Bible Study Archives

Take Online Courses from the Leading New Testament scholar, NT Wright

In the last episode of Theology.fm, I mentioned that N.T. Wright is one of the scholars and authors who has influenced my thinking the most.

I emailed N.T. Wright about two years ago to inquire about doing Ph.D. work with him, and he gave me some valuable advice. My ultimate decision was that I didn’t have the time or the money right now to get my doctorate. Nevertheless, I would have LOVED to study under him.

So I was thrilled to see this past week that he has three courses available on Udemy. If you were going to take these courses from him at the seminary where he teaches in the UK, they would probably cost around $900 each.

But you and I can now take these courses from N.T. Wright online, at our own pace, in our own time, while saving a bunch of money in the process.

Online Courses with N.T. Wright

Choose from Three Courses:

The great thing about these courses is that they never expire for life, you can take them at your own pace, AND there is a 30-day money back guarantee.

I will probably start with Galatians. Let me know if you take one, and which one you take.

Why Nobody Believes the Bible (Not Even You)

By Jeremy Myers
58 Comments

I write some controversial stuff on this blog from time to time. It often seems that whenever I do, I get a comment on the blog or over on Facebook that I am wrong because I have chosen to reject what the Bible clearly teaches in favor of my own personal human opinion. It is not always stated with these words, but that is the general idea.

I was listening to a podcast the other day where the guest on the podcast said this very thing. He wasn’t talking about me, of course, but he said that the big problem in the church today is that people read the Bible, they don’t like what they read, and so they reject what the Bible clearly teaches because they prefer their own theology over the theology of the Bible.

I was glad that the podcast host pushed back a little bit by asking if the pastor saw any difference between “what the Bible says” and “our understanding of what the Bible says.” The pastor said he did see a difference, but then went on to show by the rest of his comments that he didn’t. He basically said that how he understood the Bible was what the Bible clearly teaches because he lets the Bible and the Bible alone inform his theology, and anybody who disagreed with him was just following their own human understanding of the text imposing their own theology on the text of the Bible.

I smiled a bit, because I used to be the exact same way. This probably could have been one of the 5 Theology Mistakes I made as a pastor.

In the last decade or so, I have come to see things quite differently. I now understand that it is impossible to “just believe the Bible.”

I Just Believe the Bible?

When someone says to me, “I just believe the Bible,” I sometimes ask them, “Which Bible?”

I sometimes get a blank stare in response to this question, for in the minds of the most people, there is only one Bible. “You know, THE Bible,” they say to me.

Most people, however, understand me as asking which Bible translation they are using, and so they will launch off into an explanation of why they read the KJV (because it has the greatest tradition), or the NASB (because it is the most accurate), or the ESV (because some big name scholars endorse it), or the NIV (because it’s the most understandable), or whatever.

I then point out that a Bible translation is not really “THE Bible,” but is simply the shortest Bible commentary that exists. A Bible translation is nothing more than a good representation of what a certain person (or committee of persons) understands the Bible to be saying. A Bible translation is not the Bible; a Bible translation is a commentary on the Bible.

This is seen by comparing various translations of the Bible. Pick almost any chapter from the Bible and compare it between five or six translations and you will see how translation decisions give different meanings of the text due to the words that were used.

Since I am doing a study on Genesis 1 in my podcast, I have noticed this over and over as I compare translations of various verses in Genesis 1. Some translations lean heavily toward young-earth creationism while others lean more toward an openness about when and how quickly the universe came into existence.

Another example is the NIV and the ESV translations of the Bible, which were put together by a committee of scholars who are mostly Calvinists. As a result, these translations lean heavily toward Calvinistic interpretations and understandings of the text. These translations are short Calvinistic commentaries on the Bible.

I Read and Study the Greek and Hebrew Bible?

Occasionally I will talk to someone who knows that Bible translations are biased, and so after discussing English translations for a bit, they say, “Well, that’s why I always go back and check the Greek text.”

My response is this, “Wonderful! … Which Greek text?”

Then we have the exact same conversation we had about the English translations, but this time about Greek texts. There are thousands upon thousands of ancient Greek texts, and when compared with one another, they contain thousands of variant readings. Scholars have tried to sort through these texts to come up with what is likely to be the original Greek text, but (no surprise here), there is no universal consensus.

In fact, there is not even a consensus on how to decide which variant readings are the best. There are two main approaches to the Greek texts, which can be found in the NA/UBS Text and the Majority Text. While the vast majority of scholars today prefer the approach found in the NA/UBS Text, a large number of scholars prefer the approach of the Majority Text. I won’t get into the differences here, because it would bore you to tears. In case you are curious, however, I prefer the Majority Text myself.

