First Steps in Bible Study

So we are going to give the Bible a chance to speak for itself. In other words, we are going to set about reading it. Perhaps you have never read it before, at least, not since childhood. What is the best way to begin?

This is not easy, because there are several things about the Bible that tend to put off the beginner. To begin with, there is its sheer size: more than a thousand large pages. The older versions are usually bound in a forbidding black. They are written in an unfamiliar, old-fashioned style of English. Some chapters seem almost impossible to understand, even in a modern translation. Other parts are just lists of names, which are about as interesting at first glance as a page from the telephone directory.

Whats that? You were about to give it up as hopeless before you had even begun? Hold on! Remember that this is the book that has transformed the lives of millions. Countless multitudes of ordinary, uneducated men and women have found it a delight to read. Large numbers of them have willingly faced martyrdom on account of it. Dont give up too easily. There must be more in this book than you think.

Cheer up. It is possible to break yourself in as a Bible reader, quite painlessly, if you use the right method. In fact you should be able to enjoy it, right from the word, "go". The three essentials are:

(1) Choose an attractive modern translation to begin with.

(2) Dont try to read right through from Genesis to Revelation at your first attempt. Instead, begin by concentrating on the most readable parts of the Bible.

(3) Most important of all: use the well-tried technique of reading the Bible with a purpose in mind.

Choosing your "beginners Bible" will not take long. It is essential to have a complete Bible, and not just a New Testament. Translations made by whole teams of scholars are obviously to be preferred to those made by one man. Protestant versions are to be preferred to Roman Catholic versions, because all Catholic translations are affected to some extent by the Catholic doctrine that the Church has the right to interpret the Bible.

This narrows the field to two modern translations, the Revised Standard Version and the New English Bible. The Revised Standard Version has the advantage that it sticks fairly closely to the meaning of the Hebrew and Greek. The New English Bible, on the other hand, is less accurate because it tends to interpret the Hebrew and Greek more freely; but many people find it more readable. Either will serve your purpose, as a Bible to begin on.

Selected Readings

The Old Testament tells the story of Gods people, from the very beginning up to about 400 B.C. Right from the very first book it foretold the coming of a Saviour-King, who would save men from sin and rule the world in righteousness.

The New Testament begins with the birth of this Saviour-King (Jesus). It goes on to tell of His life, death, resurrection, and ascension to heaven. It describes the early history of the Church that He founded, and includes a number of letters written by His followers. It ends with a vision of the future, and an oft-repeated promise that one day He will come back to the earth.

The two Testaments are like two halves of a jig-saw puzzle. It is impossible to make complete sense of one without the other. For this reason Old and New Testament readings are interspersed in the table given below.

The Gospel of Mark

Genesis

Exodus (chapters 1 to 24)

The Gospel of Luke

Joshua (chapters 1 to 10, and chapter 24), Judges and Ruth

The Acts of the Apostles

1st and 2nd Samuel

The Gospel of Matthew

1st and 2nd Kings

Pauls Epistles to Timothy, Titus and Philemon

Ezra, Nehemiah and Esther

The Epistles of James, Peter and John

Proverbs

Pauls Epistles to the Corinthians and the Philippians

Isaiah

The Gospel of John

Jonah and Malachi

At the rate of one long chapter or two short chapters a day, that list should last you about a year. By the end of that time you will have quite a good idea of what the Bible is about.

You may then be tempted to go on and read the books you have missed. My advice is: dont. First spend another year working through this selected list again. You will be surprised how much more you learn on the second time round.

Reading with a Purpose

For a little while you may find it hard to stick to your resolve to read at least a chapter a day. Make a real effort to do this. It is worth it. You would never make a pianist unless you were prepared to practise regularly. Similarly, to get to know the Word of God you need to read it every day-or, at any rate, nearly every day.

Prayer will help you here. Tell its Author that you want to read His Book each day. Ask Him to strengthen your resolve to do so. And each day, as you settle down to read, ask Him to make your reading enjoyable and fruitful.

