Everyone does systematic theology: you fit together large amounts of Biblical texts in your mind to come to conclusions and you answer tough questions with Scripture. The question is, how do you go about answering these questions? What are the essential elements of theology that you should consider as you come to conclusions from Scripture? I recently started reading through Louis Berkhof’s Systematic Theology and, in one of the early chapters, he defines what systematic theology is and the different facets of it. Upon my own reflection of Berkhof’s insights, I think there are at least four essential elements of theology that you should think through when doing a topical or systematic Bible study.
1. The Vertical Side: God’s Authoritative Revelation
Fundamentally any attempt to “do theology” must start with God’s authoritative revelation. Your questions, your conclusions, your doubts, your insights, your applications all must be brought before the inerrant, inspired word. As Berkhof helpfully puts it, the Christian doctrine of revelation assumes that
There is a personal God who communicated knowledge
There are truths that cannot be known apart from divine revelation
Humans can understand this revelation
So theology is not, at its foundation, humanity “figuring out” God. Rather, theology begins when the transcendent God reveals Himself to mankind. The vertical side of theology does not point from earth to heaven, but from heaven to earth. Therefore, your theological investigation will lead to a dead end until you take up the Word and read what it says. Even God’s revelation through His creation won’t be interpreted correctly without the corroborating and explanatory testimony of the Word. The first essential element of theology is God’s authoritative revelation.
2. The Reflective Side: Your Spirit-Empowered Synthesis
However, the Bible itself is not a systematic theology per se. As you read and study, your mind will naturally seek to fit together different texts and synthesize them into conclusions. Understanding what the Bible teaches about the deity and humanity of Jesus, for example, is a large and important theological topic. You cannot hope to understand this topic fully by merely reading one or two texts. Rather, your conclusions will require you to read, study, understand, and synthesize a large quantity of Biblical data from different literary genres.
In short, one of the essential elements of theology is simply thinking and meditating on Biblical texts with the goal of drawing summary conclusions. This takes work and time. It is very easy to come up with bad theological conclusions from the Bible: simply decide what you want the text to say, find a couple support texts, and then “prove” your position. But the careful theologian does not rush to draw broad theological conclusions on a topic until they are confident they have exhausted the pages of Scripture. Synthesis is difficult and, as far as the Christian is concerned, impossible without the guidance of the Holy Spirit.
3. The Corporate Side: What Do Other Christian’s Affirm?
Assuming you take up God’s inspired word, study it, and come to some theological conclusions, how can you check your interpretation? Certainly the first step is to continually compare your conclusions with the whole of Scripture. But another important element of theology is the corporate aspect. Christians are part of the body of Christ. We aren’t disconnected individual atoms that come up with our own theological conclusions on every issue. Rather, if we are reading the same texts and studying them properly under the Spirit’s guidance, we should expect other believers to come to similar conclusions.
Now, just because you find someone who agrees with you does not make your position correct. But if you can’t find a single fellow believer in your local Church that agrees with your theological conclusion, then you should pause and reconsider your analysis. If the Christians who you respect the most and who you know are daily in the Word cannot see from Scripture what you are seeing, you should seek to hear their own thoughts on the issue. Sharpening one another in the local Church theologically oftentimes takes the form of sharing Biblical insights with others and wrestling with conclusions together.
4. The Temporal Side: Church Interpretation Through Time
As you wrestle through difficult questions of theological interpretation, a source of great encouragement is that Christians throughout history have wrestled with many of the same questions and have written down their own analysis and conclusions. One of the most helpful disciplines I have found is to compare my own theological conclusions on a topic with several different historical creeds and confessions. You cannot get away from the fact that you are not the first person to ever read the Bible. In the Lord’s providence and grace, there are intelligent theologians throughout history who have tried to understand and synthesize the same Biblical texts that you have. To not at least consider their analysis would be foolish and border-line prideful.
Now, certainly no creed or confession is inerrant or to be put at the same level as Scripture itself. That is a given. But throughout history, the Church of Christ has worked to understand and externalize Biblical teaching on key doctrines like the Trinity, God’s sovereignty in salvation, what the Church is, baptism and countless others. So see how your theological conclusions fit in with the study of those who have gone before. If you seem to be the only Christian in the history of the Church to see something in the text, tread lightly! It is more likely that you are wrong then every other faithful believer before you was wrong.
Conclusion
Whether you are consciously aware of it or not, these four essential elements of theology are at play whenever you do serious theological study. You may think “I have to examine what the text says” (vertical side) or “I need to think about how these texts fit together” (reflective side) or “I need to check my conclusion with the elders at my Church” (corporate side) or “how do my conclusions line up the the historic confessions?” (temporal side). Consciously and explicitly including each of these four aspects into your own theological study will help you come to more robust conclusions and have more confidence that what you are seeing in Scripture is indeed what God intended you to see.
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What tools and techniques do you need to understand Scripture properly? If you look up books on hermeneutics, you will be greeted by a host of methods for understanding the Biblical text. Suffice to say, whether you are a new believer or a seasoned expositor, you can always find ways to improve your analysis and application of Scripture. However, just like in an actual tool box, there are some tools that are so fundamental and useful that everyone needs to know how to use them. In this post, I want to give two of the most basic Bible study tools that you need in order to understand Scripture.
Tool #1: Decomposition
Decomposition is simply taking something complicated and breaking it down. You come in contact with decomposition every day without even realizing it:
Recipes decompose a dish into a series of logical steps
Your GPS decomposes a route into a sequence of turns
A to-do list decomposes your day into tasks to complete
A puzzle decomposes into a large set of individual pieces
Sentence diagrams break apart a sentence into its component parts of speech (nouns, verbs, etc.)
A pros and cons list decomposes a decision into its benefits and drawbacks
And those are only a couple examples. Essentially, the goal of decomposition is to take the complex and make it simple. Decomposition allows you to understand the pieces that make up the whole. The best metaphor for decomposition is taking apart a puzzle: you have something big and complex and you want to break it apart into pieces to understand how they fit together.
Decomposition is one of the most basic bible study tools you can apply to a text. You can view any text of Scripture, long or short, as a complicated blend of language, theology, historical context, authorial intent, and a host of other things. Your goal in decomposition is to simply separate each of these pieces in order to examine and understand them. You break text apart so when you put it back together again, you understand how the pieces relate to the whole.
Decomposition Example
There are countless specific ways to decompose a Biblical text. You can decompose it based on the languages, you can decompose it in terms of how it relates to the surrounding context, you can decompose it by looking at the “5 Ws and H”. Any time you divide and examine the parts of a Biblical text, you are doing decomposition. Consider the verse below:
but these are written so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name.
John 20:31 ESV
You might roughly decompose this verse by outlining it as follows:
What: These are written
Why: So that you may believe
What: That Jesus is
Who: the Christ, the Son of God
Why: and that by believing you may have life
How: in his name
As you can see, by simply doing this rough and approximate decomposition, you can already begin to notice some features of the text. The main point of the verse is to describe why John wrote his gospel and there appears to be two related reasons given: that the reader might believe something about Jesus and that the reader might experience the outcome of that belief. You can further analyze the text by asking what specific things does John mention that a person should believe about Jesus.
Again, this is only a rough example of one way you can decompose a text. There a countless other tools that are essentially ways of decomposing a text. But the important thing to notice here is that good decomposition can lead to better observations. Before you make observations of the text, start with decomposing it. Once you have the pieces broken out, you can look at them and then make more insightful observations on each component of the text and how it relates to the whole.
Tool #2: Externalization
The second of these two basic Bible study tools is externalization. Your mind can only hold so much inside it at once. Therefore, a crucial tool for analysis is externalization. This means simply getting what you are thinking in your mind written down on paper. Again, you externalize throughout every day of your life:
You write out a meal plan so you don’t have to remember all the meals for the week
Your to-do list is simply an externalization of what you think you need to get done in a day
When you take notes during a presentation you are externalizing ideas you want to remember so you don’t have to trust yourself to remember every detail of the presentation
Externalization gets your thoughts outside of your mind. And the purpose of this is simple: once your thoughts are written down you can examine them critically, add or subtract from them, reword them in a better way, and otherwise analyze them. The more you externalize, the less you have to hold in your mind at once and the better you can think about an issue.
