Bible Study Methods Overview

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Well, good morning everyone I'd like to Welcome you to our class this morning and provide an immediate disclaimer Andy did not gain a lot of weight and hair I'm not Andy Montoro obviously Andy had a family emergency this morning And he called me at 8 o'clock as I was just preparing to practice with the worship team so that being said I Have not had the opportunity to produce a particular lesson for this group.
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So what I am going to do is I'm going to overview some of what we have done in our course that we just finished in Sovereign Grace Academy For those of you who Who are who have not been a part of the Academy? I want to give you just a quick history and a reasoning and what it what it is The Academy was started earlier this year as an opportunity for seminary experience For people who normally would not have the opportunity to attend seminary Most People if they're not going into ministry whether it be lay ministry or vocational ministry will never have the opportunity to go and sit in a seminary classroom and That really is a shame because we have such a awesome responsibility and being students of the word and very few of us ever really break the the shell of the basics and and and and dive into the deeper things of God and so I took the idea to the elders.
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I said, you know what we need a seminary for everybody and that sort of has become the the the the unofficial motto of Sovereign Grace Academy a seminary for every believer and The goal at this church is that if there was a young man who was? called to Ministry that he could find a place here.
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That was not only a place where he could receive good theological instruction, but he could receive mentoring and that he could receive an opportunity for growth and an opportunity to be Challenged with the same types of things that I was challenged with when I was in seminary having to read books having to write papers having to take tests and Those of you who have been in our terms, we've had two terms so far.
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We had our history term You know, we had we had tests we had midterms.
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We had a final we did paper only three people Completed the paper and there were 27 people in the class So it just shows that it wasn't the easiest thing in the world to accomplish And I was very proud of those who took the time and the effort to do that The last class we did was how to study scriptures actually the title of it was fundamentals of Bible study and I was talking to my wife because she took the course and She had taken some seminary classes with me Back when I was in seminary our seminary allowed spouses to basically take classes for free If they had that time and at that time we didn't have any children So Jennifer actually has an associate's degree from the seminary in in Ministry, I think it's associates degree in ministry that she got just taking classes alongside of me and doing her own work and her own Papers.
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Well, I asked her I so now that you sat in a course and you've been with us For this this term.
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Do you think it's comparable to what we went through when we were in seminary 15 years ago? And she said oh, yes, if you know Maybe even a little bit better because we've had an opportunity to grow and learn and and and and stretch ourselves So so I was very thankful for her to give that to give that endorsement.
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Of course, she's my wife I don't suppose she'd say anything ugly, but she will be honest and if she was too honest, I probably wouldn't be telling the story But but she was she was complimentary she said the classes were very much Reminded her of what when we were taking classes with with Jerry Powers and Vernon Johns The the great men that I was had the opportunity to study with and learn from You know almost 20 years ago now So that having said that I'm going to give you a little bit of what we did in our last semester Fundamentals of Bible study because another thing Jennifer said she said we need to teach this class every two years She said the fundamentals of Bible study class needs to be taught every not not just in the seminary but everybody in church needs to take this class and So that gave me an idea probably two years from now Lord willing if if I'm still in the same direction I'm gonna I'm gonna do that on a Wednesday night Just just take the same material and teach it to our to our church because it is such an important skill to develop Bible study is a skill It is something that can and should be developed.
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I have heard people say well as soon as you get saved You receive the Holy Spirit and therefore you don't have to study God will simply implant in you the knowledge of his word and there is Really no truth to that Even though it sounds super spiritual sounds very noble It's just not true what you get when you are born again is you get spiritual eyes to see the things that you couldn't see before and understand and apply the things that you couldn't understand and apply before but that doesn't mean that you know who Amos was and you don't automatically get a an implantation of knowledge in your brain as to who Isaiah was speaking to or where Job lived Those things require study Those things require reading and we are a culture that has abandoned reading We have become very good at reading short snippets of information we get our News at a hundred and forty characters or less we get our most of our Information comes to us either through a talking head on a television screen or by some form of social media Which has really ruined our sense of understanding what's right, and what's wrong? There is such a thing you've all heard the expression fake news Well, you know there's also news outlets that are in well some some news outlets that are supposed to be legitimate are fake I would say most of them have some fake If not all of them, but there's also news outlets that are intentionally fake their satire Sites like I know Jordan you know the Babylon B Which we you know we're on Facebook together, so we we sometimes share things the Babylon B.