The point is that even when people read and study the Greek Bible, we cannot say that there is such a thing as THE Greek Bible. Just as there are different English Bibles, so also, there are different Greek Bibles.

I Perform Greek and Hebrew Word Studies?

Let us assume, of course, just for a moment, that everybody could agree 100% on what the original text meant. Or let us assume just for a moment that we somehow, miraculously, discovered the original manuscripts of the New Testament (called the autographs) as written by Matthew, Luke, Paul, Peter, etc.

We still could not say that we “just believe the Bible,” because even though we would now know for sure what words were used, there would never be consensus on what those words mean. Sure, we have Greek dictionaries, but — surprise, surprise — the various Greek dictionaries do not all agree on what the particular words mean in their various contexts. Sure, there is a lot of agreement, but on key Biblical words like justification, faith, heaven, eternal life, hell, Son of Man, Christ, and numerous other such terms, there is no universal consensus on how these words are to be understood in the Greek text.

After all, we must remember that just as Bible translators let their own theology guide how they translate the Greek text, so also, the people who write Bible Dictionaries let their own theology guide how they define various Greek words. So if you use a Greek Bible Dictionary written by a Calvinist and compare it to a Greek Bible Dictionary written by a Catholic, you will get some very different definitions of what is meant by the word “justification.”

I study the Historical and Cultural Context?

One important tool that many good scholars use to help them understand how the words were used and understood by the original author and to the original audience is historical-cultural background studies. I use these a lot myself, and find them to be one of the most enjoyable and fruitful areas of biblical research.

However, as with everything else, there is a lot of wiggle room when it comes to how much historical and cultural background studies help us understand the text.

Take my current studies on Genesis 1 as an example. I have read about 30-40 books on this chapter so far. About 10-15 of them have said that the original author knew nothing about the Babylonian, Canaanite, and Egyptian creation myths, and so it is unwise to draw parallels between Genesis 1 and what is recorded in those other religious creation accounts.

The rest of the scholars say that it is almost absolutely certain that the original author and audience knew of these accounts and was writing some sort of theological polemic against them.

Most ironically of all, the first group of scholars (who deny any connection) often say that “the issue has been decisively settled in our day and no reputable scholar believes in any such connection any longer.” I scratch my head at this, because I have just read a couple dozen modern, reputable Bible scholars who do, in fact, believe in the connection between Genesis 1 and the Babylonian, Canaanite, and Egyptian creation myths.

So there is no consensus.

Or take the current debate about justification. In case you were not aware, there is a big debate among New Testament scholars today about what Paul meant by justification. In some of these books and articles on this debate, it is not uncommon to see a scholar say, “Well, in Paul’s day, the Jews believed … ” and then go on to state what Jews believed. I have undoubtedly said something similar in many of my own writings and teachings.

And yet saying “In Paul’s day, the Jews believed …” is like saying, “In our day, Christians believe … ” Put anything you want after that ellipses, there is no universal consensus about it. Do all Christians believe the same thing about what happens after death? Nope. About how to receive eternal life? Nope. About the deity of Jesus? Nope. About the nature of the church? Nope.

So again, even if we were doing a “Historical-cultural background” study on our very own day and our very own culture, it is impossible to give a blanket statement and say, “Well, in the 21st century, Christians believe that …” Whatever you put there, some Christians will believe it, and some won’t.

So historical-cultural background studies are helpful, but even they will not give you absolute certainty about the meaning of any text.

The straightforward reading the Bible is a myth.

I could go on and one with numerous other issues that affect “the plain and simple understanding of the Bible” to show you that there is no such thing. We could talk about how our own culture and history and personal experience colors our reading and understanding of Scripture. We could talk about worldviews and thought patterns and logical reasoning. We could talk about the nature of truth.

And on and on and on …

The point is this: The straightforward reading the Bible is a myth.

Don’t believe anyone who says, “I just believe the Bible.” They don’t.

Sure, they might believe they “just believe the Bible,” but this mindset is the greatest contributing factor to their failure to see all the areas where they are wrong about what the Bible says. The person who says they just believe the Bible may be the most dangerous person to listen to regarding what the Bible teaches because they are blind to everything that has influenced their understanding of the Bible.

It is absolutely NOT true when someone claims, “The Bible says it; I believe it; that settles it.”

Again, you sometimes hear people say, “If the plain sense of the Bible makes sense, seek no other sense.” But again, there is no such thing as the “plain sense” of the Bible, for what may seem to me to be the “plain sense” completely contradicts what someone else thinks is the “plain sense.”

I still remember when I was in Seminary and I was attending a class on the book of Romans, and after class as all of us students were filing out the door, one of the students said to me, “The professor is wrong. I’ve read Romans before, and that is not what it says.”

