Fundamental to the Christian life is following Christ, who is revealed through God’s Word.

Bible reading is essential to the identity and growth of Christians. We seek to become more like Jesus by spending time in Scripture, which promises to transform us.

For church leaders, preaching and teaching require careful Bible study. However, many pastors approach the text almost agnostically — following hermeneutical principles they learned in seminary, but seldom thinking of the process as particularly spiritual.

As with any other professional discipline, there are prescribed methods for Bible interpretation. For example, we might look at the original context, read a few commentaries, and seek an application appropriate to the sermon topic.

These are good practices, but following them like a well-worn recipe for a dish of spiritual revelation diminishes their effectiveness. When Bible study becomes so formulaic we overlook the whole point, we lose something vital in our lives and ministries.

Another danger is seeing Scripture as a kind of treasure chest. We scan the pages, searching for a diamond. Yet the gems we pull out often reveal as much about personal perspectives as the biblical text. This is because we are not always self-aware.

Presuppositions can influence the outcome of interpretation. Thus, we should seek through our study of Scripture to know not only God, but also ourselves. While reading the Bible, we must allow the Bible to read us.

Studying God’s Word — whether devotionally or for sermon preparation — is more than an academic or casual exercise. Each time we open it, the Bible should penetrate our hearts and overflow into the work of our hands.

Biblical interpretation and sermon preparation can be spiritually enriching — and personal. With that conviction in mind, we developed eight steps for rekindling a love of Scripture, using the acronym PERSONAL.

This is not just another formula, but a reminder to keep God’s revelation at the center of Bible reading and interpretation.

Pray

There are at least three reasons Bible study should always start with prayer. First, understanding God’s Word, character, and ways requires utter dependence on Him. Through prayer, we orient ourselves Godward.

Ask God to help you avoid changing the biblical text into your own image as you read. Invite the Holy Spirit to guide you through God’s Word, transforming you into Christ’s image. Pray for insight and illumination, but also for inner change.

Second, prayer sets a tone of attentiveness to God’s voice. Stay in an attitude of prayer throughout the process of interacting with Scripture. God can break in at any moment, bringing understanding (head) and shaping affections and emotions (heart).

It’s easy to allow the discipline of Bible study to become mundane and not Spirit-enabled. Prayer is the best way to maintain sensitivity to the Holy Spirit’s work.

Finally, prayer positions us to live and proclaim God’s truth. Bible study should lead to application, guiding our teaching and actions (hands).

Pray for the Spirit’s empowerment to apply, live, and share the Word so you and your congregation can become more Christlike.

Bible study should begin, continue, and end with recognizing dependency on God.

Evaluate Yourself

Any honest reading of Scripture requires personal evaluation, with an awareness of our distance from the contexts of biblical authors and acknowledgement of our biases.

Those who wrote the Bible had traditions, cultures, languages, and geopolitical situations different from our own. Not surprisingly, we don’t see the world exactly as they did.

We come to the text with our own biases, or preunderstandings. Even the language we use is different from the biblical languages in terms of grammar, syntax, vocabulary and style.

These biases are not necessarily good or bad, but they can be harmful when they hinder a proper interpretation of Scripture. Identifying biases aids the task of Bible interpretation.

Each time we open
it, the Bible should penetrate our hearts and overflow into the work of our hands.

Some biases are negotiable and others nonnegotiable. Nonnegotiable factors are those you cannot change. For example, the language you grew up speaking is nonnegotiable, as is your birthplace. The truth that Scripture is God’s Word is also nonnegotiable.

Even nonnegotiables are worth evaluating for the sake of gaining perspective. You can’t change these things, but you can learn another language, befriend people from other cultures, and grow in your understanding of what it means to live and proclaim God’s Word.

Openness to new information is important, but so is holding to God’s unchanging truth. Striking the right balance requires wisdom, maturity and discernment.

Scripture itself reveals how some biases can become a roadblock to obedience. Consider the prophet Jonah. After initially resisting his calling to preach in Nineveh, Jonah became angry with God when the Ninevites repented. Jonah’s ethnocentric bias kept him from appreciating God’s work or sharing His compassion.

We all have biases that affect our reading of Scripture and distort our view of God. That’s why self-evaluation is a crucial part of opening our hearts to the Holy Spirit, who promises to guide us into all truth (John 16:13).

Cultural biases are among the most difficult to shake. Yet when we became followers of Christ and citizens of heaven, we also became critics of the culture into which we were born.

Heavenly citizenship reorients our thinking. We see our culture through a new lens — a Christ-centered one. As we grow in faith, we also grow in awareness of cultural blind spots.