There are many Bible-readers prayers in Psalm 119. Here is one of them that may help you: "Open my eyes, that I may behold wondrous things out of Thy Law."1

If possible, do your Bible readings in company. Perhaps husband, wife, parents, or children will agree to join you. Perhaps you can get together with one or two friends; if they are already Bible-believers, so much the better.

But whether you read alone or in company, dont just read and shut the book. You will benefit only a little that way. The real value of the reading comes from looking (or talking) it over afterwards, to see what you can learn from it.

This is what is meant by "reading with a purpose". When you have read a chapter, try to answer these three questions about it:

(a) What did it convey to its first readers?

(b) What does it tell us about Gods work in the world?

(c) What lessons can we learn from it to help us in everyday life?

You will soon find that nearly every chapter becomes interesting when you ask these questions. You wont always be able to answer all three. But with practice you will generally be able to answer at least one of them. Here are a few examples, based on readings from the Revised Standard Version. Open your own Bible and follow the chapters concerned.

Example 1: Philippians 4

This is an example of a chapter where all three of our basic questions are easy to answer.

Question (a). This letter was written by Paul when he was in prison. (You would have learnt that fact if you had previously read chapter 1, verses 7 to 14.) Verse 4, "Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, Rejoice!" must have shown Pauls readers that his spirit was uncrushable. His concern for them, which runs throughout the chapter, would have made them realise that he was still as unselfish as ever. His gratitude to them for their kindness to him must have stirred them deeply. Altogether, they must have been moved almost to tears by Pauls example of Christian courage, faith and selfless love.

Question (b). Verse 3, my fellow workers whose names are in the book of life", shows that God promises eternal life, not to everybody, but to those who join His team of workers. Verse 18, "the gifts you sent, a fragrant offering, a sacrifice acceptable and pleasing to God", shows that God is aware of every real sacrifice that men make for Christs sake. And verse 19, "my God will supply every need of yours", shows that God repays such sacrifices, even in this present life.

Question (c). The lesson of verse 2, "I entreat Euodia and I entreat Syntyche to agree in the Lord", is obvious: there is no place for longstanding quarrels in Christs church.

The lesson of verses 6 and 7 is especially appropriate to our affluent, hectic, ulcer-ridden society. "Dont worry about tomorrow. Trust God to supply all your needs. That way you will receive a blessing that money cannot buy: contentment", it promises us. Verse 12 carries much the same message.

Verse 8 has another special message for our age: "Whatever is true, whatever is honourable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is gracious, if there is any excellence, if there is any-thing worthy of praise, think about these things." How can we do this if we feed our minds solely on the endless diet of crime and sin, violence and sex, supplied by TV, press and cinema?

Example 2: Genesis 24

This is primarily a "Question (c)" chapter. It is packed full of valuable lessons about marriage. Why not try a little exercise here? Read the passage carefully with a pencil and paper at hand. After making allowance for the differences in customs between Abrahams day and ours, note down all the lessons you can derive from this chapter of the Bible.

Do this now-before you read any further in this book. Then compare your own list with the list given below.

(1) Parents ought to take a close personal interest in the well-being of their children, and seek to influen ce them in their choice of life partners (verses 1 to 4).

(2) It is vitally important that believers should not marry un-believers (verse 3; note the emphasis implied by the word, "swear").

(3)Dont rush into a compromise solution of a difficult marriage problem (verses 5 and 6).

(4)Instead, trust God to provide a really satisfactory solution (verse 7).

(5) But dont be starry-eyed about the matter. Take whatever practical steps are called for in seeking a suitable marriage partner (verse 10).

(6) At the same time, pray earnestly for Gods guidance (verses 12 to 14).

(7) Base your choice of a partner on character, rather than on looks (verses 14 and 20; only a big-hearted, generous girl would have offered to water ten thirsty camels!).

