How to Study Your Bible - Part 1 — Kay Arthur

Prayer for Understanding and Faithful Study

I want us to go to the Lord in prayer, if you don't mind, because I want God to do a work in your life that will have a lasting result for the rest of your days. So let's go to the Lord in prayer. Father, we bow before you now.

And we bow before you because God, there is none like unto thee in heaven or in earth or under the earth. You alone are God. You are the sovereign ruler of all the universe. You are Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end and everything in between.

And Father, as Chuck was teaching us, and and I thank you for that man and for his brilliance, I'm just blown away by that and by his sweetness and his compassion and the call that he gave us to do and be about your business.

But Lord, as he was just explaining to us, that it is so important that we know truth. And we thank you, Father. We thank you that when your son prayed for the disciples and prayed for us in John chapter 17, that his prayer was that you would sanctify us through thy truth.

Thy word is truth. Oh, Lord, oh, Lord, how incredible that you would give us a book, a book of 66 books that is pure, unadulterated truth. Words that are breathed by you and recorded by men, not of their own devising or their own interpretation, but being moved and writing as your spirit moved them.

Father, if you gave us 66 books, surely you intend for us to know 66 books. And father, we just confess that the church as a whole has ignored your word. There has been such a syncretism in our worship of you.

And father, we have found ourselves so entangled with the affairs of this life that we have forgotten that man doesn't live by bread alone, but he lives by every word that comes out of your mouth. And father, I just ask you now as your servant to so fill me with your spirit and so fill these people with your spirit.

Give us the spirit of wisdom and understanding and the knowledge of you. And father, just show us how we can handle your word accurately and remind us, father, that we are responsible for that. That we are to exert ourselves, that we are to study, to show ourselves approved unto you workmen that do not need to be ashamed.

And father, your son is coming and his reward is with him to give to each one of us according to our deeds. And so we are to be workmen that needeth not be ashamed. Why, father, because we have handled your word accurately, because we have cut it straight, because we have honored it and esteemed your words more precious than our necessary food.

So, father, now fill me with your spirit in these two sessions that we have. I'm asking you, Lord, to keep us awake and alert and just to put the sword of your spirit into us and let it do its work. So that, father, when we see you, when we see you, we will not be ashamed because we have held faithfully to your precepts for it's through your precepts that we get understanding and rightly that we hate every false way because it's false.

So I thank you now for what you're going to do. And I pray that your word would go forth in power and in the Holy Spirit and with full conviction and by example, in Jesus name, amen. It is such a privilege and I'm so glad to see your faces a little bit with the with the light up.

Observing and Remembering the Word of God

But I want you also we're going to I want you to get out a pencil or a pen. It doesn't matter because I want to show you how to observe the word of God, how to read the open the word of God and how to study it in such a way that you don't forget what you read, that you don't forget what you saw, but that as you learn to honor God's word as God's word, then what God will do is take it and put it together and weave it into the warp and woof of your life so that you will become living epistles known and read of all men.

Testimony of Religious Background and Conversion

Now, I'm going to take just a minute to give you a quick testimony. I didn't come to know Jesus Christ until I was 29. I was raised in the church. I was baptized as an infant. I was taught by the church that I became a child of God when I was baptized.

I was taught by the church that when I was confirmed, I received the Holy Spirit. Now, I didn't know the Bible, so I didn't understand that there's a way that seems right unto man. But the end thereof is the way of death.

How could I become a child of God when I'm baptized and then not receive the Holy Spirit, which they said I got when I got confirmed? Because the Bible says if any man has not the spirit of Christ, he's none of his.

So there's a way that seems right unto man. But the end thereof is the way of death. He says, I bear them witness. They have a zeal for God, but not according to knowledge, not according to truth. And so I was raised in the church.

I had a religion, but not a relationship. I had a strong, sensual focus as a young girl. I can't go into it. My testimony is out there and we can go in. If you want to go into it in depth, then you can go into it by getting the CD and listening to it.

But just all this to say that by the age of 20, I walked down the aisle. I was a virgin physically. I was a harlot mentally. I did not understand that as a man thinketh or a woman thinketh in his heart, in his mind.