Externalization stands out amongst other basic bible study tools because a lot of times people don’t actually think of it as a “tool”. Even though a lot of Christians journal or write their thoughts on a text when preparing a sermon, very rarely do they consider how important externalizing their thoughts about a text is. Whether you are doing a brief morning devotion or preparing a 45-minute sermon, you need to externalize all your thoughts about a text.
Ideas for Externalization
Why does this help in Bible study? Because thoughts and insights are fleeting. Don’t ever assume you will remember an insight about a text tomorrow that you noticed today. If you see something noteworthy, write it down. My Bibles are covered with notes and cross references that came to mind when I read a particular passage. If I notice a repetition in the text, I externalize it by circling the repeated word. When I intuitively understand the structure of a passage, I write a quick outline and save it for later.
As with decomposition, there are many ways you can externalize your thoughts when studying a passage:
Have a blank journal where you write down your thoughts as you read through the Bible
Write down related texts that come to mind in your Bible when you read a particular passage
Have a folder of “sermon skeletons” where you have rough outlines of passages
Circle, underline, use multi-colored pens, anything to notate to your future self what you notice in a particular text as you study
Your mind will not be able to hold everything you know about Scripture at once. By externalizing your insights, you can come back at a later date and see if you notice the same things you noticed in the past. Externalizing is a Bible study tool because it allows you to connect thoughts you have had in the past to what you are studying in the present. Every time you read a good commentary you are benefiting from someone else externalizing their thoughts. By getting something down in writing, you can come back to it later and analyze it and reorganize it as needed.
Conclusion
Decomposition and externalization, in my opinion, are the most basic Bible study tools and almost every other tool or method depends on both of these. Even if you didn’t know it, you probably have used these tools in the past when you study a text. Improving in Bible study is not just about learning more and more new techniques. You also need to work on getting better at the fundamentals. If you can master the arts of decomposition and externalization, you will see fruit in your Bible study, your teaching, and your preaching.
This post was inspired in part by a section in “Psychology of Intelligence Analysis” by Richards Heuer, Jr. It is a good read if you want more detail on these subjects.
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My wife loves Elisabeth Elliot. So, when we celebrated her birthday a bit ago, her parents bought my wife one of Elliot’s books called “Keep a Quiet Heart.” As I often do when I encounter a new book, I skimmed through the contents to see if anything jumped out at me. The book itself is a collection of short topical sections. It wasn’t long before I stumbled upon a section that I found particularly helpful. The section is called “Hints for Quiet Time” and I thought that Elliot gave an excellent and easy way to do your quiet time which I want to share today.
Read a few verses, a paragraph, or a chapter. Then ask, What does this passage teach me about: (1) God, (2) Jesus Christ, (3) the Holy Spirit, (4) myself, (5) sins to confess or avoid, (6) commands to obey, (7) what Christian love is?
In the small, page-long section on quiet time, Elliot emphasizes the importance of having a daily quiet time with the Lord. In particular, Elliot wants to help out busy parents who know they need to have a quiet time, but are not sure how to fit it into their busy schedule. Elliot recommends doing your quiet time in the morning, working through a book of the Bible, and answering the questions she gives above.
The questions Elliot gives are simple, but they cover a lot of ground. You first see if their is anything the passage teaches you about any of the members of the Trinity. Then, you ask what the passage teaches about how you should live your own life. Simply put, the questions boil down to “what does this passage teach me about God” and “how then should I live in light of this passage?” Elliot rightly points out that actually writing down your answers to these questions in a notebook is a good idea.
Finally, she recommends you make it a point to share what you learned in you quiet time with your spouse and your children. I think this point is essential because one of the ways you remember what you study is by using what you have learned.
A great way to ensure that you remember God’s word is to teach God’s word to others.
Elliot says you can complete these steps, answer the above questions, and have some time in prayer in 15 minutes if that is all the time you have. But the more you spend time with the Lord, the longer that time will likely become.
Why it is important
I think we need to distinguish between quiet time and a full on, in-depth Bible study. If you plan on having the latter every morning before you start your day, you are setting yourself up to fail. You might occasionally be able to complete an in-depth Bible study before work or before caring for kids. But more often then not, your morning quiet time will be a half-hour to an hour time where you get to pray and spend some time reading a section of God’s Word.
However, just because your quiet time might not be as long as an in-depth Bible study does not mean it should have no structure or should stay at a surface level of analysis and reflection. What I love about Elisabeth Elliot’s advice is it gives you 7 easy questions that force you to look at the text and think. It is all too easy to pass over what you read with little to no understanding. And if that is the case, you should not be surprised if you “don’t get much out of” your morning quiet time.
If you want an easy way to do your quiet time, start by taking Elliot’s recommendation and keep a notebook where you record your answers to these 7 questions. Work through a book of the Bible, write down what you see in each daily chunk, and then spend some time in prayer. Your quiet time will be richer and more Spiritually beneficial if you ask questions and write out answers. It might feel like work but “in all toil there is profit”, especially when it comes to the Word of God.
Don’t settle for a short, surface level quiet time. Ask and answer questions that will force you to meditate on the passage you are reading.
Implications
1. You are never too busy to dig into God’s Word
How long would it honestly take you to read a chapter of the Bible and write down the answers to the 7 questions Elisabeth Elliot gives? Not everyone has an hour or two in the morning to spend in deep Bible study, but there is not a single Christian who couldn’t have a simple quiet time as defined by Elliot. Reading the Bible, asking these 7 questions of your reading, and praying in response might not seem like much. But every day you commit to digging into the Bible, you encounter the life-changing Word of God.
“I don’t have time” or “Bible study is too difficult” should never be excuses for failing to have consistent time with the Lord. Elliot makes it so simple and practical: examine the text and your own life using the 7 questions she gives. You don’t need to be a Pastor or a Theologian to do this. You don’t have to be particularly brilliant or incredibly insightful. But what you do have to do is set aside time.
Spiritual growth is as simple as setting aside your excuses and setting aside time to spend with the Lord.
2. Spiritual growth takes disciplined effort over time
Even though Elliot gives an easy way to do your quiet time, it still requires two things: effort and time. You cannot get away from this. If you are going to grow any sort of flower in a garden, it isn’t going to spontaneously appear out of thin air. You will need to put time and effort into planting and watering the flower. So too with spiritual growth.
Quiet time doesn’t have to be complicated, but it will always require effort and time on your part.
Here is the reality: as soon as you commit to put disciplined time and effort into pursuing the Lord, every sort of roadblock and excuse and difficulty will appear. The Christian life is spiritual war remember. So if you are going to commit to spiritual growth, you are going to have to commit to fight. To fight distraction. To fight laziness. You will have to guard your time with the Lord when other “priorities” seep in. Elliot gives a marvelous method for spending time with the Lord. But only you can commit to scheduling and keeping your daily time with God.
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The New Year is often a time when Christians choose to read through the Bible in a year. There are dozens of reading plans out there, each with a different path through the whole of Scripture. My wife and I are following this one together this year. However, as I have been going through this Bible-in-a-year plan, I am struck by just how fast you go. Certainly there are many benefits to reading through the whole Bible in a year. But going deep in a single book of the Bible is also an essential part of Christian study.
In this post, I want to lay out the benefits of focusing on a single book of the Bible and give an easy step-by-step method you can use to spend a month or two camped out in one book. As I have argued in another post, you and I need a balanced Bible diet consisting of both high level reading and also deep study. However, it is generally easier to simply read a large chunk of Scripture. Going deep in a single book of the Bible takes a lot more effort and analytical know-how. That said, there is nothing better than feeling like you know and understand deeply a part of God’s word. So, here are my thoughts on how you should study a single book of the Bible this year.
Benefits of staying in a single book of the Bible
There are a number of benefits you get simply from staying put in a book of the Bible for an extended length of time. By “extended” I mean at least a month. If a book is much longer, it will take you several months to dig deep into it’s theology. The idea is to not merely to read through the book. You want to understand the book and the points the author is trying to make. More than that, you want to stay in that book so long that you feel your life being confronted and corrected by it’s theology.