(8) Rely upon it, God will supply the right partner for us if we trust Him completely (verses 27 and 51).

(9) Love-real love, lasting love-will surely follow, if only we let these pri nciples guide us (verse 67).

Example 3: 1 Corinthians 15: 1-28

This is essentially a "Question (b)" chapter. Try the same exercise as in the previous example, but this time note down the main principles of Christian doctrine contained in this passage. Then compare your list with the one below.

(1) The way to be saved is to accept the true Christian gospel that Paul taught, and then abide by it (verses 1 and 2).

(2) Christ died as a sacrifice for our sins (verse 3).

(3) Then He rose from the dead. There is irrefutable evidence of this, because there were over 500 eye-witnesses (verses 4 to 8).

(4) The fact that He rose is an absolutely essential part of the Christian religion (verses 12 to 19).

(5) Christs followers also will rise bodily from the dead, one day (verses 20 to 22).

(6) This will take place when Christ comes back to the earth (verse 23).

(7) Some time later, death will be entirely abolished and Gods supremacy will then be unchallenged (verses 24 to 28).

The Next Step

When you have worked through the "short list" of Bible books twice, you will be ready for the next step. Dont make the mistake of going straight for all the books that were left out of the selected list. Remember that they were omitted because they were the more difficult books of the Bible. To tackle them one after the other would only be to invite mental indigestion and disappointment.

A better way is now to approach the Bible as a whole, resolved this time to miss out nothing. That way you will be reading a happy mixture of familiar and unfamiliar, simpler and more difficult books.

There are two good methods of setting about this. One way is to continue the simple system of "one long or two short chapters a day". To avoid spending too long on either Testament it would be best to read a book from each in turn-Genesis, Matthew, Exodus, Mark, Leviticus, Luke, and so on.

The other method is to use one of the published "Bible Calendars", in which certain chapters are allocated to each day of the year. The best known of these is probably the one drawn up many years ago by R. M. McCheyne. It allocated four separate portions to every day, starting like this:

January 1 l Genesis 1 Matthew 1 Ezra 1 Acts 1

and finishing like this:

December 31 2 Chronicles 36 Revelation 22 Malachi 4 John 21

The man with enough stamina to keep this up for a whole year would find he had read through the New Testament and the Psalms twice, and the rest of the Bible once. A generation ago these tables were still being bound up in one edition of the Authorised Version.2 Unfortunately they have since gone out of print, but similar tables in booklet form can still be obtained from some of the sectarian publishers.

Tables like this are mainly useful in a Bible readers early years. They force the pace, and enable him to gain a broad acquaintance with the whole Bible quickly. When this has been achieved he will want to look at a smaller number of chapters in a day, but to study them in greater depth.

Progressing from Bible Reading to Bible Study

There is no sharp line of demarcation between Bible reading and Bible study. Every thoughtful Bible reader is a Bible student. Nevertheless, there comes a time when the Bible reader realises he has passed the stage of being a beginner. He has read the whole Bible through two or three times, and feels at home anywhere in its pages. Now he feels ready to start digging deeper. What next?

Without a doubt, the first priority is to acquire a good study Bible. The modern translations recommended so far are excellent reading Bibles for beginners. They are also useful tools for a students shelf, to turn to when he wants a second opinion about a difficult passage. But as basic study Bibles they are woefully inadequate.

The best study Bible, of course, is a Hebrew Old Testament and a Greek New Testament, for those who can handle them competently. Most of us, however, have to be content with an English translation. Nearly all students are agreed that the best of these for study purposes is the English Revised Version of 1886.

There are two main reasons for this. It sticks more closely to the words of the original languages than any other leading translation. And in its more expensive editions it is supplied with a magnificent set of cross-references, which are invaluable to the student.

Another advantage of this version is that it can be bought in a sort of sandwich edition, which contains the Authorised (or King James) Version on the same page. In this way the reader gets two complete translations for the price (and the bulk) of one-and-a-bit.