So he is and that were to guard our heart, regard our mind. They're one in the same in the Jewish thinking with all diligence, because out of it come the issues of life as a man thinks. So he is. And where do all these things begin?

They begin adultery, murder, all of that. It begins in the heart. So at the age of 20, I walked down the aisle. I got married and I thought this is it. And I had my little plan for my wonderful marriage because I saw my parents live in a wonderful, wonderful marriage.

I was married six years on my honeymoon, on my honeymoon, in a beautiful, ideal setting. And I was married to a man who was offered contracts by the Yankees, the Pirates, the Indians and the Phillies to pitch ball for him because he was just an outstanding natural athlete.

Casey Stengel pursued him and others. And so but on my honeymoon, this man that was voted most likely to succeed, this outstanding athlete, this this guy that seemed to have it all together, sat me down in Bermuda and looked at me and said, you are now Mrs. Frank Thomas Getz, Jr.

And these are the things I don't like about you and I want them changed. It wasn't exactly what I planned on discussing on my honeymoon. I didn't realize it, but bless his heart, he was manic depressive.

He was that's what we called it in those days. He was bipolar. I'd just gotten out of my psychiatric training. I'm a nurse and I didn't even recognize it. So that marriage was going like this. And I went after six years.

Marriage Crisis and the Failure of Human Counsel

Tom went to seminary. He went to seminary. He would bring home the Bible. He would begin to underline the first five books of the Bible, the Torah, and he'd put a J and it put a P and he'd put all these letters.

And I'd say, what are you doing? And he'd say, we're trying to discover who wrote the Pentateuch. Duh, it was called higher criticism was God, but they didn't know it. And so he, he would just take the Bible and they would take it apart.

And so that short time in seminary, anyway, we ended up and, uh, and he dropped out of seminary and he moved, he was an engineer by profession and, uh, we just weren't getting along because of these drops in that.

And so I said, will you go to counseling? He said, no, I've had the training and seminary, et cetera. He says, if you want to go, you can go. I went to two priests and our denomination, and I went to two priests for counseling.

Neither of those men opened the word of God. Neither of those men explained to me marriage and what it means to glue, be glued together and all of that. One, when we finished, came up, put his arms around me, whispered in my ear, you sure are a good looking gal, Kay, and kiss me on the neck.

That ended up in everything short of going all the way with the man. And he was a priest, a married one, you know, in that denomination, I left Tom on the advice of those two men. I stood there in my, I moved to Washington DC and, uh, uh, back to where Tom had gone to seminary in, uh, um, Virginia in our, in, uh, Arlington, Virginia.

And I shook my fist at God and I said to hell with you, God, I'll see you around town, I'm going to find someone to love me. Now, later studying Ephesians, I would discover that before the, this is the foundation of the world before the foundation of the world, I just wanted you to know what it looked like since you've had all this creation stuff.

But before the foundation of the world that God had said to heaven with UK and now he could say to heaven with UK, because he planned before the foundation of the world to send his son to hell for me, that he, Jesus, who knew no sin was B would be made sin for me that I might be made the righteousness of God in him.

I walked away. I became what I thought I would never become. The Bible says the heathen have sunk down into a pit that they have dug with their own hands. And what happened was this was I became, yeah, there is somebody on the cameras.

I didn't know if it was automatic, but what the Bible said, I'd like to see your faces and pat you. And, and the Bible says this, that the heathen are sunk down in a pit that they have dug with their own hands.

And I went deeper and deeper into sin, becoming this immoral woman, going from man to man, to man, looking for someone to love me until July 16th, 1963, I was working on a research team at Johns Hopkins.

And that morning I got up and I was so sick and I, I called the doctor and I said, I can't come to work. I am so sick. And I thought, I am so sick because I have a sickness that you can't heal because it's not physical.

And, and I, I said, I won't be in, and I'll see you on Monday. And I was baking a cake and my son, Mark was hanging onto my skirt and he's my second son and so hungry for my love and my attention. And I was so hungry for the love and attention of a man.

And so anyway, I, all of a sudden I looked at him and I ran upstairs and I said, honey, mommy's got to be by herself. Will you let me be alone for just a minute? And so I ran upstairs and fell down on my knees and I said, God, you can do anything you want with me.