Here is a summary of some major benefits of staying in a single book of the Bible:
You understand the author’s intent
You will have parts, if not all, of the book memorized
You will be able to discuss the book in detail with other people
You can see how the book describes reality and applies to your life
You can give a summary of the book’s theology
Step 1: Read through the book multiple times
If you want to go deep in a single book of the Bible, the first step is easy: spend your first week or two of study simply reading through the book multiple times. If it is a short book like an Epistle or minor prophet, you might be able to read through it up to 10 times in a week or two. A longer book will take you longer, so 2 or 3 times might be the most you can do in a week.
This step is vital because you want to be familiar with the book. A vague sense of “I read that book before” is not going to cut it when it comes time to deeply study. By reading a book multiple times, you force your brain to start remembering what you read and noticing the overall structure of the book and maybe some of the finer details. You might even have some sections committed to memory by the time this step is over. Once you have a handle on the big picture of the book, it is time to move to step two. But again, don’t move on until you have read a shorter book through 10 times and 2-5 times for a longer book.
Step 2: Note any repeated words or phrases
After reading through a book of the Bible multiple times, you should start noticing patterns. Oftentimes, similar language is used throughout a book of the Bible in order to draw attention to the main themes. For example, if you were going through the Gospel of John, you might notice the repeated use of the words “believe” and “sign”. In this step, you simply go through the book you are reading again but this time, you circle, underline, or notate in some way a repeated word or phrase.
I personally always do this step twice because I might miss a word or phrase the first pass through. I recommend you get a few different colored pens, maybe one color per theme. That way, each time you see a certain color you know what repeated phrase you are tracing. The goal of this step is to start answering the question “what are the main points the Biblical author is trying to make?”
Your goal as a reader of the Bible is simply to see and understand what the author is putting in front of you.
Step 3: Outline the whole book if it is short or identify and outline key passages for longer books
This is where studying a single book of the Bible gets “difficult.” The first two steps were mainly focused on reading through the book and noticing patterns that stood out to you. Now, you need to actually work through the book as a whole. Outlining is simply the process of breaking a section of Scripture down into pieces that you then notate in a meaningful way. Here is a quick example of my outline for Romans 1:11-12 from an older post (which I recommend you read if you don’t understand outlining):
Paul long’s to see the Church in Rome
Why? To impart some spiritual gift to strengthen the Church
What is the definition of “strengthen”?
What is the definition of “spiritual gift?”
“Charisma” -“a divine gift” points to the origin of the gift
Why is encouragement called a “spiritual gift?”
The encouragement of other believers is a gift from God
How does mutual encouragement of faith strengthen a Church?
Strong faith sets an example (Abraham)
Strong faith points us back to God (Hebrews 11)
Seeing faith in action in someone’s life encourages us to stay the course
Paul wants to be encouraged by the Church in Rome
Why is mutual encouragement important to Paul?
Paul’s letters are full of encouragement to local Churches (1 Thess 5:11, Phil 2:1, 2 Corinthians 1:3-4)
Scripture contains a number of “tools” to help Christians grow…one of those is encouragement
Church in Rome was a minority, persecution was coming
What do Paul and the Church in Rome have in common?
Same fundamental need
Need righteousness from Christ
Same ethical implications from Gospel
The source of this encouragement is each other’s faith
How can someone’s faith be an encouragement?
Strong faith sets an example (Abraham)
Strong faith points us back to God (Hebrews 11)
Seeing faith in action in someone’s life encourages us to stay the course
What is the definition of “encouragement”?
Notice that in my outline, I include questions I have concerning the text. You will seek to answer those questions in the next step. Right now though, write them into your outline and bold them so you can easily find them when you come back later. Don’t be afraid to revise your outline multiple times. Very rarely will you perfectly outline a text on your first run through. If you are outlining a book or a larger passage, you might need even more passes before you get the outline satisfactory.
For shorter books, you might want to try to outline the whole book. Each day, work through a paragraph or two until you complete the book. If you are going deep in a longer book of the Bible, maybe focus on a dozen or so key passages or chapters. The goal of outlining is to understand the structure, flow, and logic of a passage. Once you complete your outline(s) for the book you are studying, you can start working on answering the questions you have in your outline.
Step 4: Apply any Bible study tools you know to the outlined book or passage
One of my main goals when I started this site was simply to have a place to contain all the different hermeneutical tools I came across. The tools I have in the personal Bible study page are designed to help you answer the questions you wrote into your outline in step 3. You won’t use every single tool in every Bible study, but you want to have a wide variety of resources at your disposal to answer the questions you have of a passage. Here is a key point though: do not go to commentaries to answer your questions until you have spent some time trying to answer them on your own.
Commentaries often make for lazy Bible study habits. Don’t get me wrong, I use commentaries and appreciate having the thoughts of godly Christians recorded. But commentaries should never replace personal analysis of a text. View commentaries as a way to check your personal study or as a conversation you are having with a “dead” fellow believer about a passage. But never start with them.
As I mentioned, tools you might need to answer your questions of a passage or book can be found here. However, here are three of the most basic methods you can use to answer your questions:
Define key words-a lot of times, questions arise from not understanding what an author means by a word or a phrase. The easiest solution is to use a tool such as Blue Letter Bible to do a quick word study. Oftentimes, simply learning the literal meaning of the word and where else in the Bible that word is used is enough to answer your question.
Look elsewhere in the book-I once had a professor who said “the answer is never far from the question.” What he meant was when you have a question about a Bible passage, look to see if the author clarifies elsewhere in the book. 9 times out of 10, the Biblical authors anticipate the questions you will ask and answer them somewhere in their book.
Find other passages which address the same topic-If defining the term and looking in the book both fail to answer a question, think of other places you know in the Bible which address the same topic. For example, if you are studying a passage about the Christian and the law in Galatians and don’t understand Paul’s point, then realize that Paul deals with the same topic in Romans. You can then go to Romans and see if your question is answered by examining a book other than Galatians.
When you answer a question, I would simply write it into your outline so you have it all in one place. It might take you a while to answer all your questions and some might not be answered completely. That is okay. Bible study is an iterative process and you should expect to spend multiple days and study sessions seeking to answer the same questions.
Step 5: Summarize some big points and then meditate on the implications for your life
If you are studying a single book of the Bible, getting to step 5 might take you a month or a couple months. Don’t rush any of the above steps. Each one is about growing your understanding of what God is communicating to you through His word. Step 5 is about summarizing what you have learned and meditating on some implications of those lessons. To do this, go through your outline and then at the top or the bottom, summarize 3-10 main ideas from the book.
What do I mean by ideas? I don’t mean you simply summarize the passage. You should already be able to do that from your outline fairly easily. Ideas are the fundamental truths taught in the passage. What spiritual realities has the text shown you? What unchanging truths are being pressed by the author of the book? How would you finish the sentence “This book of the Bible teaches…” using only things you’ve learned from your study?
If you cannot do this, then you might need to spend more time studying the book. Once you have these main ideas summarized, spend some time meditating on each one. Maybe only focus on one main idea a day. Ask yourself the question “If this is true, how should it impact my life?” I have written before that I think the Puritan application questions are probably the best for meditating in this fashion. You can read the whole post here, but here are the 6 questions the Puritans used to apply the truths of Scripture to their lives:
What following truths does this (idea) imply?
What errors does it contradict?
What good works does it require?
What should you stop doing because this (idea) forbids it?
What encouragement does this (idea) offer?
Where do you stand spiritually in light of this (idea)?
Conclusion
Going deep in a single book of the Bible takes a lot of time and mental energy. However, your effort is more than worth it in the end. Reading through the Bible in a year is great, and we should all make a habit of consistent Bible reading. But be sure to also make a habit of deep Bible study. The deeper you go into a book, the more you will be rewarded with insights which the Lord will use to conform you further to the image of Christ.
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As I mentioned in a previous post, I am currently working on a Master’s Degree which has a data analytics element. Last week, I listened to several lectures on data visualization tools and how you can use them to notice patterns in the data. One of the data visualization tools mentioned was “word clouds.” Word clouds are particularly helpful for extracting the most commonly used words in textual data. This got me thinking: are there Bible word clouds out there? And if so, how could I use them in my Bible study?
What are word clouds?
You might not be familiar with word clouds, so here is a quick definition I found that clarifies what I am talking about:
Word clouds or tag clouds are graphical representations of word frequency that give greater prominence to words that appear more frequently in a source text. The larger the word in the visual the more common the word was in the document(s).