This unique book is called The Interlinear Bible. It was originally published by the Cambridge University Press, but was dropped from their lists a few years ago. Fortunately it has now been reissued by another publisher, who has given it what it previously lacked: wide margins, for the student to write notes on.3 This edition is not cheap, but it is almost certainly the best buy in study Bibles today.

Cross References

Any good study Bible will bristle with footnotes and cross-references. Readers often refer to these as being "in the margin", because once upon a time they were printed down the edges of each page. Nowadays they usually appear in a centre column, or at the foot of the page. But the old name sticks. How, then, does the student make the best use of his "margin"?

As an example, take the very first verse of the New Testament, Matthew 1:1. In my edition of the Revised Version (which, as already mentioned, has been provided with an unusually good "margin") the verse is printed like this:

1a The book of the 2 generation of Jesus Christ,

b the son of David, the son of Abraham.

In this short verse there are five interruptions, two indicated by numbers and three by letters. The numbers refer to the translators comments, which appear at the bottom of the page like the footnotes in an ordinary book. (The translators of this version were very good at telling the reader where they were not sure of themselves, or where two alternative translations are possible. Full marks to them for this habit! I only wish modern translators did it to the same extent.)

The note (1) tells us that "the book of the generation of" can equally well be translated "the genealogy of". Note (2) says that the Greek word translated "generation" can also be translated "birth", and that it is translated this way in verse 18.

Now we turn to the letters. These link up with a long list of Bible references, running down the centre of the page. Against (a) we find, "Cp. Luke 3:23-38". The letters "Cp." stand for "compare". When we compare the passage mentioned, we see that Luke gives another list of ancestors of Jesus Christ-a useful piece of information.

When we follow up the letters (b) and (c) we really strike a gold-mine. Why should the very first sentence of the New Testament link Jesus Christ with two Old Testament characters? Turning up the cross references will supply the answer to this question, and a very interesting answer it is.

(b) invites us to turn up the following passages: 2nd Samuel 7:12-16; Psalm 132:11; Isaiah 11:1; Jeremiah 23:5; Luke 1:32, 69; John 7:4*; Acts 2:30; Acts 13:23; Romans 1:3; 2nd Timothy 2:8; Revelation 22:16.

The first passage in this list is part of a promise that God made to David. It begins like this:

" And when thy days be fulfilled, and thou shalt sleep with thy fathers, I will set up thy seed after thee, which shall proceed out of thy bowels, and I will establish His kingdom. He shall build an house for My name, and I will stablish the throne of His kingdom for ever. I will be His Father, and He shall be My Son."

If you turn up all these passages you will soon see that these promises made to David are very important. They tell us quite a lot about Gods plan of salvation and what He intends to do in the world. The New Testament writers clearly regarded this as a vital part of the Gospel message.

When we come to (c) we find another list of passages, referring to some other promises made by God to Abraham. There are only three in this list (Genesis 22:18; Galatians 3:16; Romans 9:5). But we need not stop there. Each of these passages has, in turn, its own list of cross-references. By following these up we can compile a long list of passages about Gods promises to Abraham.

It is evident from these passages that Gods promises to Abraham also formed an important part of the Gospel. Among them we read Pauls declaration that the Gospel was actually preached to Abraham,4 and the words of Jesus, "Abraham rejoiced to see My day, and he saw it and was glad."5 In other words, the Christian Gospel does not begin in Matthew-it begins in Genesis.

All this we can learn from the very first verse of the New Testament, just by using the cross-references in the margin. No wonder that old hands at Bible study regard a good margin as the first essential in a Bible.

Other Aids to Study

"Bible study?" said Margaret. "Oh, no, I could never do that. Im not brainy. I should think youd need a good education and a lot of books before you could be a proper Bible student."

Like a lot of other people, Margaret had been put off by that unfortunate word, "study". But Bible study is not like the type of study she had in mind. It is more like "nature study", which just means taking an interest in nature and finding out what you can about it.

