Read Your Bible, Understand It, Apply It

As I child growing up I didn't read my Bible very often, I must confess I didn't find it to be interesting. My eyes mainly saw the pages of scripture minutes before I attended Sunday School, as I swatted the memory verse and prepared to sing "Read Your Bible Pray Everyday."

During the latter part of my teenage years I started to seek God for myself and I found I had a lot of questions. I was no longer being spoon feed and I was becoming more like the Bereans (in Act 17:10-15), who searched the scriptures to ensure that what they were being taught was in the Bible. I found myself wanting to know more and I started staying up later combing through scripture, ensuring I understood what it was saying and why.

Since then, whenever I read the scriptures I have a desire to know the context of that scripture - Why it was written? Who it was written to? What was happening during the time it was written? - before applying it to my life.

I've also come across many individuals who take verses and various passages out of context, giving it another meaning, and it bothers me. At a seminar, recently, this was highlighted by Joanne Jung who explained a Bible study method known as the Inductive Bible Study (which was basically what I've been doing. I Just didn't know there was a name for it).

Joanne Jung encouraged the group to ask ourselves these 6 questions when applying this method while reading a passage of scripture:

1. Who? (eg: Who wrote it? Who are the main characters? etc...)
2. What? (eg: What are the main events? What are they doing? etc...)
3. When? (eg: When was it written? When did it take place? etc...)
4. Where? (eg: Where did it take place? etc...)
5. Why? (Why was this written? Why did this happen? etc...)
6. How? (eg:How is it done? How is this truth illustrated? etc...)
   
   

What I have found is that these steps help a lot in understanding scripture along with additional resources. Such as:

• Study Bibles
• Concordances
• Bible Dictionaries
• Commentaries
• Lexicons

(* not an exhaustive list)

Nooma videos are also good resource tools. On that comes to mind it Dust which expound on Matt.4:18-22. Lets take a look!



I truly believe that when we understand scripture, then we'll be better able to know and understand God, as well as His purpose for our lives.