We must investigate the passage in the same way that a detective investigates a crime scene. How do we do that? Get the “big picture” and then discover the little details. Ask questions… lots of them! Look for certain key clues to discover meaning. See how the little details relate to the big picture.

I recently presented a paper (Integrating Exegesis and Exposition: Preaching and Teaching for Spiritual Independence) in which I asserted that if the literal grammatical historical hermeneutic is warranted, then we must apply it not only in the exegetical process (the process of interpreting and understanding the Bible), but also in the process of applying and teaching the Bible.

One important implication of this assertion is that if the biblical languages are necessary for exegesis, then they are also necessary for application and teaching.