Ha!

But that’s the way many of us approach Scripture and how other people understand it (when it disagrees with our understanding). When presented with an explanation of the text that challenges our own explanation, our immediate defensive position is to say, “Well, that’s wrong because they are importing their own human interpretation into the text rather than letting the text speak for itself the way I do.”

Don’t fall into that trap.

Disagree with the other person if you want to, but recognize that they are trying to understand and explain the text just as much as you are, and that just as you want them to listen to how you arrived at your conclusions regarding the text (and don’t say, “I just read the Bible,” because you didn’t), so also, that other person likely engaged in deep study of the biblical text to arrive at their understanding and it would benefit you to hear how they came to their understanding.

In this way, both of you can learn from each other and challenge each other to understand the text at a deeper level.

Ultimately, finally, no matter what “conclusions” you come to about the meaning of a text, never let them be your “conclusions.” Hold all your conclusions tentatively. Hold them humbly. Recognize that you always have more to learn, that you have never “arrived,” and that God may just want to reveal an incorrect belief to you by bringing this other person into your life with whom you (currently) disagree.

The Question is not, “Is the Bible True?” but rather, “How is the Bible True?”

By Jeremy Myers
26 Comments

Thinking about the nature of truth helps us understand how the Bible is (and is not) true.

And don’t get nervous … I believe all the Bible is true … but you need to read on to discover what I mean by this.

Beginning with Truth

There are different types of truth.

There is logical truth, scientific truth, historical truth, relational truth, poetic truth, and yes, even universal truth. There is a lot of overlap between some of these types of truth, but there are also some areas that might be true in one category, but not true in another.

Various Types of Truth Claims

For example, the statement “2+2=4” is mathematically true, while the statement “I love my wife” is relationally true. But I cannot use mathematics to defend the truth that I love my wife, so the statement “I love my wife” is not mathematically true.

Then there are statements which are true for some and not true for others. The statement, “Halloween is a day on which children get candy,” is true for children who go Trick-or-Treating on Halloween, but is not true for those who don’t.

Many historical truth claims are true when they are made, but are not true later. For example, “King George is the King of England” was true when he was king, but is no longer true today.

Then there are experiential truths and truths from a certain perspective. Consider these two statements: “The sun rises in the east. The sun rises in the west.” Which statement is true? Everybody would agree that first statement is true. Yet from a scientific perspective, the sun does not rise in the east. This is an illusion based on our experience of seeing the sun rise up out of the Eastern horizon. Scientifically, however, the sun is stationary and the earth rotates around the sun.

Of course, even that is not a scientifically true statement, since in reality, the sun is not even close to stationary. The sun it is moving through the Milky Way galaxy at a speed of 450,000 mph. And when you consider that the Milky Way galaxy is moving toward the Andromeda galaxy at a speed of about 150,000 mph, and the earth is moving around the sun at a speed of about 70,000 mph, what this means is that when you were a child and your mother told you to “Sit still” you were still moving at a rate of about 670,000 mph.

So as you sit there reading this text, are you sitting still or are you moving?

You might say, “Well, I’m sitting still relative to my chair, but not sitting still relative to the universe.” Fine. Except that even relative to your chair, you are not sitting still. For the word “still” means “absent of all movement.” Yet your blood is moving, your eyes are blinking, your cells are reproducing, and your molecules are vibrating around like crazy. You are not remotely “still.” So you see? The truth claim that you are sitting still relative to your chair requires even further clarification to be truly true.

This dilemma about truth becomes even more convoluted when we begin to discuss history, poetry, and literature.

The statement, “I ate porridge for breakfast this morning,” is a true statement (Relative, of course, to how I am using the words “porridge” and “morning.”) But if I say, “The porridge was good,” we now have a truth dilemma. What do I mean by “good”? I could mean that it tasted good, or that it was morally good, or that it was not rotten, or maybe that it manufactured and sold by a company named “Good.”

And what about the statement, “I will eat porridge next Monday morning?” It is my plan to eat porridge next Monday, but does this plan make the statement true today? In other words, can a statement about the future be true?

Then there is the language of poetry. Take this statement: “The color of love is red?” Is that true? Yes, it is true. But not from a scientific, or logical, or mathematical, or historical perspective. Love has no color. And in fact, what exactly is “red”? For that matter, what is “love”? (Baby, don’t hurt me, don’t hurt me, no more!)

Or take fiction and literature as an example. Here is a True or False question for you to answer: Aesop’s Fables are true.

Well, of course they’re false! In fact, the word “fable” means “myth” or fictional story, which by definition, means they are not true.

And yet Aesop’s Fables contains some of the greatest truths in literature. Truths about greed, teamwork, hard work, and self-discipline. So in this sense, Aesop’s Fables are amazingly true.