By doing this data visualization, I can quickly find the most frequently used words in the post without having to go through each paragraph and find repeated words myself. In this case, “worldview”, “worldview-confronting”, “God”, “culture”, & “beliefs” seem to be words I used repeatedly. From this, I can start to generate hypotheses about the post, even if I have never read it.
For example, I could reasonably assume from the collection of most-used words that the post focuses on how God’s word confronts the beliefs of the culture. Or I could hypothesize that when the post says “worldview-confronting”, it means the Bible addressing beliefs commonly held in the culture. Notice I said “hypothesize”. My conclusions based on mere word frequency could be wrong. So after looking at the word cloud, it is imperative that I then read through the full text to understand the context and to check the conclusions I came to based on the word cloud alone.
Where can I get Bible word clouds?
Thankfully, Bible word clouds already exist online for you to use. Blue Letter Bible has created word clouds for each book of the Bible as well as the Bible as a whole, the Old and New Testaments, and difference sections of the Bible. They are very visually appealing and the best part is you don’t have to create your own Bible word clouds by importing Biblical texts into an online tool.
You can find all of these Bible word clouds here. Take some time to look through them. Maybe pull up a word cloud from a book you are studying. Since the word clouds already exist and are made for you, this could not be easier for you.
How can I use Bible word clouds?
As I have mentioned before, repetition is one of the ways a Biblicalauthor communicatesto you, the reader. Repetition can be for emphasis or point to a main theme or draw your attention to something that is important to a Biblical author. Therefore, one of the most important things you need to do when you study a book or a passage of Scripture is to look for repetition.
This is manageable for small passages or books, but oftentimes it can become time consuming to go through a longer book of the Bible to find the repeated words. This is where Bible word clouds can help. Just quickly glancing at a Bible word cloud for Isaiah, for example, will give you at least a starting idea of the main themes in Isaiah without having to go through each of the 66 chapters by hand and find what repeated words.
Now, it is important to keep in mind a Bible word cloud is simply a visual tool to find repeated words. It will not interpret the text for you and it won’t even tell you which words are important or not. All it is doing is bringing the most used words to the surface for you to look at. You as the Spirit-empowered interpreter need to analyze the results, think about what the word repetition means, and then continue studying to see if the conclusions you hypothesized were correct.
This is especially important with Scripture since a word cloud takes all the words out of their original context. The last thing you want to do is come to a conclusion from Scripture without taking the context into account. With that said, I think there are a couple use cases in which Bible word clouds shine:
You are about to start studying a book of the Bible and you want get an idea of what words you should look out for as you work through the book.
If you are trying to figure out the main themes of a book, you can start by looking at a Bible word cloud and hypothesize some main themes based on the most used words.
If you want to compare two books of the Bible based on their emphasis, comparing the most frequently used words in each book will give you a starting point.
Conclusion
A Bible word cloud is a great starting point in your study or as a supplement to help you think through the main themes of a book. Don’t treat it as a magic bullet or expect it to interpret a text for you. Always remember: it is a visual tool, nothing more.
However, using a word cloud for a Biblical text could not be easier. Blue Letter Bible has Bible word clouds already created and ready for your use. So look at a couple for different books of the Bible. Try to deduce main themes from these clouds and then go into the text to see if you were correct or not. Used properly, word clouds can become useful tools in your personal Bible study or sermon preparation.
How can a believer consistently internalize the word of God on a day to day basis?How does one cultivate a balanced bible diet? Most mature Christians I meet have two fundamental realities they face each day:
They want to spend time with the Lord in His Word to grow in godliness
Each day’s schedule is incredibly busy and packed with activities and tasks that have to get done
What is the best way to daily put yourself before the word of God in the midst of all the normal, everyday things that need to get done? I have asked myself this in every stage of life so far and with my family newly expanding, I find myself thinking through this issue again.
I have already written about the book “The Practice of Godliness” by Jerry Bridges. As I have been working through the book, it continues to prove itself an excellent read. I want to analyze a quote I recently read which helps answer some of the questions posed above. Bridges gives 5 staples of a balanced bible diet to work into your day.
A prominent part of our practice of godliness, therefore, will be our time in the Word of God. How we spend that time varies according to the method of intake…hearing, reading, studying, memorizing, and meditating.
The Practice of Godliness by Jerry Bridges
What the quote means
This quote appears in a chapter which discusses training yourself for godliness. Bridges rightly argues that one of the primary means by which a believer becomes more godly is through diligent and disciplined exposure to the word of God. Bridges then cites the Navigators five different methods of Scripture intake: hearing, reading, studying, memorizing, and meditating.
These five different categories of Scripture intake are incredibly helpful to keep in your mind. Hearing has to do with listening to the exposition of the Word of God from your Pastor or a teacher. Bridges describes “reading” as a structured Bible reading plan you go through in a year. The basic idea is getting a broad look at Scripture. Studying has to do with going deep into a text using analytical tools and then organizing your information afterwards.
The last two, memorizing and meditating, are closely related. Memorizing is internalizing Scripture to the point you can recall it easily to your mind. Meditating means “murmuring to yourself” the words of Scripture so you are constantly mulling a text over in your mind. Personally, I think meditating is the highest form of Scripture intake and all the other four support the goal of meditating on the Word of God “day and night.”
Why it is important
There is an old adage that goes “variety is the spice of life.” Similarly, I would say “variety keeps you engaged with Scripture.” If you want a balanced Bible diet, you need to think about all five different methods of Scripture intake, not just one or two. In our flesh, you and I are lazy thinkers, readers, and “remember-ers”.
If you want to retain and live out what you read in the Bible, you need to have times of hearing, reading, studying, memorizing, and meditating on God’s Word.
Varying how you engage with Scripture does two things:
It allows you to fit time in the Word into the various contexts you find yourself in each day
You will keep you mind from becoming bored with one passage or mode of Scripture intake
Oftentimes, one quiet time is not enough in a day. You will need several times throughout the day and oftentimes each session in God’s word will have to look different than the last one. Rarely can you do an in-depth study of Scripture 20 times a day. Instead, you can vary the modes of Scripture intake so that you can stay engaged with God’s word whether you are at work, at home, at the store or wherever you find yourself.
Create as many avenues to Scripture in your day as you can.
Takeaways
1. Look at your schedule to see where you can work in each type of Bible engagement
You might not be able to study Scripture in depth on your commute to work. But you can definitely listen to a sermon on the drive. Or you can listen to someone reading through the Bible. Perhaps during your lunch break, you can’t listen to sermon but you can take a walk and meditate on what God taught you in your morning quiet time. Your mind might be wandering during your Bible reading; why not force your mind to focus by memorizing a couple verses?
There is an opportunity for you to be growing in your knowledge of the word of God no matter where you are or what you are doing.
Why else would the Psalmist talk about meditating on God’s law “day and night” if it wasn’t possible? If this doesn’t describe your current life, you are going to need to work on building the habit of exposing yourself to the Word throughout your entire day. As you look at your schedule this week or for an individual day, think through times in which you could read Scripture. Hear Scripture. Meditate on Scripture.
I am confident God has given you time throughout the day for each of the five parts of a balanced Bible diet. You just have to look and plan. Your goal shouldn’t be to have one quiet time of good Bible study a day. That certainly is great and you make time for it. But your goal should be more than that: fixing your life around God’s truth day in and day out. Easier said than done, I know. But it is a goal worth working towards.
2. Shift between the different Bible diet types if you aren’t able to do one
Are you tired and exhausted? Then maybe you shouldn’t do a full inductive Bible study on the book of Romans. What I love about the five different modes of Bible intake that Bridges lays out is you have options depending on how you are feeling. A lot of times, you might want to read your Bible but there is some external barrier keeping you from it. But as Bridges describes, you actually have five options of Bible intake.
Even if there is a barrier keeping you from deep Bible study, that same barrier might not keep you from listening to a sermon. And, of course, Bible meditation can always be done as long as you have a verse in your mind to think through. As I have had to stay awake with a new born, I now understand the wisdom of the Psalmist who meditates on God’s word during the “watches of the night.”
Regardless of how you are feeling or what your schedule is, there is a way for you to engage with God’s word
This post is part of an ongoing series called “Book Quote of the Week”. Click here to read any posts you may have missed. If you found this post helpful, share and subscribe below. Be sure to follow The Average Churchman on Instagram to get more content.