Through God’s Word, the Spirit renews our minds and makes us more like Christ. At the same time, we are human beings — sinners saved by grace. We still wrestle with misunderstandings and imperfections. Thus, ongoing self-evaluation is necessary when coming to Scripture.

Read in Context

Context is key. When starting a Bible study, first read the whole book (an epistle, for example), chapter (such as a psalm), or section (perhaps a prophetic oracle). Then reread the immediate context, the text before and after the passage.

Finally, read the passage in different versions (including in the biblical languages, if possible).

Throughout this process, keep the context in view. There are two contexts to notice.

The first is the original context. Consider what the passage meant to the original listeners, taking into account their historical, cultural, and geopolitical contexts.

Ask questions, such as these: What was their world like? What circumstances prompted the biblical author to write these words?

Exploring these questions requires imagination and curiosity. This is where preliminary research comes in, using Bible dictionaries, lexicons, and atlases.

When looking at Paul’s letters to the Corinthians, for example, take time to learn about the city and culture of Corinth.

As Gordon Fee says in How to Read the Bible for All Its Worth, “A text cannot mean what it could never have meant for its original readers/hearers.”

The second context is literary. What does your specific passage mean within the broader literary context?

Bible books and passages fall into genres requiring different interpretative grids. Just as there are various categories of movies — such as action, comedy, drama, or musical — each biblical genre follows certain conventions and structures.

This means you should read a psalm (poetry) differently than an epistle (letter). Asking why the biblical author chose to write in that style is also a good practice.

Failing to account for the literary context often leads to misunderstanding. Conversely, reading as the author intended helps bring the text to life.

Consider the raw emotion of Psalm 22: “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” (verse 1).

Despite feeling forsaken, the psalmist turned to God in his distress. Believers through the centuries have echoed these words amid their own pain and suffering. Jesus himself uttered them on the cross (Matthew 27:46; Mark 15:34).

Psalms have a sense of timelessness because poetry appeals to emotions through vivid expressions and imagery. Reading Psalm 22 in its original and literary contexts takes us on a journey from helplessness to praise.

While this psalm is appropriately found in the worship book of ancient Israel, its lessons are also relevant for modern Christian living. But to make the most of this or any other text, we need to consider the context.

Seek

After an initial reading and some preliminary research, delve deeper into the passage. Concentrate on words and phrases that stand out. Notice place names, people, and themes.

The process of reading the text with careful consideration of contextual and language clues is exegesis. This is an important part of biblical interpretation.

Next, highlight key sentences, perhaps even diagraming them. Look for connections within the immediate context and the rest of the book.

Again, ask questions: What was the author’s purpose in writing this passage? What concerns does he express? What information do the context and genre provide?

Search for information about highlighted words and themes, such as “covenant” or “sacrifice.” Use Bible dictionaries and similar resources to understand the historical and cultural contexts of these terms.

This learning is not just for one moment or sermon. It also equips you for future studies. Biblical knowledge is accumulative.

For instance, an in-depth study of the historical, political, and linguistic context of Philippians will help you read other Pauline works.

The process of reading the text with careful consideration of contextual and language clues is exegesis. This is an important part of biblical interpretation.

One point to keep in mind is that not all theologians across church history and global Christianity share your cultural and personal blind spots (although they will have blind spots of their own).

Asking how the local, global, and historical community of faith has understood the passage can yield fresh insights. This can include an imaginative aspect of contemplating how others might have interpreted the text based on what we know about their worldviews or theological leanings.

Such research can be labor intensive, but devoting even a little time and energy toward thinking outside your cultural box will help broaden your perspective.

For example, I (Jacqueline) once taught the Book of Esther to a group of Turkish women. When they came to the passage where Esther invites King Xerxes and Haman to a second banquet, I asked them why Esther did this.

Most Western Christians have assumed Esther became scared or wasn’t ready to appeal to the king because of some personal weakness.

However, the Turkish women unanimously responded that Esther’s relationship with Xerxes had not yet been restored. They explained that this restoration process could happen only over the intimacy of a meal.

The hospitality culture of this Turkish community changed how I read the story of Esther.

Observe With Your Heart

After focusing on the various contexts and asking what the passage meant to the original author and audience, think about what it means to you.

Observe with your heart, concentrating on “translating” the text from the original context to yours.

First, meditate on the passage while reviewing the results of your research.

Then look inward. As John Goldingay puts it in Models for Interpretation of Scripture, “Open yourself to the costly demand of the text and commit yourself to repentance and change in the light of it.”

This stage is about considering what the passage means for you and your congregation.

While learning about the original context is essential, we must also become students and critics of our own contemporary contexts. Moving from the “there-then” to the “here-now” is part of the hermeneutical process.

Note

After reading, seeking, and observing the text, write the passage in your own words. What did it mean? And what does it mean in your context? This step helps clarify your interpretation and its significance.