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Is a It's intended to be fake So it will it'll post the news article with just in the secular world They have something called the onion, and it was the same thing it was just it was a fake news network And that was what's called the onion fake news But people would you know be like Florida man wrestles an alligator over a tater tot or something stupid you know just something ridiculous and Which wouldn't put it past Florida man? but but that being said People don't realize the satire people don't understand the distinction between the real and the fake and they share it as if it's true and therefore we have we have become we have an academic an epidemic of Ignorance We have an epidemic of ignorance people who and the thing is the most dangerous thing is people are so So proud of what they don't know Because they think they know it and they just don't They're very happy, and they and they're they're just so you know I think it was Mark Twain in front of mine quoted this to me that day.
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It was good.
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He said it's not It's not what people don't know it's what they do know that just ain't so It's not what people know it's what they it's what what they don't know it's what they do know that just ain't so It's just not true and the most important place to be accurate is In our study of the Word of God There's no place that we can be more dangerously ignorant than the Word of God and And I mean I need not take the time to walk you through the dangers of having an erroneous understanding of Scripture and Certainly, I'm not talking about those things that are secondary of course there are disagreements among good godly men But when you have movements that spring up That are entire that build entire churches and create entire networks of churches that are based on horrible theology places like Bethel and California which I'm not sure how many of you familiar with that, but there is a place out in California It's in Redding And it's the type of the church is called Bethel Redding And they are now one of the most influential churches in the United States and they put forward a very dramatic and very Exaggerated view of what is known as the prosperity gospel You know do y'all know what the prosperity gospel is The prosperity gospel says that if you're a believer in Christ And you have enough faith, then you will always be healthy What's always funny is the guy who leads it has glasses, but that's a that's just it to me.
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It's such a such a Humorous thing you know physician heal thyself situation but there there's not only health, but the promise of material prosperity and You've all heard the phrase name it and claim it Well that is basically it it's the idea that if you if you believe enough and you believe the way that you're supposed to then you can believe your way into a Prosperous and healthy life yes, miss Mary.
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Yes, if you plant a seed God will grow the harvest And it's blessed But Yes, miss Mary, that's right that that and and The the bad thing is you know we? They're not limited to the television They're all over I sometimes visit churches when I'm out of town and And and it's almost like when you when you walk in you can feel the the prosperity movement Being it because it's in the way people talk You know they they they're their vernacular is different.
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It's all about favor and Blessings and All kinds of you know prospering these are dramatic words that are used so like I said I I'm kind of Lengthening my introduction let me just move right into what we're going to do We're gonna.
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We're going to look at the process of how to study the Bible I'm going to give you an overview of eight weeks of material So you're and it's eight you know two-hour classes almost so it's you're gonna get very little But what I want to encourage you if this is encouraging to you Everything we do in Sovereign Grace Academy is available on the church website So you can go in and you can listen to the last eight weeks of lectures the only part you may have trouble with is The last 30 minutes we have an in-class discussion, and I'm the only one who's miked So the last 30 minutes of the audio is sometimes hard I try to repeat the questions, but it's that it's hard to hear so you may have trouble with that Well, let's let's very quickly.
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Just we'll look at one text of Scripture as our as our introduction All right, so go to Deuteronomy chapter 6 and we're going to begin at verse 4 This is ordinarily called the Shema or the prayer of Israel many of you are familiar with it It says here O Israel the Lord our God The Lord is one You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might and These words that I command to you today Shall be on your heart you shall teach them diligently to your children and Shall talk of them when you sit in your house And when you walk by the way And when you lie down and when you rise You shall bind them as a as a sign on your hand and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes You shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates.