Now the night before at a party, a man said to me, why don't you quit telling God what you want and tell him that Jesus Christ is all you need. And I thought you are so crass to talk about God at a party.

And I threw my mink over the show, over my shoulder. And I thought I, I, and I told him, I said, God is not all I need. I need a husband. I need this. I need that. Goodbye. I'm going home. July 16th. I said to God, you can do anything you want with me.

I don't care if I never see another man, as long as I live, I don't care if you paralyze me from the neck down. I don't care what you do to my two boys. There were three worst things I could think of that could happen to me.

I said, if you'll just give me peace. And there on my knees, he gave me the prince of peace, the Lord Jesus Christ. And he says, come now and let us reason together, though your sins be as scarlet, yet shall you be as white as snow.

And later on, I was reading and I was in Romans and I came across this verse and it was in the Phillips translation and it says, and he called her beloved when there was nothing lovely about her. I was absolutely transformed.

New Creation and a Hunger for Scripture

I was so hungry for the word of God that I would prop it on the steering wheel and my lap as I drove to work. And I don't advise that, but anyway, and, and I would read it. And I remember when I came across second Corinthians five 17, if any man be in Christ, he's a new creature.

Old things have passed away. Behold, all things have become new. And I thought, God, you put that in the Bible to describe me. And, and, and I didn't know it was for everybody, but I knew I was so changed anyway, to make a long story, a long story short, I wanted to be a woman of God.

I wanted to be obedient to God. I wanted to be pleasing to God. Paul says that his ambition was in second Corinthians five, nine, whether in the body or out of the body to be pleasing to him, we were created for his pleasure.

Uh, as revelation tells us. And so I wanted to be pleasing to him. So I said, I don't love Tom, but you changed me. You can change Tom and I'll go back to him. Now, what you have to understand is that before I came to know Christ and in that day, my husband would call and he would threaten to kill himself and I would say, we'll do a good job.

So I get your money, which is awful. I mean, just absolutely awful. But in those days you bluffed them out of them or you made them mad. You know, it was man's philosophy instead of what God says. And the Bible says that the tongue is a little member and it's set on fire of hell and it can change the course of a person's life.

One day I got a phone call and it was my father-in-law and he said, Kay, Tom is dead. He's hung himself. My husband was, um, 31 years old and you know, I ran upstairs and I fell down beside my bed and I picked up the phone to call my pastor.

And I could not get him and I'm so thankful and I hung up the phone and I cried to the great shepherd of the sheep and I said, Oh father, and he brought to my mind, now listen carefully, three scriptures, three scriptures he brought to my mind in every, I didn't know where they were.

I was a new Christian in everything. Give thanks. This is the will of God in Christ Jesus concerning you. First Corinthians 10, 13, there is no temptation, trial or testing. The word is periosmos and it means all those things taken you, but such as common demand, God is faithful and he will not permit you to be tried or tested or tempted above what you're able to bear, but he will make a way of escape.

And the third one was we know that, and I didn't know the tense of the verb and I didn't know what no, the Greek word for no and that, but we know that God, and in the Greek it's keeps on causing all things to work together for good to those that love God, to those that are called according to his purpose, for whom he foreknew, he predestined, he marked out beforehand to become conformed to the image of his son.

Knowing God Through His Word in Trials

Well, that's enough of my testimony, just so that you know where I've come from. But since I've been saved, I've been in the word of God. And since I've been saved, I have a hunger for the word of God.

And I just want to tell you that if you don't have any hunger for the word of God, or there's no conviction in your heart about not being in the word of God, I would, if I were you, I would go back and examine myself as first second Corinthians 13 says, and see if I'm really in the faith, because when Christ comes in, the Holy spirit comes in, he becomes your teacher.

He gives you the mind of Christ and he puts within us a hunger and a thirst for righteousness. And so I would just examine myself. Now I'm telling you all that to tell you that May 28th of this year, I got a phone call and I can't go into the details simply because I don't want to in the time that we have.