Make note of your findings, and then check them against commentaries. Use quality, theologically conservative sources, such as Tyndale; New International Commentary on the Old Testament (NICOT) and New Testament (NICNT); The Expositor’s Bible Commentary; and Word Biblical Commentary.

Open these resources only after doing your study. This way, you retain ownership of your takeaways from the passage.

Ask questions such as these: What additional insights have I gleaned from the commentators? Is there a consensus among the resources and commentaries? Are there any adjustments I need to make to my summary? What are the key points now?

Apply

This stage involves putting the message into action. Bible interpretation should lead to prayerful, theological reflection.

Ask yourself where you and your congregation should go from here. What actions is the Holy Spirit leading you toward through your study of God’s Word?

The Scriptures are about more than just principles and doctrines. God’s Word leads us into a life of knowing and imitating Christ.

Spend time in prayer, asking God to work in and through you. Bible readers need the Lord’s wisdom for rightly applying the text and His strength for living it. Both are necessary.

Because God’s Word
is living and active, growth and spiritual transformation are embedded in the very process of quality
Bible study and
obedient response.

Establish goals for personal growth. Identify an application or key point to focus on over the next week, along with at least one practical step to take. Make this step specific and measurable. Examples might include starting a daily gratitude list or performing an act of kindness for a neighbor.

Frequently, failure to apply the text is an indication the application is too abstract. In other words, we don’t identify concrete ways to evaluate what we have accomplished.

As a college student, I (Paul) felt inspired during my Bible reading to become more loving. After a week of this intentional focus, I still didn’t know whether I was more loving than before.

So, I set personal goals, identifying concrete ways to demonstrate God’s love. For example, I made a point of actively listening to people. I went out of my way to serve others, including my college friends. Having some specific objectives gave me a way to evaluate myself and see my growth in this area.

Whether for personal or sermon application, consider the implications of key takeaways for a believer’s inner life and walk with God. Then identify the actions, ethics, or behaviors that should follow in light of this biblical understanding. Application should have both internal and external components.

The process of applying the text also plays an important role in helping us understand it. Living God’s truth brings spiritual growth. In turn, godly wisdom and maturity inform the way we read the Bible.

Along with the rest of the biblical interpretation process, application helps us develop new preunderstandings. The next time we come to Scripture, we are not the same person. We have grown in both faith and knowledge.

We call this interplay between the text and reader the hermeneutical circle — or, expressed in terms of progression, the hermeneutical spiral. A robust biblical interpretation is not possible if we neglect the step of applying what we learn.

After deciding on an application, conclude with prayer for guidance and help. Not only does God’s Spirit illumine our minds to understand His Word, but He also empowers us to embody the message. God transforms our hearts, heads and hands progressively.

Good biblical interpretation begins and ends with prayer.

Live and Share

Some authors consider application the final step in the process. However, a proper response to God’s Word should result in ongoing life change.

By living the truths of Scripture, we transition from individual actions to ongoing habits that become second nature and inform dispositions.

Over time, thinking, affections, experiences, and ethics become more like Jesus. In addition to developing as lifelong Bible learners, those who live God’s Word are also “conformed to the image of his Son” (Romans 8:29).

We move from individual applications to a holistic lifestyle that includes Bible study. Just as in the application step, this modifies our preunderstanding for the next time we come to the text.

An extension of living God’s Word is sharing it with others. This sharing takes three forms.

First, we share the Word as part of a community of faith. This includes interacting with teachers, preachers, and scholars by learning from them about the biblical text, as well as helping others grow in understanding. Both are necessarily reciprocal. We are a hermeneutical community.

Second, we share with people outside the Church, proclaiming the good news of Christ to people who don’t know Him. All believers, pastors and parishioners alike, have a calling to share God’s truth.

Third, we share to facilitate our own growth. People remember more when they teach others. Sharing helps embed the Word in our hearts and lives.

Further, sharing cross-culturally broadens our horizons and helps us overcome cultural and personal blind spots.

——————

The telos, or end goal, of Scripture is to reveal God and bring people into a saving relationship with His Son.

The Bible points to Jesus. And the more we know Him, the more like Him we become.

Individually and collectively, we grow through Bible study to know God’s heart and character and understand His revelation.

This is a lifelong pursuit. Over years of study, we become increasingly informed and formed by our understanding and application of the Bible. Because God’s Word is living and active, growth and spiritual transformation are embedded in the very process of quality Bible study and obedient response.

Biblical interpretation is fundamental to ministry and Christian living. Therefore, we need to make our study of Scripture PERSONAL, allowing the Bible to transform our hearts, heads and hands for God’s glory.

This article appears in the Summer 2024 issue of Influence magazine.