Writing was never my favorite subject in School growing up. I didn’t hate it, but I never imagined I would enjoy it. Now, But as I have grown, I have found the power and pleasure writing brings. A question has always been in the back of my mind though: how does one become a good writer? What should you do to practice writing?
Others have made the crucial point that “writer’s write.” But if you are already writing, how do you become better at your craft? I was reading a secular book called “Grit” the other day, and part of a chapter gave me the answer I was looking for. Apparently, Benjamin Franklin devised a practical way to practice writing. I think his method is worth sharing.
How Ben Franklin became a better writer
Practice writing by “rewriting” the work of others
In his autobiography, Franklin described a simple but effective method he used to improve his writing. The first exercise he discussed had the following steps:
Find a piece of writing you admire (choose something small to medium length, like an essay)
Make short notes on each sentence
Wait a while, normally a day or two
Try to rewrite the original piece using only your notes
Compare your “rewrite” with the original to see where you can improve
This is a brilliant little method for improving your writing. Essentially, you use the writing of others to get instant feedback on your own writing. You begin to see all the choices writers have to make as they find words to describe reality or abstractions. Since most of us don’t have an English teacher at our beck and call to edit our writing, rewriting an essay and comparing it with the original is a useful way to see where you can improve as a writer.
If you want to try this, find an article on Desiring God that you enjoy and see if you can rewrite it. You will be amazed at the insight you get into your “writing style” simply by performing this exercise once.
Practice writing by analyzing the logic and structure
Getting feedback on your writing in general is not always enough. You must test your ability to string together logical arguments and test the way you structure papers. This second exercise is similar to the one above, with a few notable additions:
Find a piece of writing you admire (choose something small to medium length, like an essay)
Make short notes on each sentence. Put each sentence’s notes on a separate note card or sticky note
Wait about three days
Jumble up your note cards or sticky notes
Try to put them back in a logical order
Proceed to try to rewrite the piece you made notes on using only your notes
Compare your “rewrite” with the original to see where you can improve
As you can see, the process is almost identical to the first exercise except you mix up your notes. This added step forces you to think about how to organize your writing. It makes you think about the flow of a paper. Structure and logic are crucial to good writing, and this exercise makes you “reverse engineer” both of these from a paper.
I have written before about the need to analyze a Bible passage’s argument in your study. I also wrote a whole post on the many different ways you could structure a teaching or sermon. This exercise gives you practice structuring your thoughts. And clear thinking often leads to clear writing.
Practice writing by poetry
Finally, Franklin gave what I consider to be the most interesting exercise of all. The first exercise gave you instant writing feedback, the second forced you to think about logic and structure; this final exercise is about expanding your command of language itself. The process is shorter than the previous two exercises:
Take a story (or some other form of prose) and write it as poetry
Wait enough time to forget the original story
Turn your poem back into narrative form
Compare with the original
I love this: you write poetry based on non-poems. How does this help you? Poetry is full of metaphor, imagery, and language meant to engage your five senses. In order to turn a non-poem into a poem, you must use all of these tools and ask yourself “If this event/line/concept was a poem, what would it say? How can I use sensory language to describe the same things going on in this non-poem?”
Interestingly, this is something the Bible does all the time. After the Red Sea crossing, for example, you read an extended poem responding to and interpreting the previous event. The Bible uses poetry and narrative oftentimes to describe the exact same event. Even if you never become “a poet”, this exercise improves your writing by forcing you to think “poetically.”
What if you don’t have time?
That is how Benjamin Franklin improved his writing. I don’t know about you, but I don’t always have extra time to spare doing extra exercises to practice my writing. Thankfully, Christians can perform these exercises as they do their normal spiritual disciplines.
Write a teaching based on a passage of Scripture
The first exercise is the easiest to do:
Read a passage of Scripture
Take notes as you study
A couple days later, write a brief teaching based on that passage from your notes only
Compare it with the original passage to see anything you missed
One of the reasons I have ongoing teaching series on this website is to force myself to perform Franklin’s first exercise. Bible study is vital for every Christian, but a lot of benefit comes from writing out what you studied in the form of a teaching. After you finish your study, ask yourself “how would I communicate these truths to others?”
There are always opportunities to teach and share truth with others. You don’t have to be a pastor or a Sunday School teacher. Share truth in your home, in your small groups. The process of writing out what you learned from a Bible study will not only cause you to remember God’s truth better and longer, it will also improve your writing.
Outline a passage or a sermon you listened to
Similarly, you can get the benefits of Franklin’s second exercise simply from outlining. Outlining forces you to think how a passage or a sermon is structured. Here is how to do it:
Read a passage of Scripture or listen to a sermon
Take notes on the structure of the passage or sermon in outline form
Leave and come back to the same passage you read or heard preached a couple days later
Make a second outline and compare it with the first
Outlining is one of many important Bible study tools. When I prepare a sermon, outlining is the first thing I do. You have to understand the structure and logic and flow of a passage first. But an added benefit is outlining makes you a better writer.
I don’t bother writing anything on this website without first having a clear structure and flow in my mind. Sometimes I change it as I write, but if you don’t have a plan going in, it becomes hard to get anything on the page.
Write hymns and spiritual songs based on Scripture
Franklin’s third writing exercise is actually the easiest for a Christian. You and I are called to “sing unto the Lord a new song.” In my experience, the best songs are those tied closely to Scripture. So, follow these steps:
Find a passage of Scripture which grips you
Turn that passage of Scripture into a hymn
You don’t need to necessarily share this song you wrote with the whole Church. But you can. God is worthy of infinite worship, so you can never have enough songs to sing to Him. Write a new one, a personal one to Him. Base it off the promises in His word. And you will also find your writing and use of language will improve as you do this.
Conclusion
Writing is rarely easy, but I have found it is always rewarding. It is an avenue of creativity the Lord gave humans as a means to externalize their thoughts and feelings and reflections. God chose to reveal Himself most directly through the written word. Christians should value and seek to develop writing and reading as skills. There are many ways to do this, but I hope the practical tips Franklin used can be useful for your own life as well.
One of the reasons The Average Churchman exists is to provide you with tools, methods, and ideas to help you better understand and live out Scripture. Today, I want to give you the easiest, most practical tip to improve your Bible reading that I could think of. It isn’t complicated. No master’s of Divinity is required. Simply applying this to your daily Bible reading will have profound effects on your life long-term. And the best part: you can start it today without any difficulty.
The simple process to improve your Bible reading
Let’s say you just picked up your Bible for your daily “read through the Bible in a year” plan. Here is a simple and profound method to use:
Read the passage
Pause and stop reading
Think about the passage for 10 minutes straight
That’s it. It could not get simpler. Read your passage and then stop to think about what you just read for 10 minutes. Not 5 minutes. 10 whole, uninterrupted minutes of pure reflection. It might be tempting to let your mind wander or to keep reading. Don’t: read a section of Scripture and then let it sit.
Why does this simple method work? To use a metaphor, America is a fast-food culture. We want things right away and then it is on to the next task. Sitting down and savoring a meal takes time. Fast-food might not taste all that great, but at least it is convenient and saves us time.
I fear that this mentality of “cheap, fast, and mediocre” has affected how you and I read our Bibles. Sure you want to hear from God’s word, but only if it is quick, easily applicable, and done in time for you to move on to your next task. If you want to improve your Bible reading, the first step is to savor Scripture.
The Bible is a feast of profound truth. So take some time to savor and enjoy what God has prepared for you in His word.
Taking just 10 focused minutes to think about a Scripture you read helps counteract this fast-food mentality. Rather then reading as much as you can before moving on with your day, taking a reflective pause allows you to engage with the truths you just read. So, when planning out your Bible reading time, plan for 10 minutes of reflection and non-reading. Taking this pause every time you read Scripture will allow you to remember and apply more of what you read in Scripture.
The question is, what kinds of things should you think about as you take your 10 minute pause? Here are a couple ideas
Think about other Scriptures that connect with your passage
A lot of times, improving your Bible reading is about seeing how your text fits in with the rest of Scripture. Taking a 10 minute reflective pause gives you time to think about other Scriptures that relate to that passage you just read. What passages deal with the same topic? Where does this passage fit in with God’s plan of redemption? Are there any passages alluded to in your text?
