you have read the passage through several times, read one or two of the following :
1 The entry on the book of the Bible in which your passage occurs in a Bible handbook, such as Zondervan’s
2 The entry on the book of the Bible in a Bible dictionary.
3 The introductory note on that book or section in your study Bible. Many study Bibles include introductions to subsections of the Bible books. These can be very helpful when studying a short passage, but you will normally need to read the introduction to the whole book first.
4 The introductory section of a good commentary on the book.
Here is where we introduce historical elements into your study. Don’t imagine that God cannot talk to you through this text because you are so far separated from the people who wrote it. They were people like you who had hopes, dreams, gifts, and failings. Study the background to help you connect to them. Christianity is a community that includes those who have gone before us in the communion of the saints.
The Central Loop
The central loop is the deeper study, often repeated in many ways, of your chosen passages.
It is most closely related to meditatio, but the implementation of meditatio also includes questioning the text in a directed way. Don’t concentrate on the boundaries between one activity and the next. They are all related!
With each topic there will be an opportunity to try to think of new questions one might ask for further study. Generating new questions keeps us from getting stale. Not only do we not have all the answers; we don’t even have all the questions!
Think of a question primarily as a way to prepare your mind to hear the text. When we listen or read, we often hear what we expect to hear. If we’re listening to the radio for weather, we may miss a major discussion of politics. You can miss what God is saying to you through a Bible writer because you are looking for something else. Questioning is thus an important part of meditatio, but it also relates closely to oratio. Take your questions to God in prayer.
Sharing
The final step is sharing. You do this both to give others the benefit of what you have learned and to benefit from their comments and perhaps corrections.
As you study and question, find something to share. Remember that sharing can be in the form of a question. For example, one might ask others how they understand a particular word, such as “incarnation,” “poverty,” or “atonement.” Take notes on their answers, and bring that information back to your study.
Then ask yourself what your neighbors will hear when you make particular statements, such as “I must be bold for Jesus!” or “Jesus is the only way to receive atonement.” Do those statements mean something to them? Do they mean the same thing to them as they do to you?
This is part of contemplatio, as you try to be and do the text. We often think of sharing primarily as telling someone things that we have learned. But if what you learned is that God loves prisoners, for example, you might find that the best way of sharing that lesson is to become active in prison ministry.
Sharing demonstrates that you don’t believe the text is your private possession. It is God’s gift to the Christian community.
4 Preparation and Resources
Getting ready for study and finding the best resources to aid in your study
Preparation
I was in a Bible study group in which we were discussing the gospels. We had just read one of the many passages in which the disciples fail to understand something that Jesus was teaching them. One class member immediately responded, “How could the disciples be so stupid? How could they possibly not understand?”
This type of response is very common in Bible study groups. We look at the Bible stories from outside, from the perspective of advanced, better informed people who obviously know much better than those who were involved. When we look from that perspective, we will tend to find the things in the story that will help us justify ourselves. “We are better; they were worse. We have advanced so much since their time!”
We’re not suggesting that we need to behave precisely as the characters in Bible stories behaved. What we are suggesting is that we need to come to the Bible prepared to learn from the text as we read it. We can learn from the good and the bad, from the clear and from the unclear. Having a learning attitude, and allowing our thinking to be challenged is more important than simply learning the facts.
In order to do this we need to be prepared for the type of study we plan to do, and also to be prepared in terms of our attitude. This is why we emphasize prayer before and during Bible study, or for those who are just looking at the Bible, but are not Christians, we recommend thinking specifically about your attitude as you study. This does not mean that you must decide to agree with everything that you read. Rather, you decide to learn from their experiences, and judge their experiences from their perspective.
Types of Study and their Purpose
We can place types of study along a continuum from general light reading to serious, point by point study. Don’t get the idea from the word “light” or “serious” that we think one end of the spectrum is better than the other. We think Bible study needs to involve a variety of activities, from reading long passages quickly, to careful examination of every grammatical detail of a verse.
Your preparation will relate to what you’re trying to do. When you set out to do some light reading of lengthy passages, select an easy to read Bible version and sit down in a place that is comfortable for you and just read. You don’t have to concentrate constantly in this case; the process is very similar to that of reading a novel. This will allow you to get an overview of whole books or blocks of books. For example, you can read Luke and Acts together in this way, trying to complete both books at one sitting. Other large blocks are Joshua through Kings, Chronicles along with Ezra and Nehemiah, or the entire Pentateuch (or just the narrative portions of it). Just remember to prepare for the type of study you intend to do.
Choosing a Passage
Your approach to study is going to depend on what you’re trying to study. You may be wondering just how you select the passage you’re going to study.
It may be that you have a passage selected for you, such as in your Sunday School curriculum, your church bulletin with the scripture reading on Sunday morning, or the passage selected by your small group.
If you are looking for a place to start there are a number of options.
1 Reading the Bible through. Many people try this method first, but it isn’t one of the better approaches to Bible study. You tend to get some of the most difficult material to interpret early in your study, such as Leviticus and Numbers.
2 Choosing a Bible book. Mark or John are good books to start with, though you’ll want to return to John again when you have more experience. John is simple on one level, but it offers depths that can only be reached through long and careful study.
3 Choosing a topic. This isn’t an approach we recommend