But I got a phone call that my son, our second son, that Mark that was hanging onto my skirt, who was our COO of our ministry, our ministries in 125 countries and 65 languages. It's, it's, it's, you know, and he works right under his father and myself, my husband and I, my husband's the president and, uh, and we're co CEOs.

And, uh, so anyway, I got home from Israel and three days and he had been vomiting and he didn't feel well and he hasn't slept and I sent him home and I said, we'll talk later. You get some rest and then we'll talk.

Well, I got a phone call May 28th and they had taken him to the hospital. I ran to the hospital with my husband and the doctor said, lady, I don't know if he's going to make it or not. Lady, this is very, very great lady.

I want you to understand I've got to get your son to surgery immediately and he could die. And I said, Lord, because I know the sovereignty of God and I want you to know, I don't know all 66 books, but I intend to, as long as God gives me breath, press on to that, knowing all 66 books.

I mean, really studying them inductively. But I said, God, if my son cannot be a value to the kingdom of God, and he's just turning 48, if he cannot take him home, but if he can, if he can be used of you to further your kingdom, then I'm asking you to spare him.

I went through that. My mother's dying. My husband is, is, is 80. He's going through something. We can't figure out what's wrong with him. He gets so weak. It's awful. And all of these things. And I want you to know this.

I know the book and I know the God of the book and I have been able to live as more than a conquer, I determined, God, I have known, I have studied your word. I know that it's true and I know you and Daniel 11 32 B says the people who know their God can stand firm, they can take action and God, I am going to live by everything I know from this book, everything I know about your character.

I'm going to count it all joy and everything. I'm going to give thanks. I'm going to bring every thought captive to the obedience of Jesus Christ. And, and I am going to be everything you want me to be in this trial.

And I want you to know that it is the word of God, because the word of God tells me of the character of God and the attributes of God and the ways of God. It is the word of God that has held me. I know my God and God intends for us to so know him that no matter what happens, we can live as more than conquers through him and know that his power is perfected in our weakness and we can glory in our infirmities and our necessities and our reproaches, et cetera, for when I am weak, then I am what strong because I'm leaning on him now in the light of that testimony.

Inductive Bible Study: Observation, Interpretation, and Application

And just so that you know me and just so that you know this, that I am, uh, I am, uh, dyslexic, uh, I am, I have no education. I mean, I'm a nurse, but I don't have any degrees, but I do have a temperature.

Okay. And, and, and that, but I am not naturally intelligent. I mean, Chuck just goes over my head and, and I, unless we're Bible, I mean, if we're right in the Bible, I'm okay, but all this other stuff, he just blows my mind.

But anyway, I, I am not naturally intelligent. And, and a friend of mine says, I want you to stop saying that because you are. And I said, I'm really not. She says, you're being a hypocrite. Yes, you are.

And so she gave me an intelligence test and she says, nevermind, you can tell him. So what I want to say to you is any old Bush can study the word of God. Any old Bush will do to set on fire with the fire of God.

I want you to open your Bibles to Hosea. Hosea is in the minor prophets. And I just usually pray and hope I'll find him in a hurry. And we're going to look at just a couple verses in Hosea. And, but I want you to, to understand just the setting of Hosea.

It's always important to look at the scripture in context. Context is that which goes with the text con text. You look at the context, you look at the historical context and you look at the biblical context.

And as we look at Hosea, it's important. If the book tells you why it was written to understand why this prophecy from God through Hosea, Hosea chapter one, the word of the Lord, which came to Hosea, the son of bear.

I, during the days of Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah Kings of Judah. And during the days of Jeroboam, the son of Joash King of Israel. So what he's doing us is he is giving us in the very beginning.

The historical setting of the book. Now the historical setting is to put you into context. He's putting you into context so that you will know who the Kings are that were reigning in the Northern kingdom and in the Southern kingdom at that time.

So one of the things that you might want to write down as you study is that you want to understand context. You want to understand the historical context. You want to understand the grammatical context and the textual context.

Okay. So this is the historical context verse two, when the Lord first spoke through Hosea, the Lord said to Hosea, go and take to yourself a wife of harlotry and have children of harlotry for why am, why is Hosea to do this?

