We have been revisiting the reason for this blog. Two days ago, we reviewed our dependence on and the centrality of the Word of God to both our ministry and leadership. Yesterday, reviewed that it is the text of the Bible that is our primary source, not the notes in our study Bibles or commentaries. However, we were left with a challenge. If we are struggling with a passage, how do we come up with an answer if we are not to drop into the notes or pick up a commentary? Today we are considering an answer to that significant question.
There are four questions that we continue to ask in Bible study. These four questions comprise the heart of any good method of study. They are, in order of application:
- Observation: What does the text say?
- Interpretation: What does the text mean?
- Correlation: What do other parts of the Bible say that help us understand the text?
- Application: What does the text say that I need to do?
Unfortunately, many times, the questions are taken out of order, skipped, or given short shrift. The first question is first for a reason. Much of what we talk about in this blog is how to make more and better observations. That requires asking a lot of questions of the text. Most of the Bible study handbooks will instruct you to pepper the text with questions. What I am attempting with this blog, the means, is to give you a better set of questions.
So, the answer to what to do with the difficult passage is, observe more. Stick with it. Pray over it. Ask the Lord to help you see. Many times we give up too soon.
John 16:13 – 15 tells us:
13 “But when He, the Spirit of truth, comes, He will guide you into all the truth; for He will not speak on His own initiative, but whatever He hears, He will speak; and He will disclose to you what is to come.
14 “He will glorify Me, for He will take of Mine and will disclose it to you.
15 “All things that the Father has are Mine; therefore, I said that He takes of Mine and will disclose it to you.
One of the purposes of the Spirit is to guide you into all the truth. As we know from 2 Timothy 3:16 – 17 (Here at Bible Gateway) and 2 Peter 1:20 – 21 (Here at Bible Gateway), the Spirit inspired the Word of God. So, the Bible is the only book you will ever read that the author, the Holy Spirit, is tasked and present to help you understand what He wrote.
John Piper has a practice of sharing biographical messages (some of them are here), in 2005 he spoke at a Samford University a the Reformation Heritage Lectures on Martin Luther’s approach to the Bible. In that message he quoted Luther:
I beat importunately upon Paul at that place, most ardently desiring to know what Saint Paul wanted. At last, by the mercy of God, meditating day and night, I gave heed to the context of the words, namely “in it the righteousness of God is revealed, as it is written, ‘He who through faith is righteous shall live.’” And there I began to understand that the righteousness of God is that by which the righteous lives by a gift of God, namely by faith. (Piper, John. “I Beat Importunately Upon Paul: Martin Luther and His Bible.” https://www.desiringgod.org/messages/i-beat-importunately-upon-paul. Accessed August 19, 2023.)
“Importunately” is not a word that turns up much in normal conversation. Some synonyms are eagerly, earnestly, frantically, vigorously, the idea here is that Luther was not going to let go of the text, he was sticking with it until he understood. It is a good example to follow. There is much more in that quote which can guide us as we struggle with a passage; do you see what they are? If so list them in a comment.
To do this well, we need to have a good set of questions to ask the text. Further, we need to have a basic familiarity with the Bible.
I intended to end this topic here, but there are one or two more things I need to say based on reviewing these, so, I will end this topic tomorrow.
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