 Let's be honest, studying the Bible sometimes can be a little bit difficult, can be a little bit daunting, especially when you've got people over here saying one thing, people over there saying another thing, and they're saying it about the same scripture, about the same passage. People can look at the same passage and walk away with different views, different understanding. And so if you're trying to be genuine and honest about studying the scriptures, how do you do it? How do you make sure that you get the right understanding? How do you make sure that you receive what the writer is trying to convey? What I want to do is give you some things that I have learned in well over 30 years of doing this that have kind of helped me, some things that I have learned the hard way. And I want to point out to you something that I've noticed to be almost foolproof. And sometimes that's kind of how we need to be because we can be foolish in our thinking sometimes. So I want to share with you some things. Now I want to caution you in as you read the Bible to understand that one, and it makes sense, obviously, the Bible was not written in English. And so there are going to be times where you're going to need to actually look up the words, not the English word, but the word in either the Hebrew or the Greek. And so that necessarily means that you're going to need a certain type of a Bible, meaning you're going to need a word for word Bible. You've got different types of Bible that aren't written for the same purpose. Why is that? Well, first of all, you have a word for word, which tries to convey what each word in Hebrew or each word in Greek is trying to convey. You try to convey that in English. You also have what's called a thought for thought Bible, such as NIV, where it's trying to convey the thought of the writer, of the person speaking. And then you also have what would you call these paraphrase Bible, we won't get into those. But Bibles like the NIV, they're very helpful. They're very good. But if you're going to do a Bible study, you don't want to lean on those as much. You do want to kind of have those in mind, but it's going to be hard to do a word study using a thought for thought Bible. So because it wasn't written in English, the translators are trying to give you the entire meaning. If you listen to me, you can hear not only my words, but you can also understand the thought behind it, because you can hear my, my tone, my inflection and so forth. Well, you can't get that out of reading words in black and white. It's difficult to do so. And so that's the reason for both of them. And so you're going to see that certain translations might render a word or a phrase or a verse a little differently. There is no way to 100% of the time give a word for word translation, which means you're going to have to know and look up the word. Sometimes you're going to have to look at different aspects of the word. If it's a noun, what type of a noun is it? If it's a verb, what's the tense? What's the mood? What's the voice? So these are things that you're going to have to deal with as you go deeper. But what if I'm just a beginner? I just want to know how to read the Bible and get a good understanding. Well, I would say this. One, you want to read the Bible the way that you read everything else. I'll tell you more about this as we go further, but God expects you to read this Bible really the way that you read everything else. He doesn't expect you to change how you do things naturally in order to get his word. God is speaking to you on your own level so that the person who is the scholar or the person who's the beginner, the person who is in their later years in life or the younger person can still get the same understanding. As you read the Bible, you want to avoid bringing in any preconceived notions, meaning whatever you were taught in the past, whatever grandma may have spoken to you, whatever your past, your former pastor, your favorite preacher or theologian, whatever they have spoken, you might want to do your very best to leave those aside as best you can. I know it's difficult. I know it's hard not to, as you read the scriptures, not to think about what someone else said about that particular topic somewhere else, some of that resonated with you. It's going to be hard not to read that in the scriptures, but the problem is you end up reading someone else's opinion into the scriptures and that might not be the case. So how you can avoid bringing in preconceived notion is to try to place yourself as best you can in the place of the audience, the person that is reading it, or the people that's being spoken to directly. Try to imagine yourself being there, thinking about one what you have heard thus far, what you know about the situation, and also you can take into account what is happening there on the ground versus reading it from the standpoint of someone who was in 2023 in the 21st century America or some western civilization. Now as you read, another thing that you want to keep in mind is look for opportunities to be wrong. Look for areas where you are wrong. As a matter of fact, make that intentional. Where am I wrong at here? The reason why is it's going to sound strange, but if you find opportunities or if you find areas where you are wrong, when it does take a level of humility to admit that you are wrong, especially if you do so publicly, but in doing so a couple of things happen. One, it's not a bad thing that you found out that you were wrong about something. Look at the converse of it. You have now discovered something new and how joyful is that to learn something new in the Bible? The other thing is this, you also release yourself from the burden of being perfect, meaning you don't have to know everything. As a matter of fact, news flash, you don't know everything. You will not know everything. There are going to be some things that are just going to be so difficult. And so I would caution you as a matter of fact, I would encourage you to develop this one phrase that is, I don't know. It's good to be able to come across a passage and when someone asks you or you trying to figure out to be able to send yourself, I don't know. I'm not sure what that means and there are passages in the Bible. I don't care who the scholar is, who's been studying for the longest. There are passages in