10 minutes of reflection lets you “connect the dots” and think about how your passage relates to other parts of Scripture.
A lot of times, the Holy Spirit will bring to mind several passages you read earlier that week or heard in a sermon or another believer talked about. Taking a 10 minute pause can give you the time and space to make those connections. One of the benefits is you might see a common theme the Lord is trying to teach you.
Think about situations in your own life which relate to your passage
The 10 minute pause not only gives you time to connect your passage to the rest of the Bible, it also gives you time to examine your own life. What events in your life illustrate the truths in this passage? When have you experienced something similar to what is discussed in the passage? What is going on in your life currently that the Lord might want you to change based on your passage?
Comparing your current life to Scripture is a great way of starting to apply a text. Rather than simply jumping to “what do I need to do”, you start by simply comparing yourself, your character, your life to the realities in your passage. Taking a 10 minute pause gives you enough time to think about your own life in light of truth. Don’t just run to the next passage: let a truth permeate your life.
Parts of Scripture can seem impractical until you pause and examine your own life in light of a passage.
If God is sovereign, then even the passage you read for your daily Bible reading was chosen by Him. Improve your Bible reading by stopping to think about why God might have led you to a particular passage today.What is going on in your life that God might be speaking to?
Think about the ways a passage drives you to prayer
Finally, taking a 10 minute pause gives you space to respond to a text with prayer. What is there to thank the Lord for? Are there any requests that should be made based on your passage? Perhaps a sin needs to be confessed, a promise pleaded, or a song of praise sung. Don’t let your 10 minute pause end without praying your passage back to the Lord.
Scripture should drive you to worship. And one of the simplest acts of worship that you can do “without ceasing” is praying in response to the Word.
Don’t make the mistake of disconnecting your prayer life with your Bible reading. They are integrally related. If you can’t think of anything else, end your 10 minute reflection thanking the Lord for providing you His word. For sustaining you “not by bread alone” but by “every word that comes from the mouth of God.”
Improve your Bible reading by setting aside 10 minutes for reflection
Taking 10 minutes to reflect on your Bible reading is not complicated or difficult to understand. You can start doing it today. The biggest barrier is often time and focus: you feel like 10 minutes might be too much time or you don’t think you can spend 10 minutes straight thinking solely about a text of Scripture. But here is the good news: the Bible was meant to be meditated on.
In taking 10 minutes to simply pause and reflect, you are reading the Bible the way it is meant to be read. Not as a box to check or a “quick read.” But as God’s life-changing, eternal truth that has countless connections and infinite implications for your life. Start today. Discipline yourself to slow down and savor God’s word. Through daily 10 minute pauses, you will train your mind to meditate on God’s word. And this in turn will make you like “a tree planted by the rivers of water that brings forth its fruit in its season and whose leaf does not wither.”
I am convinced many people have the wrong view of Bible study. They think Bible study is simply a matter of sitting down, looking at a text, and understanding it almost immediately. This mentality works for certain texts that are clear in interpretation and application. But when confronted with more difficult texts, an “understand this text in the first read through” mentality can become very discouraging. The solution? Something I like to call “Iterative Bible Study.”
How I came up with this concept
What is an “iteration”?
There are three sources I used to come up with this concept: my engineering background, the Feynman technique, and a quote I read on non-fiction writing. I am personally surprised the word “iteration” is not used more often in Christian circles. It is a word used all the time in STEM fields, and it is a helpful concept to apply to other aspects of life. What does the word “iteration” mean?
Iteration is the repetition of a process in order to generate an outcome. The sequence will approach some end point or end value. Each repetition of the process is a single iteration, and the outcome of each iteration is then the starting point of the next iteration.
This concept is used in mathematics and computer programming all the time. But once you take this definition and apply it to Bible study, it becomes a powerful tool to understand a difficult text of Scripture. Iteration is a sort of incremental action you repeat until you reach the goal. Each time you repeat, you learn a little more.
Feynman’s method for learning
Where the idea of Iterative Bible Study really started formulating in my mind, however, came after reading about Richard Feynman. Feynman was an incredibly interesting person, but what stuck out to me was his method for learning new things. He learned by following a simple cycle (or you could call it, an iterative process).
Visual representation of Feynman Technique
Essentially, Feynman would start with a topic and try to explain it at a child’s level. Why a child’s level? Because if you can’t explain something clearly and briefly without resorting to too many complicated words, you probably don’t understand the concept that well yourself. After trying to explain a concept or topic at a child’s level, Feynman would make a note of where his knowledge was lacking. Then, Feynman would go to try to acquire the knowledge he lacked.
This process was then repeated until he could clearly articulate a complex concept clearly. Now, Feynman used this technique as a physicist. But as I read about his method, I couldn’t help but think this is a perfect way of approaching Bible study. The best part of this technique is helps you clearly see what you know and what you don’t know. Once you see what you don’t know, you have the starting point for the next round of study. Feynman used an iterative process to learn and it is a powerful tool that needs to be applied to Bible study.
A quote on non-fiction writing which also helped me
A final source which helped me formulate this idea of “iterative bible study” is a quote found in the book Tools of Titans (I don’t particularly recommend this book. Some parts were helpful but on the whole I would suggest Christians not spend their time reading through this volume.”
You don’t have writer’s block when writing non-fiction. It is you not having enough research to write with power and knowledge on that topic.
Tools of Titans
The quote comes from an interview with a non-fiction writer. Essentially, anytime you start struggling to write something in non-fiction, that is evidence you need to cycle back and do more research. Not being able to communicate a concept indicates you yourself do not understand it fully. That sounds almost exactly like what Feynman said.
How does this quote apply to Bible study? Gaps in communication are caused by gaps in understanding. As you work through a Bible passage, if you cannot clearly communicate what a part of that Bible passage says, you likely have more study to do. Iterative Bible Study is about cycling back through to fill those gaps in understanding.
You don’t need to have all the answers write away when studying Scripture. But you do need to note those places where you don’t understand a text. Then, you need to cycle through to answer those questions.
A Visual Aid
Before actually going through a step by step walk through of Iterative Bible Study, I want to provide an easy visual reference. Seeing the concept is easier than reading it described.
Now I will walk through each step one by one. It is important to note there is a number of ways you can use the concept of “iterations” in your personal Bible study. I have designed this tool to mainly focus on studying the text from the get go. In other words, these steps are for when you just start looking at a text of Scripture.
Step 1: Read through the text
This is an obvious first step but a necessary one to state. Whether you are studying a verse or a longer passage, the first step is to read through the text. Start noting any clues you find that the author has left for you. Particularly focus on the flow and structure of the passage. What are the repeated phrases? Where are the changes in tone?
I personally find it helpful to underline and circle any key components of the passage as I go. I draw arrows in between connections and note any important textual features directly in my Bible. If you prefer not to write in your Bible, I recommend using a notebook or computer to write out the important things you see as you go through.
Step 2: Write out a rough outline
Now that you have some initial insight into what the passage says, it is time to start writing an outline. I give an example of how to do this later on in this post. Essentially, you are looking at the passage and organizing the pieces of it under heading. Oftentimes, an outline takes the following form:
Main point 1
Sub-point 1a
Sub-point 1b
Main point 2
Sub-point 2a
Sub-point 2b
Etc.
Let the structure of the text determine the structure of your outline. Don’t stress too much about getting everything right immediately. This is only a rough outline. You have to see what you know before you can see what you don’t know.
Step 3: Write questions you want answered into the rough outline
This is truly where Iterative Bible Study begins. Now that you have your rough outline, you start injecting questions you have into the outline itself. If you don’t understand a certain part of a passage or the passage brings out a question you have, write that underneath the corresponding heading. It will look something like this:
Main point 1
Sub-point 1a
Question 1 about Sub-point 1a
Question 2 about Sub-point 1a
Sub-point 1b
Question 1 about Sub-point 1b
Main point 2
Question 1 about Main point 2
Sub-point 2a
Sub-point 2b
Question 1 about Sub-point 2b
Etc.
As you can see, you can have questions about main points, and sub-points. You can have several questions about one point or no questions about a point. Putting your questions in bold is probably a good idea so you can distinguish between what is from the text and what is a question you have.