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Let's pray Father as we seek to understand this text and to see the broader application of it how it applies to our understanding of the word I pray that you would first and foremost keep me from error Fill me with your spirit open the hearts of your people to the truth their eyes and ears to understand and Lord This might be a fruitful time of study for us all in Christ's name Amen Deuteronomy chapter 6 is often used By Parents Who are or by pastors who want to remind parents that they have a responsibility to their children? They usually focus on verse 7 Where it says you shall teach them diligently to their to your children.
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There's actually a conference The teach them diligently conference is what it's called and it's all about Family worship family ministry family discipleship and Certainly, that is an important part of this passage but beyond the children I Want to show you that in this passage there is also the command that you would know and love and Seek out the scripture.
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I Have to others that we forget the responsibility that we have ourselves Yes, you have if you have children Grandchildren you have responsibility to teach them diligently.
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It's right here in the text and we cannot avoid that but there is Also in this text a reminder that you yourself are to be the one who loves the Lord your God with all your heart with all your soul and with all your strength and These words shall be on your heart The Word of God is to be on your heart How do we get the Word of God from the pages of the scripture to the heart of the person? How do how does it go from being words on a page? To being something that is in our heart.
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Well, there's there are ways that you might think well, you just read it.
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Okay How many of you have read the Bible gone back and forgot everything you just read Okay, so just reading it might not be enough and then someone says well you you read it Multiple times.
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Well, that's it that could help But if you don't understand it It would be like reading an auto manual To a car you don't own Wouldn't apply to you and you wouldn't be able to decipher it anyway, and So I ask you when you have your daily devotion if maybe I should say if my prayer is that you have a daily Devotional that is you and God and the Word of God when you have this devotional time between you and God.
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Are you? Understanding what you're reading You'll remember when Philip met the Ethiopian eunuch who was returning from Jerusalem after a feat and he walked up beside his chariot and he heard the eunuch reading from Isaiah and Philip was a bold man.
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He said do you understand what you're reading? Did you imagine Seeing somebody in a coffee shop with a Bible and just walking up and saying do you understand that book? Might sound a little condescending but for Philip it wasn't he wanted to know do you understand because here's the thing if you read it And don't understand it What does it matter if you read it and you don't understand it? You're not going to be able to apply it so the goal of Bible study is not just reading its understanding and the understanding leads to application So we're going to look at three parts to the fundamentals of Bible study And I'm going to write them up on the board for everyone to see I'll try to Make it where I can see it.
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The problem is now I block my fan and so I'm hot It's okay.
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I just get it There are three processes in Bible study I'm going to give you a brief overview of these again If you want the whole thing you can go back and listen to the course and I have two of my students I think three Gary was in class.
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So we have Gary and Cindy and miss Rosanna who else? Oh and and Dan so we have four people here who took the class.
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This will be for you guys a just a refresher, but the first step in Bible study is the step of observation the step of observation This is the step that is almost always overlooked Because almost everyone wants to go immediately to step two Step two is what Daniel? Interpretation you are listening Step two is interpretation, but almost everybody who picks up the Bible wants to immediately begin interpreting it They want to immediately want to know what it means But before you can know what it means You have to know what it says and that's observation if you want to write a note Observation, what does it say? Interpretation what does it mean and Then the third one just so you have it you want to make notes the third one is application How does it work? So again the three steps are simple observation What does it say? Interpretation, what does it mean? Application How does it work and I want to add a note to that something dr.
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Hendricks? This is from the book Living by the book by dr.
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Howard Hendricks, and he's a great teacher a wonderful teacher I know you knew him Richard because he was a professor at Dallas Seminary and one of the things that professor Hendricks said Was you don't ask does it work you ask? How does it work? Because the application there it always works and the question is how does it work? So let's talk first about Observation because I said this is the part I honestly can tell you What I what I what I get the agreement of those who were in class.