the Bible where we just don't fully know what's being spoken of. Jesus makes a statement where he's speaking to Nicodemus and he says, you know, I've told you earthly things and you still don't understand. So how then can I tell you heavenly things? There are some things that he might allude to that are really what we would call heavenly things that we just don't get. The Bible doesn't speak a whole lot about certain topics and so because it might broach those and we don't get enough information, avoid trying to be perfect and trying to force in an answer that you just don't know because then you end up creating a problem one at that moment but also down the road. Now with that mindset in place, this is kind of how you ought to approach the scriptures but the first thing that you do every time you approach the scriptures is to pray. I know that sounds a little bit obvious but the truth is you need to pray. Lord, I'm reading your word. Give me clarity. Give me insight. Help me to understand your word. Help me to be humble in looking at things and also be open to seeing new things to see your truth because as we say guys and you hear me say this often again and you'll hear me say this often it's not who's right but what's right. The truth is we all want to be right. No one wants to be wrong so when someone says you just want to be right well sure who wants to be wrong but if you know that you are wrong and this is the truth then certainly you want to preach that teach that believe that and live that and that's the goal. We want to love it. We want to learn it and then live it. Amen. Something that people tend to ask a lot of especially in the beginning is where do I start? If I want to start my studies all over, if I want to focus become a good Bible scholar, a good theologian, which by the way fancy yourself as being a scholar. Fancy yourself as being a theologian. You are trying to study God's word. You are trying to do it in a scholarly thoughtful fashion and so where do you begin? Well the same way you would if you're going to watch a movie or read any other book you start in the beginning. Kind of makes sense right? Because how many of you have watched a movie or in the middle of watching a movie and someone comes in and asks questions about the movie that they could have understood if they had simply watched the beginning and now you're trying to explain something to catch them up and they still don't get it. Same thing with the Bible. There's a reason why we have Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus numbers. There's a reason why our Bible does not start off in Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. Now if you start off in Matthew, Mark, Luke and John that's fine, but understand that this is building off of something. This is a culmination of what has happened in the past, what God has said previously. What prophecies are now being fulfilled, what God is doing. It's not something new. It's something that he said he is going to do and then you'll also be able to see if you go to the beginning you'll see why. You will have developed a foundation. It's just like when we have in math one of these real long tedious problems where it might be one plus something minus this divided by this plus this times that. The problems in and of themselves aren't difficult because it's so long if we make a mistake in anywhere in the process then further down the rest of the problem will be incorrect because we made a mistake somewhere else and so we want to get a good foundation on what's happening, what God aims to do, what is his purpose, what is his purpose in the entirety of the book, what is his purpose in this particular letter, what is his purpose, what is he trying to do here with these people, why. The best way to get that is if we understand from the beginning. Now this I want to caution you because I think that this is probably the thing that causes the most amount of problems in the church. There are people who have good intentions and good motives on both sides and you'll have people that believe this and people who believe that about the same topic and there's those who are in between. How do we get to that point? Well one of the ways is because of how we read the Bible. I mentioned this earlier so I want to talk about it now. How you read is important. I would recommend that you have what's called a literal grammatical historical hermeneutic. A hermeneutic is a method that you use when reading. Believe it or not we all have one. The problem is oftentimes it's inconsistent. When we come to the Bible sometimes we think that the best way to do it is to look for this deep spiritual hidden meaning. But can I bust our bubbles a little bit? Can I bring a little bit of a news flash? God does not think that highly of our intellect. He doesn't think that we are so smart, so clever, so intelligent, so wise, and so spiritual that he can put a hidden meaning in front of us and then we can get past all of our preconceived notions, all of things that are going on in life and then see the deep hidden meaning. No, that's not what he's trying to do. He's trying to communicate to us. The same way when you communicate to someone you communicate to them because you want them to understand and so you do so in a way they can understand. If I speak two languages and one of Spanish doesn't speak English and I know you only speak English well then I'm not going to speak to you in Spanish and then hope that you catch on. That's not how I do so. Now in doing so I want to be as consistent as possible. I don't want to allot arise or spiritualize the text meaning if I go looking for a deep meaning well when the next person does the exact same thing look for a spiritual meaning and his understanding is different or her understanding is different well then the next question is going to be who's right? We all can have an opinion and then what we're going to say we're going to say that I just use the Holy Spirit to guide me but the person who disagrees will say the same thing well God is after us using just these words. Words have meaning when we speak languages have rules and the rules are meant to be used to understand and so for that reason I'll have a literal I'll read the Bible as literally as I possibly can knowing that there are times where they're going to be similes there's