It is also important to note, you don’t just have to put questions into the outline. You can also note key terms you need to define, metaphors you need to study to understand, or other passages you think are relevant to the text at hand.
This is the most crucial part of Iterative Bible Study. If you don’t figure out what questions you have or what the gaps are in your understanding of a passage, you will not make progress.
A good rule of thumb is if you cannot explain a certain point of a Bible passage to a 1st grader, you probably have some gaps in your understanding of that point.
Step 4: Go back to the text and other Scripture to answer those questions
Now you get back to work. By writing the questions and knowledge gaps you have, you have revealed the next steps you must take for your Bible study. Go back to the text you are studying or search other parts of the Bible to answer the questions you have. If you singled out terms you need to define, using a software such as Blue Letter Bible is helpful.
You might have noticed you are now approaching the text a second time. This is your first iteration. You are using your first look at the text as a way to see what else you need to study to understand God’s Word. As you work to answer the questions you wrote out in Step 3, I find it helpful to put the answers right back into the outline.
Main point 1
Sub-point 1a
Question 1 about Sub-point 1a
Answer 1
Answer 2
Question 2 about Sub-point 1a
Answer
Sub-point 1b
Question 1 about Sub-point 1b
Answer
Main point 2
Question 1 about Main point 2
Answer 1
Answer 2
Sub-point 2a
Sub-point 2b
Question 1 about Sub-point 2b
Answer
Etc.
You can see that your outline is now filling up. Even in a single iteration, you should have a much better understanding of the passage you started studying. Simply by identifying questions you have and gaps in your knowledge of a passage, you were able to direct your Bible study. Iterative Bible Study is all about making little steps forward in your understanding of a text.
Step 5: Repeat Steps 3-4 until satisfied with your study
Now, the reality is your further study could have revealed more questions you have. That is perfectly fine. The whole point of Iterative Bible Study is to keep asking questions and getting them answered. If after your first round of study you still have questions, repeat Steps 3-4 until you are satisfied. If you go this route, your outline might start looking like this:
Main point 1
Sub-point 1a
Question 1 about Sub-point 1a
Answer 1
Follow-up question for Answer 1
Answer 2
Question 2 about Sub-point 1a
Answer
Sub-point 1b
Question 1 about Sub-point 1b
Answer
New Question about Sub-point 1b
Main point 2
Question 1 about Main point 2
Answer 1
Answer 2
Follow-up question for Answer 2
Sub-point 2a
Sub-point 2b
Question 1 about Sub-point 2b
Answer
Etc.
The hope is that in your second round of going through Steps 3-4 you have less questions and gaps in your knowledge. You can repeat this process until you are out of time to study, until you understand the passage, or until you are satisfied with the current depth of your Bible study.
Why is Iterative Bible Study helpful?
Now that you have seen how to do Iterative Bible Study, the question remains of why you would choose to approach a text this way. Certainly this method of Bible Study is one of many. I believe, however, that Iterative Bible Study is one of the best tools you can have in your toolbox when seeking to understand a text. Three benefits come to mind of adopting this method:
You don’t have to get everything completely right the first time
I have met many Christians who freeze at certain passages of Scripture. Whether because the passage is long and difficult or they are afraid of misinterpreting a text, I believe a lot of Bible Study is quenched because of fear. And somewhat rightfully so: God’s word is powerful and must be interpreted properly.
However, I think such a fear also comes from not knowing how to start. Even more than this, a lot of Bible Study doesn’t happen because people don’t know where and how to start.
Iterative Bible Study helps because there is not a pressure to get the passage completely right the first time. The whole point of starting your study is to see what parts of a passage you understand and which parts you do not understand. This method gives you a clear, easy way to start studying a text. And from there, it gives you a path forward to progressively seeing what God’s word is saying.
Helps you distinguish between what you know and what you don’t know
Clear thinking is important for Bible Study. And nothing helps you think clearer than distinguishing between what you know and what you don’t know. Iterative Bible Study gives you a powerful method to seeing what things you know and what parts of a passage you need to work at further to understand.
If you don’t know what is missing from your understanding, you won’t know where to look. By putting questions directly into your outline, you not only see what you need to answer, you also see what parts of the passage are causing you the most difficulty. Simply putting questions into a rough outline helps you think more clearly.
Gives you more questions to answer with each iteration
A lot of Bible Study is simply asking the right questions of a text. Not all your questions will be relevant, not all your questions will get answered in the ways you expect. Iterative Bible Study forces you to constantly ask questions of the text and then seek for answers from Scripture. This process allows Scripture to interpret Scripture because you are seeking answers to your questions by going to the Bible.
The more questions you have, the more Bible you will read. The more Bible you read, the more it shapes your thinking. That process is built into Iterative Bible Study and once you get in the habit of asking good questions of Scripture, the more rich your study will become.
An example of Iterative Bible Study
Before closing this post, I think a brief example of this method is helpful. I am actually currently using this method to prepare a sermon on Romans 1:11-12.
For I long to see you, that I may impart to you some spiritual gift to strengthen you—that is, that we may be mutually encouraged by each other’s faith, both yours and mine.
Romans 1:11-12, ESV
So after reading the text, the first step is to create a rough outline.
Paul long’s to see the Church in Rome
Why? To impart some spiritual gift to strengthen the Church
Paul wants to be encouraged by the Church in Rome
The source of this encouragement is each other’s faith
The outline pretty basic, but it breaks down the two verses a bit. Now, I start adding the main questions I have into the outline.
Paul long’s to see the Church in Rome
Why? To impart some spiritual gift to strengthen the Church
What is the definition of “strengthen”?
What is the definition of “spiritual gift?”
Why is encouragement called a “spiritual gift?”
How does mutual encouragement of faith strengthen a Church?
Paul wants to be encouraged by the Church in Rome
Why is mutual encouragement important to Paul?
What do Paul and the Church in Rome have in common?
The source of this encouragement is each other’s faith
How can someone’s faith be an encouragement?
What is the definition of “encouragement”?
You see that even from a short outline, questions cause the study to build outward. Some of the questions are a little redundant, but that is okay at this stage. This outline is not the outline for the sermon yet, it is simply a tool to aid my Bible Study.
The next step is answering these questions by studying Romans 1:11-12, other passages of Scripture, and using a tool to help me define the words I need defined. I would then start adding those answers to the outline.
Paul long’s to see the Church in Rome
Why? To impart some spiritual gift to strengthen the Church
What is the definition of “strengthen”?
What is the definition of “spiritual gift?”
“Charisma” -“a divine gift” points to the origin of the gift
Why is encouragement called a “spiritual gift?”
The encouragement of other believers is a gift from God
How does mutual encouragement of faith strengthen a Church?
Strong faith sets an example (Abraham)
Strong faith points us back to God (Hebrews 11)
Seeing faith in action in someone’s life encourages us to stay the course
Paul wants to be encouraged by the Church in Rome
Why is mutual encouragement important to Paul?
Paul’s letters are full of encouragement to local Churches (1 Thess 5:11, Phil 2:1, 2 Corinthians 1:3-4)
Scripture contains a number of “tools” to help Christians grow…one of those is encouragement
Church in Rome was a minority, persecution was coming
What do Paul and the Church in Rome have in common?
Same fundamental need
Need righteousness from Christ
Same ethical implications from Gospel
The source of this encouragement is each other’s faith
How can someone’s faith be an encouragement?
Strong faith sets an example (Abraham)
Strong faith points us back to God (Hebrews 11)
Seeing faith in action in someone’s life encourages us to stay the course
What is the definition of “encouragement”?
I didn’t bother answering all the questions for this example, but you get the point. Now I could go back through and ask further questions of the text. With each iteration, my outline fills out and my understanding grows. But you see that even after one iteration, the depth of my understanding of Romans 1:11-12 has grown by leaps and bounds.
In conclusion, Iterative Bible Study is a powerful tool to add to your personal Bible study. It gives you a place to start even when studying the most difficult of texts. You can slowing understand a text and then move on to meditating on how it applies to your life.
Open up your Bible to any text. Immediately, you as a reader are confronted with a textual forest. Complex arguments. Poetic language. Parables and Proverbs. Narrative. What is your first step to understanding this text? How do you get to the core of a bible passage?