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This was the part that was the most enlightening that most people Do not do well in observing.
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It's breaking it down first It's I mean almost Word by word breaking it down Absolutely, absolutely understanding what it tries to say and then you go on to interpretation and application Absolutely, and that's and I like what you said breaking it down.
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You know when I when I'm studying a scripture for preaching One of the first things that I do after I've read it several times Is I immediately begin to break it into parts I? Immediately began to pull everything apart almost like it again studying automobile If you you got you're looking at the engine You know it works but you you want to see how it works so you start you take off the the belts and then you take off the Nuts and you take the bolts and you take it all apart and you lay everything out and look at it You say well Pastor that's a lot of work.
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Yes it is Bible study is work You say well is there devotional can I just read it yes? Certainly there are times for just what we might call devotional reading of scripture and there can be value in that if it's just your daily reading, but daily devotional reading and study of scripture Has two different purposes yeah, I read several chapters a day just to keep my mind in the text right now and second Chronicles Psalms and Gospel of Matthew because I read a little bit from the old little bit It's a it's a one year through the Bible And you you know and you just you just read just to keep your mind saturated scripture, and as you're reading Oh, yeah, there's the she bears or or there's the there's the you know the Elijah in the whirlwind You know you see these things you know yeah, I remember this and now I remember where it is and if you're an underliner You underline hey, there's an important part.
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You know now.
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I remember where it's at and it's just a good It's helpful, but you're not necessarily seeking to make a grand Understanding you're just seeking at that moment to say okay.
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Here's here's here's here's a here's a way to saturate myself with scripture You want to you want to learn to pray better? Saturate yourself with scripture you want to learn to think better Saturate yourself with scripture you want to learn how to talk better saturate yourself with scripture Scripture will teach you to have a better vocabulary Especially if you don't use something like the new living or the message you use a real Bible my isn't You'll actually get a better vocabulary and let me let me add to that let me let me let me jump on that for a moment There are Bibles Which are better than others when it comes to study? the There's a continuum which I don't have time to draw it all out but there are Bibles that are more literal to the original and there are Bibles that are further away from the original and It is my conviction and I can back this up with with arguments But for now, I'll just share with you my conviction that the the more literal That you have the better you are when it comes to observation Because if you're doing observation in a text that has that has been loosey-goosey with the translation Then you might be observing things that weren't in the original text so for instance in the I Think it's the King James or the ESV one of the more literal translations Jesus is telling his disciples to prepare for the for a journey to go in mission do missions work and And going house to house and he says do not take two tunics.
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Do not take a Satchel but know that you're going to be every time you go to a house they're going to feed you you're going to be Taken care of you know, it basically just you know, only take what's necessary.
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Don't take anything extra Well in the Message Bible it says Take a toothbrush And I like that it gave me a memorable line Because now I can say that the Message Bible is the toothbrush Bible is the only Bible I know of that uses the word toothbrush And again, I there's there's for what it was what it's trying to get across If there's no real If you're just devotionally reading it's not going to hurt, but if you were trying to make an observation Meaning you're trying to observe the words and their meanings Then you have there an issue When you are observing the text so my recommendation to you I'll give you the three three primary texts that I would recommend first would be the one that we use here and the only reason why I say this one first is because it's the one I preach out of And so if you want to follow along while I'm preaching and you want to be in the same translation The English Standard Version is a good version and you can blame RC Sproul for that Because it was he who turned me on to the ESV and I consider him a distant mentor in my life He was very important to me, and he turned me on to it And I never looked back so in a sense blame him if you don't like it, but that's the one that we use The next is the New American Standard Bible The New American Standard Bible and the ESV are very close and and The ESV they say is a little more readable.