Enough with all this though. I hope you see that the truthfulness of a statement depends almost entirely on the type of truth statement it is, the context in which it is said, and numerous other factors.

So what about the truthfulness of the Bible?

The discussion above is why it is so difficult for some people to answer the question, “Is the Bible true?” Is that question referring to scientific truth, historical truth, relational truth, mathematical truth, poetic truth, or some other type of truth?

Initially, the answer to all these questions seems to be “Yes.” Many would state that “No matter what type of proposition or claim the Bible is making, it is true.”

Okay, let’s consider a few examples.

Earlier in this post, we talked about mathematical and scientific truth claims in the Bible.

In my One Verse Podcast, we have been looking at some of the claims in Genesis 1 (which some people believe are scientific truth claims … but I don’t). In Genesis 1:6, we read that God placed a firmament in the sky to separate the waters above from the waters below.

As I pointed out in the podcast, the word “firmament” means a hard dome. So is it true that there is a hard dome up in the sky which holds back a heavenly ocean from falling upon us?

Well, no, this isn’t true.

Ah, so then the Bible has errors?

I do not believe so (as I explain the Podcast). While Genesis 1:6 may not be scientifically true, there are other ways that a statement can be true. The key is figuring out how Genesis 1:6 is true.

Take the truth claim of the Bible that “God is love.” Is that true? Well, of course it’s true. But it is not mathematically or scientifically true. It is relationally true. It is a statement about God’s character and nature.

Or what about the numerous statement in the Psalms about how God looks and acts? I just randomly opened to the Psalms and found the statement in Psalm 68:4 that God rides on the clouds. Is this true? If you look up at the clouds and see them moving across the sky, is God up there riding across the sky on the clouds like a person rides a horse? Or maybe God is into cloud surfing the way people surf waves?

No, of course not. Psalm 68:4 is poetically true, describing the glory and majesty and power of God.

Or how about the parables of Jesus? Are they true?

Well, of course they are true!

But was there really a landowner who went away and when he sent back servants to receive the income from the land, the tenants of the land killed all the servants? And so the landowner finally sent his son, thinking the tenants would listen to him, but instead, the tenants killed the son as well? Did that really happen? Maybe … but its highly unlikely, and the reason Jesus told this parable, was not to teach a historical truth, but to teach a theological and relational truth about his own mission and ministry.

Or take prophecy. Are prophetical statements about future events true? Well, they do reveal divine intent, and since God can bring about what He intends, we could say that prophetical statement are more true than the statements about any human intent, but again, are statement about future historical events actually true before they occur?

We could go on and on, but here’s the point:

The question is not “Is the Bible true?” but rather, “How is the Bible true?”

Asking that second question is key in properly studying and understanding the Bible.

This sort of approach to Scripture allows us to take a more nuanced view of the doctrine of inerrancy.

I Believe in Inerrancy

Biblical Inerrancy is loosely defined as the idea that the Bible is without error. That everything on which it speaks, it speaks truly.

I agree with this.

I believe the Bible is true. I believe every word of it is true.

And in fact, I am going to go further than most inerrantists I know. I believe the Bible is more true than most of them believe.

Most inerrantists qualify their belief in the truth of the Bible by saying that the Bible is without error in the original manuscripts. That is, most inerrantists only believe the original manuscripts of the Bible are inerrant. They freely admit that the manuscripts which we have now are full of errors.

But I do not qualify my belief in the truth of Scripture this way at all. Because of how I understand truth, I believe the Bible is true more than inerrantists do.

While I do believe that the original manuscripts were completely true, I also believe that the copies of these original manuscripts are completely true, and I believe that all translations and Bible versions are completely true, including not only the KJV, but also the NIV, the NASB, the Message, the Living Bible, and even translations into Swahili or Klingon. Yes, did you know there is a Klingon version of the Bible? There is. And I believe it is true.

I know these sorts of statement will make people mad, but here’s the thing: I believe that these debates about who truly believes the Bible and who doesn’t are just the smoke and mirrors of religion.

Debates About Inerrancy are Debates for Control

Debates about inerrancy are nothing more than ways for one particular group of religious leaders to manipulate and control their followers into submission and to keep them from listening to the ideas or teachings of another group of religious leaders — who, incidentally, use the same arguments to control and manipulate their followers to keep them from listening to the first group!

It is a powerful argument in the minds of many to be able to say, “I am right and those people over there are wrong because they don’t believe the Bible, and so you better listen to me.” But every time I hear this sort of language coming out of a teacher or a ministry, I run away faster than I would run from a roaring lion.