In many ways, analyzing a Bible passage is like doing detective work. And the Biblical authors have left you a bunch of different clues to help you understand the truth God is communicating. This post will go through a list of those different clues. By knowing what to look for, you won’t miss important clues the author gives to help you out.
1. What style of literature is the passage?
This first clue the author gives you is essential to interpretation. Books have been written on the different literary types of the Bible and how to approach each type. If you have taken a literature class growing up you are familiar with different literary types: poetry, narrative stories, plays, etc. One of the things which makes Scripture difficult to interpret sometimes is there are several different literary types contained in it.
Your first step to understanding the Bible passage is simply to identify the type of literature you are dealing with. Does the passage record a historic event? Then it is likely narrative. Does the passage discuss the future using metaphorical language? Then it is likely prophecy. Does the passage fit within a stand-alone book with a sender and a receiver? Then it is likely a letter.
Discerning the type of literature of a Bible passage sets your expectations as a reader. A narrative passage which says “He ate locusts and wild honey” you might take literally, while a passage of poetry which declares God’s word is “sweeter than honey” must be understood as a metaphor.
2. What is the structure of the passage?
After figuring out the type of literature, it helps to examine the structure of the passage. What I mean by this, is simply to look at what happens in the passage. Are there distinct sections in the passage? Or does it all flow together? Are there different “scenes”? Is there a break in flow or a something unexpected which appears in the passage? Look in particular for any shifts in tone or focus.
Answering this question can be difficult at the start. You might need to look at other clues in the passage before answering the question. But understanding the structure of the passage helps you see the “big picture”. Oftentimes, if you just straight into defining words or breaking down metaphors, you end up losing sight of the passage as a whole.
Each part of the passage contributes to the whole. Don’t get overly focused on any one part without understanding how it fits into what the author is saying
3. Is a word or phrase repeated?
This is one of the easiest things to look for and might be one of the most helpful. Looking for repeated words and/or phrases helps you discern what is the emphasis of this passage? One of the common pitfalls you can make in your Bible study is emphasizing whatever you think is important without asking what does the author think is important?
Repetition is a simple clue Biblical authors leave to say “Here is my point! Don’t miss this!”
Now, not every repetition emphasizes the “main point.” But oftentimes a repeated phrase should clue you in to how you should interpret a passage. For example, the other day I was reading through Genesis 39. It is the passage which describes Joseph as a slave in Potiphar’s house and then getting sent to jail after getting falsely accused. As I read, I noticed the passage kept repeating the phrases “The Lord was with Joseph,” “The Lord blessed Joseph” and kept mentioning “Joseph’s authority”.
Just from seeing those repetitions, I could start interpreting the significance of the passage. The author is trying to emphasize Joseph’s success was a product of God’s blessing. What specifically did God bless Joseph with? Authority. More study needs to follow to understand the text fully, but let textual repetition shape your thinking early on in your study.
The text often repeats what is most important.
4. Are any emotional words used in the passage?
I have elsewhere argued that figuring out the emotion an author is trying to convey is vital. Passages of Scripture aim to have a definite effect on the reader. The Bible wants to change the way you think and act, but it also wants to shape your emotions. One of the ways to discern what the author wants you to feel is to look for “emotional words”.
What I mean by “emotional words” are adjectives, verbs, exclamations, or other words which strongly point towards a particular emotion. If I yelled out “ow”, you would immediately assume a negative emotion. If I say “Oh taste and see that the Lord is good!” there is a strong positive sound to the phrase. “There is no fear of God before their eyes”, on the other hand, sounds like a negative appraisal.
The emotional words in a passage help you hear the author’s tone. You have had this experience before if you have ever written someone an email. Because you cannot show the recipient your facial expressions, you have to choose certain words to convey positive, negative, or neutral emotion. It is the same thing with Biblical texts. The emotional words in a passage give you a clue to how you should feel after reading it.
5. Are there any important words to define?
You often don’t have time to go through and define every single word in a bible passage. Nor is it always helpful to do so. A lot of times, the essential reality a text is pointing to is dependent on a few key words. Sometimes those words are the repeated words in the passage or the emotionally charged words. But as you read through the passage, ask yourself after each sentence “do I understand what this means? If not, is there a word that, if I understood it, I would understand the passage?”
Key words are exactly that: words that unlock your understanding of the sentence or phrase. If a sentence is using simple words that you understand at first glance, maybe there are no key terms to define. But if you run into a sentence that you have to read through multiple times to understand, there may be a word that you could define. A good practice is to simply list out those key words and then go through one-by-one and define them in their biblical context.
Oftentimes, if you don’t understand a bible passage, you really just don’t understand a few key words. Study those, and you’ll understand the whole passage.
It is important to use an online tool like Blue Letter Bible or software like Logos to define the words. What you really want to do is understand what the word could mean in the original language, and then see how it is used throughout scripture. Whatever you do, don’t simply use an English dictionary to define the key words. If you do this, you are translating a translation. Original languages are vital for this step. Better to go to a commentary which discusses the original languages than an English dictionary.
6. Are there any metaphors in the text and what do they mean?
Metaphors are essential to communication. Bible passages make frequent use of metaphors regardless of the genre. I consider understanding metaphors to be so crucial to understanding scripture, I created a whole tool to help you understand them. I invite you to go read that post if you want a deeper understanding of how to get your mind around a Biblical metaphor.
For the purposes of this post, you must know how to identify a metaphor. This is where knowing the type of literature comes into play. If you are studying a Psalm or prophetic literature, expect more metaphorical language. Metaphors simply explain a complicated, abstract concept by comparing it with a concrete, easily understood concept. A righteous man is compared to a tree. God’s word is compared with gold and honey. Locusts become a picture of God’s judgement.
You will not fully grasp a Biblical text until you identify the meaning of its metaphors.
7. Is anything contrasted in this passage?
Contrast often goes hand-in-hand with metaphors. A contrast is simply taking two things and emphasizing their differences. A good example is Psalm 1. In this Psalm, the righteous man is contrasted with the wicked man. You as the reader are meant to see the differences between the two. Another classic example of a contrast is at the end of the Sermon on the Mount. Jesus contrasts a wise man who builds his house on a rock with a foolish man who builds his house on the sand.
When analyzing contrasts, ask “what differences should I be seeing between these two things?”
8. Are there any if-then statements?
The fancy title for these is “conditional clauses.” If this thing happens, then this other thing happens. If-then statements are found throughout the Bible. It is helpful to divide them up between the “if” and the “then”. The “if” answers what needs to happen and the “then” answers what will happen as a result. Sometimes the words “if” and “then” appear in the passage, other times they do not. You have to be discerning and thoughtful to notice if a condition is present.
For example, the verse “Unless the Lord builds the house, those who build it labor in vain” might not seem to be an if-then statement. But you could rewrite the verse as “if the Lord does not build the house, then those who build it labor in vain.” You see that the originally verse is actually a conditional clause in disguise. Be on the lookout for if-then statements in whatever bible passage you are studying. Oftentimes, an if-then statement will hold the key to interpreting the passage.
9. Are there any logical arguments in the passage?
In the future, I will write an extensive post on logical arguments and how to analyze them. Suffice to say, logic is a tool you must have to read and grasp any text. Biblical authors use logical arguments explicitly and implicitly in their writings. A logical argument draws a conclusion from premises. In other words, a logical argument wants you to accept something as true because of other things which are true. I highly recommend every Christian take a course or read a book on logic. The payoffs to your Bible study will be exponential.
There are a number of words which indicate premises and conclusions. I will give you them in a different post. For now, look for the word “therefore.” “Therefore” is a word which almost always indicates a conclusion. And where there is a conclusion, an argument is almost certainly nearby. So look for logical progressions, arguments, & conclusions. They often reveal the point of a passage.
I will go as far as to say you cannot study the Bible without understanding logic. It is fundamental to understanding language & communication.
Conclusion
There are dozens of ways Biblical authors communicate truth. Some are easy to understand but most require thought and work to grasp. This post has given you a few important parts of bible passages to look for. There are certainly more. But if you start your Bible study looking for the clues given in this post, you will most likely have a much easier time understand the author’s intent. Understanding a bible passage takes time, but if you are equipped with the right tools and know what things to look for, you will always find a truth about the Lord to excite you.