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I think it depends on the verse It really I don't think there's a way to really call that it's a judgment call Depends on how you read depends on how you do things But that but the NAS is is considered to be a little more wooden But it's very literal if you want a real good literal translation The NASB is is very good, and it's the one that's used by John MacArthur and and many other good teachers So either one of those Bibles is fantastic The King James Bible is very good if you understand the underlying textual history and why The history of the King James is different than the history of the ESV in the New American Standard Bible they have different historical foundations meaning the the King James is based on something called the Byzantine family of manuscripts the ESV and the New American Standard are based on what is called the Alexandrian family family of manuscripts, so there are manuscript differences between the underlying foundations of those two translations She say well pastor.
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That's confusing.
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Well.
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Don't let it confuse you if you don't know what I'm talking about don't worry about I Have a whole series of lessons.
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I did on textual transmission, and if you'd like to if you're curious about it I'll send you the link, but ultimately just know that the King James is based on a different Translational or a different textual history, but it's a great translation especially if you like it I Use it when I'm doing funerals The Lord is my shepherd I shall not want he maketh me to lie down in green pastures He leadeth me beside the still waters.
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He restoreth my soul He leadeth me in paths of righteousness for his name's sake yea though.
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I walk through the valley of the shadow of death I Will fear no evil for thou art with me thy rod and thy staff they comfort me thou prepare us a table before me in the Presence of mine enemies thou anointest my head with oil my cup Runneth over surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life And I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever No more poetic and beautiful way of saying those words has ever been written in my opinion therefore for me to take an ESV translation would be to me a Little I don't want to say sacrilegious.
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It just doesn't feel right It just doesn't feel good to say psalm 23 in anything, but the King's English, and so that's a personal preference though But again if you want to increase your vocabulary Use the King James it will now it may be a 400 year old vocabulary But it's still it'll it'll cause you to say wow what's a buttress you know? See these words and and you know you and you'll understand some of those hymns that you didn't understand before What's a what's a Ebeneezer and all those things that we sing about and often don't know what the meanings are so so there's all? Kinds of value, but again.
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Let's say you had a text and that you wanted to look at a text Observing it begins with simply going to your Bible whatever translation you have and reading it and looking for its parts and taking it apart and Seeing how those parts fit together you guys remember grammar school Some of you may be more than others remember grammar school some of you may be in grammar school or or elementary or middle I don't know.
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What grade are you in? Middle oh yeah, look at you middle school.
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Okay, so you're you're moving right along so so You know the difference between nouns and verbs right yeah, well that is an important part of Bible study becoming better at grammar because You know nouns tell us person places and things and ideas and and verbs Connect those together verbs show action so if I want to see what's happening in the text I want to immediately identify my verbs, and I did this in class.
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I I showed I One of what my my my I took a page of my own study remember that night Where I had taken a text and I had just and it looked like a madman Because it was scribbled on lines drawn circles And it looked like a conspiracy theorist had gone through it and just lined everything out But that's what I do.
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I first thing.
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I do I go through and I say where are my verbs.
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Where's the action? Who's involved where my people? Where's it involved where my places? And this starts to give me a picture of what's happened.
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I haven't interpreted anything.
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I've just observed What's in the text and the more you get better at? observing The more accurate will be your interpretation and the more meaningful will be your application Go ahead, bro.
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I uh I come out of print of Baptist Church, so I believe the way I believe the doctrine already that this church preaches that you teach and preach I believe that way already when I came here, but I think one of the most important things That I've learned Even before the academy and even more so since the academy is that even though This is the inspired word of God and it is It's a book Thank you, that's and you keep and you can and you can study it like a book That's the biggest one of the biggest things.
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I I don't know if I offended some people that night But you know that was one of the first things I said in class.