But if my understanding of what the Bible says is different than your understanding of what the Bible says, you cannot say that I don’t believe the Bible is true, for I do. I simply believe that the Bible is true in a different way than you believe it is true, and I believe that the truth claims it makes are different than the truth claims you believe it makes.

The claim, “You don’t believe the Bible is true” is nothing more than a smokescreen put up by manipulative religion to discredit or ignore a challenging teaching or idea about the Bible which disagrees or contradicts what that religion teaches. This accusation is played as a trump card, but it turns out to be nothing more than a joker.

But if we can stop arguing about inerrancy, we can return instead to what has true value, which is actually discussing the biblical text itself. We can talk about how a passage is true, even if we know it is not scientifically or historically true.

Does this way of thinking help you know that you can trust Scripture as true? I hope so. Let me know your thoughts and questions in the comments below.

How I Study the Bible (in 10 Steps)

By Jeremy Myers
14 Comments

Since I have a lot of my sermon manuscripts online from when I was a pastor, and now that I have started a Verse-by-Verse Bible teaching podcast, I occasionally get an email from somebody asking what approach I use to studying the Bible, and what Bible college or seminary they can attend to learn these things.

So this post provides a few short points about how I study the Bible and how you can too.

But before I get to that, let me just say that unless you are going to get a job that requires a seminary degree, you probably don’t need to attend Bible college or seminary. It’s just too expensive and time consuming, and for the most part, you can get the same information you would get at Bible College and Seminary by reading some good books.

But aside from that, here are the 10 Steps I use to study the Bible. These did not come from Bible college or seminary, but are something I put into practice over the course of writing and studying Scripture on my own.

1. Buy Good Bible Study Resources

The first step is to make sure you have some good resources to help you in your study. You need good books, commentaries, lexicons, and Word-study resources.

In my current Podcast series on Genesis, I not only use a lot of the Bible study tools available through Logos Bible Software, but I also have over 30 additional commentaries and books I consult for each and every show.

Yes, Bible study can get expensive. I easily spend a couple hundred dollars on Bible study resources every time I start out to teach through another book of the Bible.

And yes, Bible study can be time-consuming. I typically spend about 8-10 hours of preparation time on every sermon or podcast I teach.

But listen, there is something SUPER important I want to say about Bible study resources once you have bought them… and it is this:

2. Don’t Use Them! This Is Key!

I cannot tell you how critically important this is.

I firmly believe that a failure to follow this step is the number 1 reason why most Bible studies and sermons you hear from various pastors are lifeless and dead.

If you want your sermons or Bible studies to have life and vibrancy and creativity, you must make sure that no matter how many Bible study resources and commentaries and books you have purchased, that you never, ever, EVER open them.

Wait.

What?

Step 1 was to buy good Bible Study resources. Step 2 is to never use them?

Yes.

At least … and here’s the key … you must not ever read them or use them or open them until AFTER you have finished studying the text and writing out your sermon or Bible study. Your sermon or Bible study must be completely done and ready to teach BEFORE you crack open a single book or commentary.

I cannot emphasize this enough.

There is nothing that will steal the life from your sermon faster than when you rely on commentaries and Bible study resources to tell you what the text means.

The life and vibrancy of any sermon comes from you struggling, praying, and sweating over the text for hours on end. The life of your Bible teaching is found by beating your head against the text on your own until it makes sense to you. The joy of self-discovery in the biblical text leads directly to the joy of teaching the text to others.

If you abort this process of yelling at God about why this text is so difficult to understand, you will never experience the joy that comes when God, by His Holy Spirit, opens your mind and eyes to the meaning of the text, and without this joy of having God teach the text to you, you will never be able to have true joy in teaching the text to others.

So resist, resist, resist the urge and temptation to turn to commentaries too quickly. Complete steps 3-5 below before cracking open a single book.

3. Study the text you want to teach

What text you study and how you study it all depends on your personality, the personalities of the people you are teaching, and the genre of the text itself.

If I am teaching a narrative, my sermon will take a more narrative approach. If I am teaching one of Paul’s letters, my sermon will take a more informative approach.

I read over the text a lot. I read it in its context. I write down some main points and initial observations or impressions of the text.

Somewhere in this process, I get a sense of what the text is about, and what I want to say about it. I begin to organize these thoughts in a logical way and write them down on a pad of paper or in Microsoft Word.

4. Keep studying the text you want to teach

This is a repeat of step 3, because this step is so important, and it takes the longest. Just keep studying the text. Thinking through the text. Looking at the words in their context. The sentences in their context. The paragraph in it’s context.

Two books, by the way, you ARE allowed to use at this point, might be a Bible concordance and Bible dictionary. If you want to look up what a word means or where it is used elsewhere, this is the place for that. And unless you have the Bible memorized, and know exactly what every word means, you sort of need a concordance and Bible dictionary to help you out.