To be a Bible student you need only three essentials: a Bible, a pencil and paper, and the right attitude of mind. If you use these regularly and enthusiastically you can go a long way, as I have tried to show in the earlier part of this chapter. Even if you never progress beyond these simple methods, you should end up knowing the Bible better than a good many ordained ministers.

But the time may come when you want to go a little further than these methods will take you. At that stage it is worth investing in three more tools: a concordance, a Bible dictionary, and a commentary.

A concordance is simply an index to the whole Bible. They come in three kinds: (1) short concordances, (2) complete English concordances, (3) complete concordances based on the Hebrew and Greek words, but set out in a form that an ordinary English reader can follow.

The first kind are not worth very much. They are cheap, but exasperating. To keep them short the compilers have to omit lots of passages. So they try to select just the verses that they think you will find useful. This, of course, is an impossible task, and half the time you will find that the passage you want is not there.

A complete concordance is a substantial volume. It lists all the words found in the English Bible (except for trivial words like "if", "but", "for", "to" and "the") and after each word quotes all the passages where that word occurs. A concordance like this has two main uses.

In the first place, it helps you to find half-remembered passages. If you cannot recall where "God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son" occurs, the concordance will soon tell you. All you need to do is to look up the most uncommon word (in this case, "begotten") and then glance down the list of passages containing that word until you see the one you want. You could, of course, find the verse by turning up one of the other words in it, such as "God", "loved", or "gave". But then you would have a much longer list of passages to look through. So it always pays to choose the most unusual word.

The second use of a concordance is to enable you to study a theme. You may decide to make a character study of the apostle James, to see what lessons you can learn from his failures and successes. A complete concordance will point you to every place in the Bible where he is mentioned. Or you may want to study the history of a place, like Babylon, or of an object, like the tabernacle. Once more your concordance will show you where to look.

But if you want to study the use of a Bible word, like ~ or "salvation", or "redeem", an ordinary English concordance will not take you very far. It is here that the third type of concordance-that based on the occurrence of Hebrew and Greek word-comes into its own. Dont be put off at the thought of dabbling in strange languages; you can use these concordances without even knowing a single letter of the Greek alphabet.

For a simple example, suppose that you want to know what the New Testament teaches about Holy Communion. You look up the English word "communion", and find that it occurs only four times. Twice it is applied to the sacrament;6 once it is used to refer to the Christians intimate association with the Holy Spirit;7 and once to warn Christians not to become too intimate with unbelievers.8

But this is only a beginning. The concordance also tells us that "communion" is a translation of the Greek word koinonia, which is used twenty times in the Greek New Testament. In our English Bible (the Authorised Version) it is translated "fellowship" twelve times, and communication, communicate, contribution, and distribution", once each.

The concordance leads us to all these passages, and immediately we see how the early Christians used this word. "Communion", to them, meant fellowship, togetherness, comradeship, the spirit of one happy family obeying its Father in heaven, When they helped one another, that was "communion", just as surely as when they took bread and wine together. For instance, Paul could write:

" It hath pleased them of Macedonia and Achaia to make a certain contribution for the poor saints which are at Jerusalem."9

"They glorify God for... your liberal distribution unto them."10

In both cases the word in italics is the translation of that Greek word koinonia (communion). Thus we learn that real Christian communion is a living, loving activity, of which the sacrament is only one aspect. Woe betide the so-called Christian who "takes communion" and then goes straight home to live a selfish life! He does not even know the meaning of the word "communion". And all this useful information, of great practical importance, emerges from looking up just one little word in a good concordance.

Two concordances of this kind are available, Youngs 11 and Strongs.12 Strongs contains fewer mistakes, and includes some useful features not found in Youngs. But Youngs is cheaper, and, because of the way it is set out, easier for the beginner to use.