He says, for, I've got a purpose in this for the land commits flagrant harlotry forsaking the Lord. And he says, this is why I want you to do this because the land, the land, what land, the land of Israel is committing flagrant harlotry, flagrant harlotry.

How are they committing flagrant harlotry? Look at your Bible. Did you not bring your Bible? If I'm ever teaching, you always need a Bible. All right. Because why? Because they're forsaking. This is my brother.

I can get close to him and hug him. All right. And because they're forsaking the Lord. All right. So this is the message. Now, if we would go into it, what we would see in chapter one, chapter two and chapter three, we would see Hosea being married to Gomer and the children that they're having and how he sends her away and how he brings her back.

So this is the first part of the book of Hosea. Then he turns from this physical illustration of Hosea and Gomer to chapter four. Now, this is what I want you to do. I want you to take your paper now.

And I'm going to just tell you that inductive study as I see it and understand it has basically three parts to it. Okay. Inductive study begins with observation. Observation is discovering what does it say?

Okay. So it begins with observation. So many times we open the Bible, we read it and we want to know what does it mean? And the way you're going to find out what does it mean is to find out what does it say.

And so we jump to interpretation. We read it. We can't figure out what it says. So we go to a commentary. But if you go to a commentary, now watch what's happening. You're getting man's interpretation of the text.

It may be right. It may be wrong. You don't know. You don't know if you don't know the text yourself. So observation is discovering what does it say? Okay. Now I want to ask you, how game are you? Will you, will you cooperate?

Will you make me happy? Okay. All right. If you'll make me happy, this is what I want you to do. The first point of Bible study is, or the first step in Bible study is observation. All right. And observation, put your hands up here.

Like he got glasses on observation is finding out what does it say? Okay. So let's do it. Observation. What does it say? All right. So that's the first. The second part in, in all of this weaves in together.

But the second part is interpretation. Interpretation is duh. What does it mean? Okay. Interpretation is what does it mean? What does it mean? Okay. So the first skill of Bible study is what let's do it.

Observation. What does it say? The second one is interpretation. What does it mean? All right. Now I'm finding out what it says. I'm finding out what it means, but there's more to Bible study than that, because I need to know how I am to live in the light of it.

So the third part of it, of Bible study is application. Application. And if you'll, do you remember Jackie Gleason? Any of you old enough or you've seen it on Nick at night or something? He was that great big man.

And it's a, and a way we go. All right. So application is I've observed at what does it say? I've interpreted. I know what it means. So now it's a way we go. It's application is how am I going to live?

How am I going to walk? But it's also something else. And see, we are so quick. We want to read the Bible, apply it and get rid of our problem before we ever understand what it's saying or what it means.

But application is not just doing something. Application is also sometimes changing your mind, because let's say I wish I wish Bill had asked me to teach on prophecy. I love it. And I've written inductive study courses on Daniel and revelation and, and, and, and that, and they're inductive so that you will know whatever you hear from anyone else on revelation, whether they're right or wrong, simply because you, what observe the text and find out what, what does it say?

What does it mean? And then sometimes you have to go, you have to change your mind because you see, oh, I thought the wrong thing. So application is either got it. Can you do it? Don't spit on the person next to you.

Okay. It's either changing your mind or what? Applying it, living it out. All right. So application, let's say it. Application is how am I to believe and think, can you do that? Good. That's application.

The Role of the Senses in Biblical Learning

Now I want to commend you. I want to commend you because I want to tell you something in a learning device. The minute that you do something, the more you use your senses when you're studying, the more you will remember it.

I was teaching and let's see where I was. I was in Japan and I was teaching afterwards. I was teaching how to say the Bible. This Japanese woman came up. She wanted to eat with me. She told me this. She didn't speak English.

I didn't speak Japanese. I could just say hello and goodbye. And and so we were sitting there trying to talk with their hands and all of this and that. And our time was up. She says, I go, I got it. I knew what she was going to do.

She was going to observe and she was going, she was going to observe. She was going to interpret and she was going to apply. Where does all this lead? Observation, interpretation, what application leads to transformation.

OK, so it all leads to transformation. Now, they told me you've got to stop doing that now that you're older, because when you pull it down, it takes too long for it to get back up. When you observe the text, you want to ask the five W's and an H.