5. Manuscript your sermon or lesson

This is a critical step for me as well. I manuscript my entire sermon or Bible study. Every word gets written down.

This doesn’t mean I am exactly going to use the manuscript when I teach the sermon or Bible study (I am definitely NOT going to read it!), but this stage of Bible study is important to me for several reasons.

First, typing out what I want to say helps me think logically through what I want to say. Almost always, what makes sense in my head ends up making no sense at all when I see it on the screen in front of me. So this helps me thing through exactly what I want to say and why.

Second, typing out what I want to say helps me sense the flow of the sermon or study. For example, the idea that I will simply transition from one point to another becomes much more difficult when I actually try to type it out.

Third, I can better judge the length of a sermon or manuscript if I type it out. The way I manuscript my sermons, I know that it takes me about five minutes to get through one page of text. So if I have 8 pages, that sermon will be about 40 minutes.

Fourth, manuscripting a sermon makes it super easy to preach that sermon in another place at another time if I ever want to. I can just pull it out, review it, and I’m good to go. Also, if I want to know what I said about a certain text, the manuscript helps with that. Also, now that I am putting my sermons online, it’s easy to just publish the manuscript. Also, as I write more books, I often find that I can pull sections out of previous sermons and include them in the books I write. Also (are you getting the picture here?), as I change the way I think about a text or how I understand it, it is easy for me to go back and update an already-existing manuscript.

Anyway, write it out.

6. NOW, Turn to your books and commentaries and Bible software

Okay, after you have completely finished your study and have written out your manuscript and are ready to teach what you have learned, this is when you should consult your books and Bible commentaries and Bible study software. You are now in a position to benefit from what these books say, or to argue with them and disagree (as often happens).

Read them all. Read widely. Even (especially!) read those books and commentaries you know you will disagree with.

If you are a Calvinist, read commentaries from Arminians or Catholics, and vice versa. If you are liberal, read conservative commentaries, and vice versa. Be challenged by what you read. Stretch your mind and your thinking.

After all, if you are wrong, don’t you want to know? And if you are right, what is there to fear from reading voices that disagree? Doing so will only help you know the opposing arguments, and how to refute them, which makes your view stronger.

7. Add, adjust, change your manuscript as necessary

As you read books and Bible commentaries, add further notes, quotes, or insights from these commentaries to your manuscript.

This is okay to do at this stage, because you have done all the hard work on your own first. Rather than relying on others to do your work for you, this is only making your work even better. If you find that others arrived at the same conclusions you did, feel free to add footnotes to your manuscript so that you have support for your views, and also so that you can later go back and find what others have said.

If what you read contradicts what you discovered on your own, you must weigh the arguments that are used against the arguments you used, and decide which view is best. If you realize you are wrong, this is fine, for you just learned something. Change your manuscript to incorporate the correct view or explanation.

Occasionally, as a result of waiting until this point to consult the ideas of others, I have had to throw out entire sermons. I remember many times as a pastor, staying up almost all night on Saturday night rewriting and redoing my entire sermon because of something I found written in a commentary. But that’s the way it goes.

8. Sleep on it.

After you have finished studying the text, writing your manuscript, and consulting the ideas of others, put it away for at least one night before you teach it.

Oftentimes, as you sleep, your subconscious mind (or call it your Spiritual mind) sorts through the teaching to come up with insights you hadn’t thought of before, or solutions to problems you couldn’t understand, or things that you need to take out of your sermon or Bible study lesson.

For me, it is the latter that happens most often.

Quite frequently, when I get up in the morning, as I think through the sermon or Bible study lesson I had prepared during the previous days, I visualize the manuscript of the sermon and it is almost as if I see black Xs over certain parts that I need to cross out.

Why? Well, maybe it is because those sections are confusing or unnecessary, but most often, it is because those sections are religious.

The sections I most often feel uneasy about after a night’s sleep are the sections where I am trying to manipulate and control people with guilt, fear, or shame. They are the sections that sound judgmental. They are the sections that were included to boost my ego and pride.

I think, “Is that illustration really necessary, or am I just trying to play with people’s emotions to get a reaction out of them?”

I think, “Is that use of a Hebrew word really necessary, or did I include it just to show my hearers that I know Hebrew?”

I think, “Is that application going to help people live in the love of God, or will it just dump more guilt and shame and responsibility upon their lives?”

9. Review the sermon or Bible lesson with your spouse.

Depending on the time you have available, this step might occur before you sleep on it, but ideally, it occurs afterward. Sit down with your spouse or significant other, or maybe even a small team of people, and go through your manuscript with them. “Preach” it to them, allowing them to interject, ask questions, make comments, and seek clarification as you go along. The things they say are the things that others will be thinking as you teach them, so this is an important step in the process.

