 I've got my Greek Bible, I've got my Hebrew Bible, I've got my grammars and lexicons, I've got my studies on systematic theology and synthetic theology and all these different studies. I've got books back there, I've got books over there, I've got books in another room. Does it really take all of that just to be able to read and understand the Bible? No. In today's video, I want to share with you how I have learned to study the Bible in my nearly 30 years of ministry. Tips that I can share with you to help you to understand and read the Bible the way a scholar would read it, the way any theologian would read it, a pastor would read it, the way God intended us to read it. Before we get started, though, I'd like for you to do a couple of things. One, I would like for you to hit the subscribe button. Do so in order to receive any notifications of any videos that you might be interested in in the future. Also, if this video is in any way a benefit or resource or blessing, please share this with somebody that you might know, a friend, a co-worker, anyone. Now, let's go ahead and jump into it. Whenever I read or I give advice on how to read, I want to be cognizant of a couple of things. One, I try to avoid bringing in any preconceived notions or anything that I've been taught previously about the Bible. I don't care if it was taught by grandma or by a pastor or someone I heard on TV that I respected. I try not to take what I've heard and read into the Bible. I know it's hard, but you want to do that as much as humanly possible. That way you don't read into the Bible something that may not be there. The reason is because we're all wrong about something and you might unintentionally bring something incorrect into a text. Which brings me to my next point. I look to be wrong whenever I read the Bible. Wait a second, that didn't make sense. Why would you look to or want to be wrong when you read the Bible? Well, for a couple of reasons. One, because it releases me of the burden of trying to be perfect. Everybody is at least wrong about one thing or two things. Whether you're a theologian with 12 degrees or you've been at this for 30, 40 years. You're wrong about at least one thing. And so trying to be perfect means I'm trying to give an answer to a question that I might not know and I might be forcing something that just doesn't belong. Also, if I know I don't have to be perfect, it wards off any pride or any areas that I might have in thinking that I really accomplished something that I know so much about the Bible. There is nobody, the Bible says that knowledge puffs up, including knowledge of the Bible. But now here's the good part. The flip side of being wrong about something does something unexpected. It gives me something that I've never seen before. It allows me to find something new in the Bible. That's a good thing. It increases my joy, my excitement because I've learned something that I previously did not know before. All because I was looking for opportunities and areas where I may be incorrect. So I want to give you a few more tips. All of us think there's one thing when it started. Prayer. I know it sounds simple, it sounds elementary, but let's not take that for granted also because this is God's word. Let's bring Him in on it. When someone asks, well, where should I start? If I want to start a study all over again, I would say start from the beginning. Just like you would at a movie or television series or anything like that or a book. You don't start in the middle because if you do, isn't it kind of frustrating to come in the middle and then not know who this character is referring to or what instance they're referring to in the past? It kind of takes away from some of the enjoyment because you can't quite keep up. Well, the same thing holds true with the Bible. For example, let's say you're reading the book of Hebrews. If you had not previously read the book of Leviticus and understood it, well then you're going to kind of miss out on what the author is trying to convey to these Jews as it pertains to salvation and the day of Atonement. Also, I would suggest use proper hermeneutics. Big fancy word that simply refers to the methodology that you use in reading. For example, I suggest you use the normal plain reading. In other words, when you read a menu or a direction or a magazine or a book, you don't go into it trying to find some hidden meaning. In other words, you don't try to spiritualize or allegorize a story. Say you did that when you are, I don't know, baking a cake. I know I'm not a very good cook and so I need the instructions and so if it says use a quart of milk, a half a cup of sugar, two sticks of butter. I wouldn't then begin to say, hum, I wonder what they mean by two sticks of butter. I wonder what they mean by a half a cup of sugar. Maybe what they really meant was to make this as half as sweet as you. You don't want to do that. If you do that, you're going to have a bad cake. Same thing holds true with the Bible. If you try to read too far into the scriptures, what it's saying, you're going to completely miss it. Because can I give you a secret? This might blow your mind a little bit. This might hurt your feelings, but God doesn't think too highly of our intellect. I know it may, it might bruise Eagle a little bit, but he doesn't. Find that in the scriptures. Find where God says, I think so highly of you people in your intellect. You guys are so wise. No, he calls us sheep for a reason because sheep aren't very intelligent and neither are we. And so he gives us his scripture in a way that even the least of us can understand it. So try to read it in just its normal, plain understanding. Are there some times where the Bible is going to give us metaphors and figures of speech? Sure. And oftentimes when the Bible does so, the Bible will alert us to it. For example, John in the book of revelations will say something like this. I saw something like or this was as. So therefore he's telling us, I can't really describe this. So I'm trying to give you a little bit of figure of speech to understand what it is that I'm seeing. Same thing with parables. The Bible alerts you to figures of speech and metaphors ahead of time. Now, are there some difficult passages in the Bible? Yep, there sure are. But if you just take these elementary methods and use and apply them, then when you go to the deeper things of the Bible, they'll be much easier to understand because you have an elementary understanding. It's almost like this. Have you ever seen one of those long math questions where it's 2 plus 8 times 3 minus 4 divided by 2 plus this minus that none of