going to be idioms there's going to be metaphors there's going to be different figures of speech there's going to be different types of writing such as poetry and so forth we understand that but similarly the way we do in English if I'm speaking to you I speak to you straightforward because I want you to understand and I might throw in metaphors or things like that if I say it's raining cats and dogs I don't mean that felines and catans are coming out of the sky I mean it's coming down pretty heavy and just like if I say I think that's really cool I'm not saying what I think the temperature of something is I'm saying that it's a figure speech today to say I think that's really nice that's all right that's nice now words do have different meanings such as the word fine or the word bank the word bank means a place where you put something in your money the edge of a river or something like that if I hit something off of something I've banked it off of the wall that kind of thing and so we understand that with the words that we use and the same thing has to be has to hold true in reading the Bible and so sometimes the words that we might use in English might be a different a certain word in Greek or Hebrew and so we look up that word see what it means that's just showing that I'm looking at the word what it means how it's used the tense the mood the voice we understand past present and future but then sometimes there's an aspect that's that's added to it for example if I say I watched versus I was watching in the Bible we're here where someone believes or believed but what if we say instead of believe what if we say they are believing and so now we get an even better picture because one may convey an end whereas the other one may convey a continuation and so those things are vitally important as we read the Bible that part that portion is very important a literal grammatical hermeneutic take it as literally as a possibly can until the literal doesn't make any sense and then the grammatical portion which is what we just described using the actual words but then the historical portion of this the literal grammatical historical hermeneutic meaning I'm also going to keep in mind the history of it these things that Jesus is speaking of that we see the apostles acting out and so forth the foundation of the church the coming of the Holy Spirit his death prayer and resurrection on the cross what he does with the church what he does with Israel these are things that we can see God speaking of that are going to happen we see what has happened in the past and we are told what's going to happen in the future and so there's a historical aspect to what God is doing again Jesus doesn't just show up on the scene without any sort of forewarning we have been told about him and we're told about what God is going to do we see what he tells what he tells Adam in the garden Genesis 3 we see what he tells Abram or Abraham in Genesis 12 and so these things are spoken of prior and so we can see where God is going as a matter of fact in doing so we also see the nature in character of God maintaining a consistency helps us to see the trueness of the word again God does not think that highly of us if anyone does think that highly of himself he needs to take heed lest he falls you are going to fall if you think that you are standing on solid ground and you cannot be shaken there's a reason why God calls us sheep because sheep just are not that intellectually superior to any other animal they just are not might shake us internally to realize that God didn't think that much of us but it's a good thing though that he desired to come and show his love for us in order to save us as you read the scripture remember there is a primary application and a secondary application meaning this there are some passages that just were not meant for you to have a primary application but you could glean something from it for example in second chronicles the bible says my people who are called by my name if they will humble themselves and seek my face and then turn from their wicked ways then i will hear from heaven and heal their land now sometimes we use that passage to apply to ourselves maybe to our country we see that oftentimes when it comes to elections but if we keep reading we'll find out that this is not about us or shouldn't be applied to us this is about israel because he says that if they do the opposite if they don't do right well then what will God do he says that he will take them out of the land well that clearly doesn't refer to us that's referring to them now are there some things that we can glean from that is a secondary application sure but to make it as though everything the bible is saying about one person should be applied to us we set ourselves up for a fall when God talks about doing certain things through the apostles and then we want in turn to take those and apply them to us we'll find out really quickly or at least others will if if we're humble enough we will that those powers and those things that were given to the apostles were never meant for us and so they're in lives an option to see a primary application or a secondary application trying to apply something in a primary way when it should be applied in a secondary application meaning that we should we can glean from the power of God working in man and really to see what God is trying to do not who he's trying to do it through as always make sure that when we read we read things in context there's a greater context in the entirety of the bible what God is trying to convey i would be careful about separating the old testament with the new testament i wouldn't do so because God did not just stop in midthought and decided to change courses no he did not everything is really one big continual moving up the lower from genesis to revelation now how he moves with different people in what we call these different dispensations that is there how he operates how he deals with mankind in the garden how he deals with mankind after the fall prior to the flood how he deals with mankind after the flood prior to the law how he does with mankind during the law and then after after the cross we see this happening but these aren't these aren't or shouldn't be surprised because we see God speaking of those things and so if we keep the full context of what God is trying