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How we ought to study the Bible
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'MOST Christians
will agree that to read and understand the Bible is necessary
to a growing Christian life. In it we find the Word of God spoken
to men of other ages and, if we listen carefully, spoken to us
today. In it we find the supreme revelation of God to mankind
in Christ Jesus.
We know that we ought to know more about it than we can learn
by attending church once a week. We ought to read the Bible ourselves.
But how? Where do we start? How can we find our way?
It needs to be recognised at the outset that there is no easy
and effortless way to Bible knowledge, any more than there is
to knowledge in any other field.
There are plenty of groups that try to make you think otherwise.
They are like the language study correspondence schools that
advertise that you can learn Spanish in ten easy lessons. You
can, but after you have finished the course, you find that no
one understands the Spanish that you speak. You get little because
you have paid little.
For instance, there is a Bible correspondence course that comes
from Chicago. It is easy. You have ten simple questions to answer
each lesson, questions which can be answered by "yes"
or "no", and which you can answer without even reading
the Bible material. When you are done, you receive a certificate.
But you know very little more about the Bible.
[There is another course that has come to my desk. It is not
difficult. Each lesson is built upon an interesting question,
such as "Ten Great Bible Facts About Jesus", or the
"Second Coming of Christ", or the "Signs of Christ's
Coming in Our Day". Much of this material is good. But
the method used is not one that leads to a fully-rounded knowledge
of the Bible. It is simply asking questions, and then pulling
out of the Bible texts which answer those questions. It is assumed
that every verse taken from the Bible is of equal value, regardless
of its context. It ignores the historical situation in which
the words were written.
By the use of this method, a non-Christian could prove that war
is God's way of settling international problems, that polygamy
is instituted of God, and that no woman should come to church
without wearing a head-dress and without keeping silent in church.
This is not to say that this method of Bible study is worthless.
It is to say that it fails to give the student a knowledge of
the Bible as a whole or of any single book in the Bible.]
Bible study that is creative and rewarding demands a study of
the Bible text in the light of all that we can learn about the
author, the times in which he wrote, the problems which he faced,
and what God said to him in his situation. Some of these facts
are clearly stated in the Bible text itself. Some of them must
be dug out of other parts of the Bible or out of history that
is outside the Bible. Knowing them, we can understand what the
writer is saying to us.
We hear the Word of God as he understood it in his day and can
begin to understand this same Word of God speaking to us in our
day. This is real Bible study. It is permitting the Bible to
speak to us, not reading into the Scripture what we want it to
say. Before the wonder of God's revelation of Himself in the
history of Israel, in the life of the early church, and particularly
in the life of His Son, we sit in silent wonder. We listen to
what He has to say to us ...
There are many excellent books in the field of Bible study these
days - books that are fitted to various age groups and that demand
differing amounts of work. No one book or course of study provides
all of the answers. Here, as in all other aspects of life, the
return that the student gets depends upon the amount of his investment
... ' - MM, October 1957, page 199.
Earnest Lau, the Associate Editor of Methodist Message, is also the Archivist of The Methodist Church in Singapore.