the questions are that difficult. But they're so long that it's possible that you might miss a step. You might not have added something correctly. You may have not carried the one. What have you? If you get something wrong in the earlier part of it, the latter part of the question is going to all fall apart. The same thing holds true with the Bible. If you miss some foundational issues, then as you go deeper into some of the deeper topics, the more, let's say, controversial topics, then you might miss something because you missed out on the foundation. Does that make sense? Learn the difference between primary application and secondary application. Without going too far in depth, it is just simply applying properly who the passages are intended for. For example, if you've got a cantankerous boss, an enemy, someone that you just don't like, and you decide, oh, I know I've read somewhere in the Bible what the Church of Israel did, I'm going to march around this person or this building seven times and shout, what do you think is going to happen? To my point, some passages aren't meant for you to apply literally or personally. They're just descriptive of what happened or what God told these people to do. So try to remember when you're reading to keep things kind of in context. The Bible has an overall context, but then also each writer has a context, and sometimes each chapter may have a context. When you write someone, you don't write to cover 10, 15, 20 different topics. You might have a specific point that you're trying to convey, and that's exactly what you see happen in the Bible. For example, when Paul was writing the church in Corinth in 1 Corinthians, he's got a specific theme that he's woven in, and that is unity. He'll talk about unity in the church, unity as it relates to marriage, also unity as it relates to spiritual gifts. So remember that there is this overarching context oftentimes and try to keep things in context when you read. Oftentimes you've heard it said that if you get 10 people to read a passage, you might get 11 different interpretations. Well, let's see if that's true if we keep it in context. If I were to say, seek and you shall find, what would that mean to you? Well, if I asked 10 people, I might get 10, 11, 12, 15 different answers as to what that means. But in Luke 11, 5, if we read this passage, this parable and keep it in context, let's see if we won't all come to the same conclusion. And he said to them, which of you shall have a friend and go to him at midnight and say to him, friend, lend me three loaves. For a friend of mine has come to me on his journey and I have nothing to say before him. And he will answer from within and say, do not trouble me. The door is now shut and my children are with me in bed. I cannot rise and give you anything. But I say to you, though he will not rise and give to him because he is his friend, yet because of his persistence, he will rise and give him as many as he needs. So then I say to you, ask and it will be given to you. Seek and you will find, knocked and it will be open. So now in context, it's easy to see that seeking you will find doesn't mean, well, just seek the Lord with all your heart. It doesn't mean, oh, seek this. No, it just means to be persistent. See how context keeps things in perspective. So keeping these things in mind, let me give you five tips to keep with you to help you to understand the Bible a little bit clearly. You've probably heard these before. These are the five W's. Who, what, when, where and why. Who, who is the writer? Who is the writer writing to? It would be helpful to know that if a writer is writing to Jews, it would help us in our understanding of how this passage ought to be taken. The overall context because it's a Jewish context. What, what is the subject about? In John three, Jesus is clearly talking about salvation. And if the subject is salvation, then it would help us to not deviate as some have done and make John three a passage about baptism. When, when is the passage taking place? If the writer is speaking about salvation, let's say in the book of Hebrews to Jews, doesn't it matter if this win is taking place after Jesus's death bear on resurrection versus during the law before Jesus's death bear on resurrection? That makes a big difference. Where sometimes knowing where the writer is also makes a difference. When Paul is trying to comfort us and tell us to be at peace, isn't it good to know that he's telling us this while he himself is in chains in prison? That's how he can reassure us to know that everything is going to be all right because of where he's writing this from. And lastly, why? Why is the writer writing? Why is the speaker speaking? It would do no good for me to tell my daughter to clean her room and pick up her shoes. If then in the middle of the conversation, she focused on shoes and what kind of shoes she ought to wear today. That's not the point of the conversation that we're having right now. The same thing holds true with the Bible. So I hope all of this has been helpful. I hope that it has not only encouraged you, but also given you some tips that you can use to help in your study. I can tell you this firsthand. After having learned Hebrew and Greek and gotten a thorough understanding of certain elements of theology, I can tell you the one thing that has helped me to understand the Bible more than any of that is just these basic elementary principles on how I approach the Bible. Again, it's the same technique that scholars and theologians will use. Yeah, I know that there are some people out there that are going to be more profound or try to be more profound. There are some people that want to gain attention by saying something that's just mind blowing. But that's not the point. God gives us his scripture so that one, we can live them out and then also communicate them. He doesn't give us something so difficult that we have to sit and take time and figure out what in the world did he say before we can communicate it. His goal is to get people into fellowship with him. And so he does so by giving us a word that we can all understand. And that, my friends, I think is the definition of a smart Christian, someone who understands how to read the Bible, but also how to and why we should apply the Bible in other folks' lives and communicate it as effectively as possible. So I thank you for spending time today. I look forward to sharing with you how we take these techniques and utilize them in future Bible studies as well as how we apply them to current events issues. Thank you so much and I look forward to seeing you in later videos.