When you study the Bible, don’t merely read it. Dive into it! Remember these 4 things.
1. The Bible is not a book, it is a library of books. 66 books written over the course of about 1500 years, written in different times, in different cultures, by different writers, in different genres, in different languages, to different people. Yet, all inspired and authored by God.
2. Bible is written for us, but not to us. It was, as stated in the last point, written to a specific audience. That audience was not us, in our current cultural context. Learn about who it was written by and to and view it through those cultural lenses, not through our own biases and cultural tendencies.
3. Don’t just read a single Bible verse. Read the paragraph at miminum, the whole chapter is even better. Know the surrounding verses, the context of the verse is key to understanding it. Knowing it’s place in the grand story of the Bible, and who wrote it, to whom, and when, will help you understand the why. Scripture interprets scripture, the surrounding verses will help you understand the confusing ones.
4. All the Bible points to Jesus. All scripture is pointing to the coming Messiah. The Old Testament is His backstory, the long tale of God’s relationship with man, how broken it had become, and the New Testament is God coming to earth to restore and rebuild that relationship. Slowly, but surely bringing the world back towards its original design. Each verse it included purposefully to play a role in the grand story of Jesus and His grace.