Also, think of this as a practice run. By speaking the message out loud, your ears and their ears pick up awkward phrases, hear things that need more explanation, and overall, provide feedback on how things could be said better.

Figure that this step will take two or three times as long as the sermon or lesson itself. If your sermon is intended to be 30 minutes, this review stage could take an hour or more.

10. Always remember that Jesus wants to teach you first.

I probably should have put this step first, but I included it last because it sort of goes without saying.

When you sit down to study the Bible or prepare a sermon, the first and last thought on your mind should be, “Jesus, teach me today.” I sometimes like to picture myself sitting at the feet of Jesus as one of His disciples, and watching Him opening the Bible on His lap, and then explaining it to me.

I figure that if I don’t let Jesus teach the text to me first, I have no business trying to teach it to others.

Of course, this sort of mindset can quickly lead to pride and arrogance, so be careful. You will learn to recognize this pride and arrogance when you do Steps 6 and 9 above. If a commentary disagrees with what you wrote, there might be a temptation to think, “Well, what I wrote is superior to what this guy wrote, because I learned it from Jesus.” If, as you are reviewing your manuscript with your spouse, and she says, “That part there doesn’t make any sense,” and you think, “That’s because she hasn’t spent as much time pouring over the text with Jesus as I have,” you have completely missed the entire point and Jesus didn’t actually teach you anything.

So as you work your way through the various steps above, always be listening to the still, small voice inside. Always remember that whatever the text says, it says it to you first. You must never preach a sermon or teach a Bible study that has not first found its way into your own heart, mind, and life.

Bonus: Everything you Teach and Write must be In Love

I am convinced that when you follow the 10 steps above in your own Bible study, what you say in your sermons will come out with a spirit and attitude of love.

Love is the defining characteristic of the true teacher of the Word. If what you are saying and writing comes out with harsh judgmentalism and criticism, what you are saying is not from God, but is from an accusatory spirit.

If you follow all the 10 steps above, but forget to teach with love, you are guilty of the biggest heresy of all time.

How Do YOU Study the Bible?

So how about you?

Do you engage in much Bible study or sermon preparation?

If so, did any of the ten points above resonate with you? What would you add? Let me know in the comment section below!

WARNING: Geeky Greek Post Ahead

By Jeremy Myers
10 Comments

Kregel Publications recently sent me a review copy of Philip Wesley Comfort’s new study resource, A Commentary on the Manuscripts and Text of the New Testament (Get it on Amazon or at CBD.

If you are relatively familiar with how pastors and theologians study the Bible, you probably know about commentaries on books of the Bible. Those commentaries provide insights and suggestions on the text of Scripture to help the Bible student know what the texts means, how to teach it, and how to apply it to our lives.

That is NOT what this commentary by Comfort is about.

This book is a commentary on the manuscripts of the New Testament.

In case you did not know it, we do not have the original manuscripts (called the autographs) of the New Testament books that were written by Matthew, Luke, Paul, John, etc. We only have hand-written copies. But we have hundreds (and in some cases, thousands) of copies.

From one perspective, this is a good thing, for the textual evidence of the New Testament is much stronger than any other ancient Greek piece of literature. No other piece of ancient Greek literature has as much textual support as does the New Testament.

But here’s the problem: Not all of these copies of the various books of the New Testament agree with each other. There are textual variants in the copies.

So the task of the New Testament Greek scholar is to look at the various copies of the New Testament, and try to decide which of the variant readings most likely reflects what Matthew, or Luke, or Paul actually wrote. Then, these “probable” readings get compiled together into our Greek New Testaments today, and it is from these that our English translations are made.

Anyway, this new book by Philip Wesley Comfort looks at a large number of the variant readings from the textual families, and briefly explains what the variations are, and what Comfort thinks is the best reading for a particular variant.

Comfort’s book, of course, is not the only one like it. Nearly all Greek New Testaments have a summarized version of this sort of textual commentary in the bottom portion of every page (it is called the Critical Apparatus). In my own study and research, I use two or three other similar tools as well. One tool I have commonly used is very similar to the one Comfort has compiled, and it is A Textual Commentary on the Greek New Testament by Bruce Metzger. So, since I am familiar with that tool, I decided that in the process of reviewing Comfort’s Commentary, I would compare the two.

After spending several hours comparing the two commentaries, and studying their own explanations of numerous variants, here are my observations about the two books:

There are a lot of variants

I always knew there were a lot of variants in the Greek manuscripts, but I had forgotten just how many there were. It seems almost every paragraph in the New Testament has a couple. Nevertheless, I sort of assumed that most scholars sort of agreed on what the “major” variants were.