to accomplish as we read the scriptures that would be helpful but even still the writers themselves have a context a meaningful purpose of why they are writing first Corinthians is written to speak about unity in the bible talks about the the body at large but then also dealing with marriages and so forth and family and it also talks about unity and divisions as it relates to spiritual gifts and so let's keep those in mind and every now and then you'll see that there are also some more immediate context of a letter inside different chapters and verses and remember the chapters and verses were added not when they wrote it but later on for our benefit to keep an idea of where we are in our reading now one of you five things to remember to kind of help keep all of this in your mind as you're reading remember the five w's the who what when where and why you can apply this to the scriptures who who is writing who is the writer writing to that helps that makes sense as a matter of fact that kind of keeps things keeps your preconceived notions out and you're focusing on what's happening what what is the point of the writer what is he writing about what's happening on the ground and what is he trying to get across when when is this taking place now i want to stop and show you something because i think this is very important as we read the bible i think that these little this little graph i'm going to show you is i think very helpful in your study to know when certain things are happening if we look on the screen at the at the bottom right hand side you'll see where it talks about the prophetic books and we see that there's a northern southern exile and restoration these are prophets who are prophesying during these times either to the northern kingdom the southern kingdom the exile or the restoration of the nation and then we have below that we have these prophets who are prophesying to the nation and so it is helpful to know when these things are happening and so when someone is prophesying for example Jeremiah if he's prophesying to the southern kingdom and when it's just before the exile we know there's going to be an exile and so when he makes a statement we know what's getting ready to happen so the win is very important similarly to this old testament timeline there is a new testament timeline that i think you all have to be aware of and so in that we can see the approximate years of when certain books were written what was happening at that time we can look at when the paul and the pistols were written which is important the reason why that's important is because somebody may come back and say for example paul that paul evolved he in this book that is in our bible written previously where he says that there is no jew nor greek nor male or female that book is in our bible after he has made the statement regarding women in their role then someone who doesn't know when these books were written might come back and say and they have may come and say that paul may have evolved in his understanding but that's not the case as we look at this again we see that uh he wrote timothy at the latter end of his ministries and so he did not evolve he was true to what he said so be careful to know when certain things were written and when they were taking place where something is taking place or even sometimes even where the writer is for example when paul is writing and giving comfort and we know that he's where he is in prison that kind of adds a lot more to when paul is talking about us having joy and comforting us knowing where he is as a matter of fact even knowing what he's about to face it also helps to know that where the people are at this very moment when these things are taking place very helpful in our understanding of the overall picture and then why the last thing is why why is this written why what is the overall purpose why should we be hearing this so if you use those things it's just like how we read them read a book or watch a movie we actually unbeknownst to ourselves employ all of these these different things we know what's happening we know who's doing what we know where it is why where when all of those things the same thing holds true in the bible and so if you want to take your bible study to a different level apply these things because again if you go back and watch and pay attention to everything else that you do everything else that you read you read everything else the same way you read the newspaper this way you read a menu this way you read directions this way if you were making a cake and i'm not very good at making a cake but if they say that i need an ounce of i don't know sugar again i'm not a cook but if i take that and don't give an ounce of sugar and i think well they're about sort of an ounce is okay and i give an ounce and a half or if i don't if i think that he really didn't mean sugar anything sweet maybe sweet nerd will will suffice then i may mess up let's say if i'm baking a cake this is why i don't bake this is why i'm not a good cook because i would again allegorize what the plain reading of the menu is we use this way of reading everything even if we're reading i don't care if it's a story i don't care if it's an if it's some sort of story in a newspaper or magazine this is how we read everything this is how we does even how we watch tv we understand what's happening and so the bible is laid out the exact same way however we sometimes read things out of context we'll read the passage here today and then we'll go over there and then we'll go over there and read this passage what's in our mind what we read yesterday so do we take what we read yesterday and superimpose that in the text sometimes that can be a problem and so guys i hope this helps it's helped me this is honestly this is what a lot of scholars use i think this keeps us consistent because if you're not consistent in your reading and then you change the way you read something just arbitrarily then what you're going to end up having is more instead of the facts you're going to state more of an opinion this is how you feel but god gave us his word for a reason not just to enjoy it but to learn it and if you can't learn it it's going to be hard to really enjoy it because you're going to be confused so guys i hope this helped prayerfully it will bless your reading and guess what i know it will