How to Study the Bible: Teaching Youth and Adults

My goal in this Bible Study is to help you RIGHTLY DIVIDE the Word of Truth (2 Timothy 2:15), so that you won't be ashamed before God for how you handled His Word. This is a pain-staking duty that we have... God will not do it for us. WE are commanded to RIGHTLY DIVIDE the Word of Truth... and there is no easy way out... period. This means that it is possible to wrongly divide God's Word... and what I hope to do is... to help show you a way where you can guard against WRONGLY dividing God's Word.

Let us begin....

The technical term for what we're studying is called "hermeneutics". All this "big word" means is "a method for interpretation". You know how formulas in math help you come up with the right answer? Well, hermeneutics is a formula for RIGHTLY DIVIDING God's Word... to where you come up with, not what you think, but what the original author intended when he wrote the Scripture.

Imagine friend, if you will... that you wrote a letter to a friend today discussing your job, a guy you like, your friends, family, your church, and a problem that you're having. Now, imagine that your letter was sent in an email to Saudia Arabia, and someone burried it in a time capsule... now, imagine a teenage girl dug up your letter 2,000 years from now. This girl is in a totally different culture, government, religion, region, and time-period than us. What all would she have to do in order to RIGHTLY DIVIDE your letter? Could she simply read it and say, "I believe... she or he meant..." and, it be right? Could she look at her own (different than-ours) cutlure, government, religion, region, and time-period and RIGHTLY DIVIDE your letter? The answer of course is NO. If she wants to understand YOUR letter, then she must understand what was going on in your life when you wrote the letter. Her interpretation of your letter must not come from her own mind, but it must come from YOUR mind if it's going to be right.

It goes the same for RIGHTLY DIVIDING the letters of Paul. He was in a different culture, region, surrounded by different religions, no tv, no radio, no cars, no telephones, different government, he didn't speak english, he wasn't american, nor white, not a middle-class man but poor, he was ruled by a foreign government, etc. So, in order to properly understand Paul's letters, we must understand where he was coming from, who he was, what was happening around him, what was happening around those he was writing to, what are the differences between the meaning of our words and the meaning of his words, the differences in his poetry and ours, the differences in his writing styles and ours, etc. We have to basically get in Paul's mind for God "carried" Paul along (2 Peter 1:20,21) as he wrote Scripture. The goal is not to force my culture, surroundings, and circumstances onto Scripture, but to allow Scripture to speak to me as if I was a direct recipient of Paul's letter. My main question CAN'T be... "How does Paul's letter apply to my life", but it MUST BE... "How did the recipients hear this letter, and how does this truth apply to my life?"