Dictionaries and Commentaries

All sorts of questions crop up that can best be answered by reference to a Bible dictionary. We all know what gold is, but what are frankincense and myrrh? And who were the Wise Men who brought these gifts? How big was a shekel, and a talent, and a bath, and an ephah, and all the other coins and weights and measures of the Bible?

If you want information of that sort, as well as snippets of history, geography, archaeology, biography, and a hundred and one other subjects, you need a good Bible dictionary. It should be reasonably up-to-date and comprehensive. And it is essential that it should have been compiled by Bible-believing scholars. For English readers this narrows the choice to one book: The New Bible Dictionary.13 This 1,400-page work is splendid value for money.

When it comes to commentaries produced by Bible-believing scholars there is a wider choice. Even so, one of them stands out above all the others: The New Bible Commentary Revised.14 As with its companion volume, the dictionary recommended above, its price is much less than its size and its quality would lead one to expect.

There are two main rules about commentaries. The first is to get hold of a good one; the second is to use it as little as possible! This advice may sound strange, but there is a good reason for it. About a hundred years ago a great Bible student, Dean Burgon, preached a sermon on Bible study. Although he was himself a writer of commentaries, he said this:

" Pray avoid commentaries and notes. - . - they will do more to nullify your reading than anything else which could be imagined. Your object is to obtain an insight into Holy Scripture, by acquiring the habit of reading it with intelligence and care; not to be saved trouble, and to be shown what other persons have thought about it."15 (The italics are Burgons.)

It is for this reason that I have not previously recommended the popular series of notes on daily Bible readings issued by the Scripture Union.16 No doubt these serve a purpose, in persuading some people to read the Bible "the easy way", who otherwise could not be persuaded to read it at all. But reading ten or a dozen verses, and then reading another mans comments on them, can easily become like walking on crutches. It is important to develop your own spiritual muscles, by thinking out your own comments on what you read.

The best way to use a commentary is to treat it as a last resort. Always begin by seeing what you can get out of a passage yourself. If some problem baffles you, and youre sure that you are really stuck, then see if you can find an explanation in your commentary. And always remember that commentators are only human, just like the rest of us. Never take it for granted that everything you read in a commentary is correct.

Is It Really Necessary?

Well meaning people give all sorts of reasons for not reading the Bible.

" Salvation is by faith, not by Bible study. Ive got faith, so what more do I need?"

"The essence of Christianity is love, and unselfishness. Bible study is a selfish thing, it only benefits the person studying. I believe its better to go out and help other people, than to sit at home studying the Bible."

"The Christian religion is centred on a divine Person, not a book."

There is some truth in these remarks. Salvation is indeed by faith. Christianity certainly is a religion of unselfishness. It undoubtedly does centre on Jesus Christ. But does it follow that Bible reading is unnecessary? Or is there a good reason for every man and woman to read the Bible?

Lets stop for a moment and see how we reached this point. This book, in the first place, was addressed to people who lacked faith in the Bible. Part One gave them some reasons why they should believe; Part Two disposed of some of the excuses for unbelief. But that did not settle the issue. There is only one way for a person to decide finally whether he believes the Bible or not: he must read the Bible diligently for himself.

This is because Bible study will help to create faith in those who lack it, and strengthen the faith of those who already possess it. But it does even more than that. Consider these words of the apostle Paul:

" Thou hast known the holy Scriptures, which are able to make thee wise unto salvation, through faith which is in Christ Jesus. All scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness: that the man of God may be perfect, throughly furnished unto all good works."17

In other words, the Bible brings men and women to Jesus Christ.

It helps them to live better lives. It develops Christian character. Bible reading generates love, as well as faith in Christ.

That, at least, is what Paul claims. But is this true? Does the Bible really have this power, to transform the hearts, the minds, the lives, the characters, of those who read it?

This book has asked, and tried to answer, many questions about the Bible. This question is the greatest of them all. The one remaining chapter will be devoted to it.