You want to write it down unless you know them already. The five W's and an H are who? And what and when and where and why and how? This is observation, who is speaking to whom, who is doing this, who are they talking about?

You want to find out the who's the people. And this is the place where you start in observation. You start with the obvious. You start with that which is easiest to see. And people are the easiest things to see.

So you want to find out the who. Then you want to find out the what. What is happening? What event is taking place? What is being said? Right. What is going on? So you ask who, what, when does it tell me when?

One of the things when you study Matthew chapter 24, if you mark the then and the then and the then, then you'll see in Matthew 24, the rapture is not there. And yet it was taught for years and years that the rapture is in Matthew chapter 24.

It's not. It's not that there's not a rapture, but it's not in Matthew 24, but you've got to find, follow the time phrases, or if it is, we don't get raptured, you know, so you've got to mark your thens and your wins and, and the years.

Okay. So you do who, let's say it together. Who, what, when? Now, what I do is when I come to a, when I have my own little symbol, I draw a circle for a clock. I know we're in digital age, but I make a little clock and I put two little feet on it and the dinger on top.

And that's my mark for a time phrase. So I mark time phrases. So I want to look at who I want to look at what I want to look at. Tick, tick, tick, tick when, and I want to look at where now, when I come to a, where in my Bible, I double underline it in green.

So anytime I'm reading, I come to a geographical location and I double underline it in green. I choose green because the grass is green. Okay. So I'm going to ask the five W's and a what age, what are they?

Who, what, when, where, and why, why was this said? Why was this done? Why was Hosea to go marry Gomer? Why was he to take? It doesn't say Gomer in that verse. Why was he to take a wife of harlotry? You tell me why you just read it for the land commits what flagrant?

How harlotry? So you're to come go take a wife of harlotry because the land is committing harlotry. Now the land, what land is he? I don't like you. No, that's fine. He's given, he's my time, man. Okay.

So the, I do like you. I just don't like what you're about. Okay. All right. So I mark the land. Now, let me tell you a secret. If you will start in Genesis and when you come to every reference to the land that God promised to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob as an everlasting possession, and you will double underline it, which is what I do to any geographical reference, but because blue is Israel's color, I color it blue.

Then you will understand all about the land and you will understand that that land over there does not belong to the Palestinians. It is God's and he has given it to Israel as a permanent possession. Okay.

By covenant and you will understand that. So anybody that comes along and tells you God's through with Israel and all of that, you can just flip open the book and you can find it. Immediately. And you say, what does this first mean?

What does this first mean? What does this first mean? Observe it. Tell me, what does it say? Oh, guess what? It means what it says. So you mark the, uh, you mark the who, the what, the when, the where, the why, and the what, how, how is this going to happen?

How is the rapture going to happen? He tells you very clearly how, and what's going to happen to our bodies, et cetera. So if you will learn to ask those questions, all right now, in the light of that, we're going to get to Hosea.

Hosea 4 and the Necessity of Knowledge

And as we get to Hosea chapter four, and we're just going to look at several verses, I want you to mark the word, any reference, any geographical reference. Okay. I want you to double underline it. Okay.

And if there is any time phrase, you're going to shout time. Otherwise, this is what I want you to do. I want you to mark the word knowledge. Okay. And this is the way I want you to market just because I have to do it in a hurry.

I color it green, but I want you to put a box around it. Okay. And when I come to knowledge, I want you to say knowledge out loud. So I know that you're putting a box around it. Chapter four, verse one, listen to the word of the Lord.

Oh, sons of who Israel to whom is he speaking? He's speaking to Israel. Who is speaking? God is speaking. All right. He says, for the Lord has a case against the inhabitants of what the land, what land, the land of Israel.

So double underline it, the land there. All right. So he's saying, listen, God is speaking to the word of the Lord. Oh, sons of Israel. Why? Why? See the, why, why is he saying, listen, for the Lord has a, what a case against the sons of Israel, the inhabitants of the land, excuse me, why, because there is no, what faithfulness or what kindness or what knowledge of whom God, where in the land, double underline in the land.