But as I compared Comfort with Metzger, I realized that there were lots of variants discussed by Metzger which Comfort ignored, and lots of variants discussed by Comfort which Metzger ignored.

Metzger’s volume discussed fewer variants than Comfort, but his discussions are longer and provide more detail about why he chose the variant he did. Comfort, on the other hand, discusses more variants, but his discussions are much shorter, usually only a sentence or two. For that reason alone, you almost need both books.

Scholars Don’t Agree

The second thing I noticed is that while Comfort and Metzger agreed a lot of the time on which textual variant is preferred, they disagreed a lot as well. And on some major verses!

Take Matthew 12:47 for example. The issue here is whether or not to include the entire verse. Metzger says that it should be included “with brackets” indicating that there is some doubt about whether it is original, whereas Comfort says the best reading is just to omit the verse altogether.

There were hundreds of similar such differences of opinion.

Scholarly Squabbles are Funny

Finally, I enjoyed seeing why and how Comfort defended some of his choices. I laughed a little bit when, on page 23, Philip Comfort wrote this:

… Not only do we need to know the original texts, we also need to know the tendencies of the scribes who produced the texts

You see? Comfort is saying that the reasons he chose the textual variants he did, is because he tried to understand the tendencies of the scribe who made the copies! Therefore, Comfort’s choices are better than those who look only at the texts themselves …

When I read that, I thought to myself,

It used to be that you could trump somebody’s exegesis of the text by saying, “Well, although the English says X, in the Greek it says Y …” But then it began to be that this was no longer good enough, for you had to go back further and say, “Well, although the Greek text you are using says Y, the variant reading from Papyrus 46 says Z, and it is preferable for reasons A, B, and C. But now, Comfort is saying that it is not enough to just know what Papyrus 46 says and why it is preferable for reasons A, B, and C. No, now you also have to understand the tendencies of the guy who was making the copy of the text!
So what’s next? Maybe next we will need to know the lighting of the room in which the guy was sitting which caused him not to see the text very clearly, and how he had a fight with his wife that morning, so his mind wasn’t properly focused on his work, and how his ink well had just run dry so he had to get up and get more ink, thus interrupting his attention, and just at that moment, and cat walked sat on his desk (as cats like to do), smudging the work which he had completed, which explains why there is this textual variant in Matthew 12:47.

I know, I know. That will never happen. But it made me laugh at how smart we modern people think we are, speaking so confidently about “what the text says,” when we base our opinions off of some dubious rules for “the best reading of the text” (which nobody agrees on anyway, and even if they do agree on the rules, nobody comes to consensus on how to consistently apply them to the textual variants, See p. 30). When Comfort stated that he is making his decisions based on his research into the tendencies of the scribes who produced the texts, it reminded me of the Parable of the Oyster and Ballerinas.

I am not criticizing the book. It is an excellent tool. And I am definitely not criticizing textual criticism. We must be thankful for the work of the scholars who have spent their life on this task, for it is only because of them that we have the Bibles we have today.

All I am saying is that no matter how much Greek you know, there will always be people who know more than you, and will say that your theology is wrong because you don’t know enough. Even world-class Greek scholars like Comfort “one up” other world-class Greek scholars by saying that the others didn’t understand the tendencies of the scribes who copied the texts.

My Complaint With Textual Criticism

I love studying the Greek (and Hebrew) texts of the Bible. However, I am learning that as important as Greek and Hebrew textual study is, we must not think that the critical study of the text is going to solve all our exegetical and theological dilemmas. It won’t.

My biggest problem with textual criticism is with the canons (or rules) of Textual Criticism. Comfort lists them on p. 30, and while I most of them are good rules (I have serious misgivings about several), the application of these rules is highly subjective, as Comfort himself points out. Even if you get two Greek scholars to agree on the rules, they still will not agree on how these rules are to be applied to a particular variant. The perfect example is how often Comfort disagrees with Metzger as pointed out above…

It is this sort of scholarly disagreement that causes some Christians to just throw up their hands and say, “Why bother? If the experts cannot even agree on what words should even be in the text, how can I begin to study the Bible for myself?”

Here is my answer: Let the scholars have their fun. For it is fun for them. And then, you and I, let’s just read the text that we have, for what else can we do?

If you want to know what the Bible says, just study it, read it, pray over it, and ask God to guide you by the Holy Spirit. Most of all, remember always that you have the mind of Christ (1 Cor 2:16), which is way better than knowing whether or not Matthew 12:47 should actually be in your Bible or not.

Oh, and here is the #1 rule of Bible interpretation: Stay humble in your conclusions.