An underrated Bible study tip

Seems like a no-brainer, but...

This might seem a bit weird, but hear me out.

The underrated Bible study tip is… *drumroll*

Read your Bible.

A lot.

How is that a Bible study tip? I’ll explain.

One of the first things you often hear or read when exploring how to do better Bible study is that Bible reading is NOT Bible study. And that’s true.

A lot of people do their chapter a day and say they study the Bible, which can be kind of like driving I-70, maybe stopping at a gas station once, and saying you’ve been to Kansas.

Kinda, but not really.

So, we need to get in the habit of digging deeper and not just passing by. We need to learn how to study words, and context, and imperatives, and participles, and so forth.

And once we learn how to study with a microscope like that, the best thing we can do is to back out for the wide angle view and start reading voraciously again. Read over and over and over, especially the Old Testament.

Why?

Because the way the Bible is written, it expects you to know the source material.

As Peter Leithart put it, much of Bible study is like reading an inside joke. How? Well..

Why did the chicken cross the road?

He was running away from Colonel Sanders.

Mildly funny, sure. But if you don’t know who Colonel Sanders is, it isn’t funny at all. Thousands of jokes work this way, counting on you to know a shared cultural reference in order for the humor to work.

If I stopped to say “Now, Colonel Sanders is known for selling fried chicken, so that’s why the chicken was running away from him” the joke goes from mildly funny to dead on arrival. The teller expects the listener to either pick up on the reference, or miss the joke entirely.

It’s really not much different when it comes to understanding the Bible. The book is packed to the brim with self references, but rarely do the authors stop to explain it to you. Their heavily Jewish audience would have been expected to know the source material in the same way you’d expect an American audience to know who Colonel Sanders is.

So, you can do a super deep dive on Romans or Revelation, for example, but if you aren’t aware that the writers are dropping references back to some other material in almost every verse, you’re going to miss a lot.

Sometimes our handy cross references and footnotes help us see things like this—think Jesus saying “My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?” and the likely note your study Bible has back to Psalm 22:1—but in many cases the references are subtle enough that they fly under the radar.

I hope to write more on examples in the future, but for now we can point most clearly to Revelation. Everybody wants to start looking for what all the crazy symbolism means, but few realize or yield to the source material for interpretational hints. The more you read the prophets, the better you’ll get Revelation.

But it doesn’t just stop at Revelation, and it’s not just a New Testament thing. By mid-Genesis the book already begins to refer to itself thematically and detail-wise.

So, the best way to get in this habit is to pick up two practices:

First, make time for plenty of reading. Deep, verse-by-verse study is important, but if you do that at the exclusion of broad Biblical reading you’ll be leaving almost as much on the table as you do by reading and not studying. Any time something seems familiar or draws your mind to something you’ve read before, start looking for parallels. There’s a good chance you’ll find more connections.

Second—and this might be the single best practice for getting a feel for the Bible—when you’re studying and you realize a verse is pointing back to another reference, make a note of it in your Bible (if it’s not already a footnote) and then go back and read the chapter surrounding the verse. In most cases the writer making the reference isn’t just pointing to a phrase, but to the entire context.

The more Bible we read, the more we get the hang of the way the Bible speaks. Words are not wasted. Details are not included coincidentally. The more familiar we are, the more we’ll pick up on the “inside jokes” being told and the better we’ll grasp the book as a complete story.

Some homework:

• How does the David and Goliath story draw on Israel’s wilderness wanderings?

• What connection is there between the story of Jonah and Cornelius’ conversion? (After you’ve thought it over a bit, check out Joel Slater’s thread for some help)

• In Mark 8:17-21, why is Jesus so insistent that the apostles should have picked up on something from the feedings of the 5,000 and 4,000? What was so special about those miracles in contrast to calming the storm or casting out demons, and what were they supposed to understand?

Give them a try, and if you want some ideas leave a comment and I’ll revisit the post in a few days to reply.

Further reading:

“Through New Eyes” by James B. Jordan

“Deep Exegesis” by Peter Leithart