Bible Study Information

Three steps to understanding the Bible

The key to successful Bible study is a three-step process, which is: Observation, Interpretation and Application. This means basically, to look at what it says, figure out what it means, and then apply that message. You can also look at it as three questions: What does it say? what does it mean? and So what?
While there is a spiritual aspect. The Holy Spirit opens our spiritual eyes to the truth of the message, but that does not mean we stop using our brains. Our spirit may commune with God through the scriptures, but it is still with our minds that we understand.
To understand the bible we should study it the same way we would study any other piece of literature.
God has not hidden his message in the bible, or spoken in some way that is hard to understand. There is no secret code or message hidden that you need to pay someone to get the secret. For the most part it is fairly straight forward. Disagreements come when the text is not clear on a given topic.
The Spirit of God does direct our study, and the Holy Spirit can bring things to our mind to help us understand, but the actual understanding of the Bible is no different than understanding any type of writing.
It was also written in a certain context, and the words themselves have a context. A professor I know used to say, "Context is King." Context is everything in understanding. One sentence by itself has little meaning because it has no context. So while you are doing the three-step method, always keep in mind the context of what is being said.

Observation

What does it say? This is the first step, where we carefully observe what is written. Try to avoid interpreting at this point and only obsserve what is written. As questions. What do other passages say on this subject? Try to determine the context. What is the overall teaching of the passage. Realize that the original texts did not have chapters and verses, so observe the flow of what is being said more than verse numbers.

Interpretation

The second step is where the actual work begins. You have your questions, so set about trying to answer them. Look at other passages, other verses. What does the rest of the bible say about this. The concordance in the back of most bibles can be very helpful here.
There are many tools out there to help, and many are available free online. There is nothing spiritual about avoiding looking up words or studying the history involved.
The context of when and why things were written help in understanding.
"The King James Version says "study to shew thyself approved."
The more information you have the better you will be able to interpret the meaning. There are concordances and dictionaries that can help with word meanings. There is also a history of interpretation that can be valuable.
In this step you try to understand the meaning. A good rule of thumb is that the plain meaning of the text is usually best.
There are also commentaries and various other books where you an get knowledge from other people from ages past and from now. There is nothing inherently spiritual about not having outside help. There are several websites where these books are available free.

Application

Here is where we answer the "so what?" question. Now that you know what it says and have a good idea of what it means, you are ready to apply it to yourself.
Ask yourself, as a result of what I know now, what should I do or understand about God?
There should not be a lot of difference in what people find in the first two steps. This step can get a little gray as everyone's situation is different. But application is very important. The purpose of Bible study should not be just to gain knowledge. We also need to apply that knowledge.