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Yeah, I said the Bible is inspired by God But it's still a book Therefore it is to be studied like a book Meaning if you want to study it you need to become a good reader You need to become a better reader and The only way to become a better reader is to learn More about reading I you know one of the textbooks that I gave to the class or I encourage the class to read How to read a book by Mortimer Adler it was written in the 40s, and it's just the methods of right reading How to read a book by Mortimer Adler will be will do more for your Bible study than you could ever imagine Because it simply tells you how to do what is called expository reading you've heard me talk about expository preaching That's where I go in and I break it down into pieces, and I explain it expository reading is When you read you're breaking it down, and you're learning the parts so that it fits together and it becomes Understandable if I can give you nothing else I would say this the better you can be at being a reader The better you will be at being a Bible student Because the Bible is a book and if it's a book it must be read and if it must be read it must be read rightly So you said well, I'm a bad reader, okay? One time I was bad at riding a bicycle And you know what I did I? practiced Three days ago We were had a practice with our Music group that's leads worship here, and we've just started playing together And I could not play one of the notes that was required for one of the songs Chords, thank you one of the chords Thanks Mike I know, but it's called a bar chord, and it's hard to do now you agree to that that it's hard Yeah, it's harder than than than than just playing what's called an open chord, so what did I do? Well one I got a little I got a hard time by my my much better guitarist friend He gave me a hard time, but in a good way He said you know what if this was something And he didn't say karate, but I think that was the idea was like if you had a student who couldn't do it What would you tell him go home and practice? So I spent the last two days Practicing and I can't feel my fingers but I can do it enough to get us through today.
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I'm still working on it, but I got it The point of it is though if you tell me I'm you're not a good reader.
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I understand what you mean But you can you can get better by learning learning grammar But here's the other thing to take small bites You know don't try to exegete a whole book or even a whole chapter Take a few verses and sit down and take them apart if it's something that you're having trouble understanding take it apart look at it something else to consider too is Once you have done your work of observation you do have to move into the time.
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We have to start discerning what it means And I want to recommend this if you have a study Bible that has notes on the bottom Don't automatically go to the notes Or if you have commentaries on your shelf Jack.
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I know you have a few commentaries that we've over the years.
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We've gotten together Don't automatically go to the commentaries because if You've done the proper observation It's time to let the spirit teach you something and That's where the interpretation comes in now that I know what it says Let me try to determine what it means Yes Yeah, I don't when I'm doing my initial study.
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I don't have any notes.
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I just have the text so yeah I agree I agree But if you do have a study Bible what I what I tell people I say take a piece of paper and put it over The notes so that you're not tempted to go looking you know let yourself Be taught by the scripture first What are the notes for then pastor? To check yourself Once you've understood or think you've understood the text then go read the notes and see if you agree or if it disagrees And I'm going to tell you this thing I learned this years ago One of the things that I have found is the place in the scripture where I have the most trouble discerning and understanding the notes and the commentaries due to Because Usually that's a hard part of scripture, but the one thing the commentaries will do often, and they are helpful I'm not saying don't use them one thing.
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They will often do is challenge you Because they'll maybe present something you didn't know Or present a historical fact that you didn't realize and that will grow you So don't say don't don't take this as saying don't use commentaries I'm saying wait until you've done your initial wait until you've done your observational work wait until you've Sought to understood it, then you seek out what other men have said You're not living on an island by yourself you've got 2,000 years of Good godly books and commentaries and notes to look at But just don't go there first I don't think we could ever Rightly do number three Rightly without doing number one and two.
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Oh absolutely and see number three And I'm not even because of time number three is the biggest issue people want to apply the text immediately they want to immediately What's it got to do with me? Remember this the text wasn't written about you It was written for you But not necessarily about you So don't automatically say what's it mean to me, or how does it apply to me? What did it mean when it was written? What did it mean to Paul to Peter or John? Out of that will come a right way to say now.
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What does it apply? How does it apply? Exactly all those are questions and again if I had time and break it down Who is it written to where was it written? Why was written all those things are part of the observation? That's the beginning and you really honestly you could spend all day in observation And then your interpretation is it's there the more you learn to observe the better you'll be at understanding and the more accurate and Meaningful will be your applications all right.
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I got it finished.
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Let's pray Father thank you for this time.