What Should a Regular Person Know to Study the Bible Well?

“All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, so that the servant of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work.” 
2 Timothy 3:16-17 NIV

In Part One of this Bible Study Basics Series, I addressed why we should all study the Bible – even those of us who aren’t “professionals” like pastors or teachers or missionaries – and I included some important information about what the Bible actually is. If you haven’t read or listened to that, I encourage you to do that now, because we’ll build on that foundation here.

Since the Bible is God’s written revelation to humanity, a gift from Him to us, we should open it! This gift contains all the most important Truths of life. In Scripture, God tells us everything we need to know to have true and everlasting life through Jesus and to live in all the best ways now. There is no end to the beauty, value, and knowledge we can find in the Bible when we study it! And I’ll say it again: there is nothing more worthy of our time, effort, and attention.

With the backdrop of that beautiful truth and joyful motivation, let’s get into some important things you should know about God’s Word to understand it correctly as you read and study.

What do I need to know about the structure of the Bible?

Two main parts of the Bible

The first major thing we need to be aware of is that the 66 books of the Bible are split into two main parts: the Old Testament and the New Testament. “Testament” is another word for “covenant.” Generally, the Old Testament is the record of the “old covenant”: God’s covenant specifically with the nation of Israel, through whom He gave His written Word and provided a Savior for the whole world. And as you might suspect, the New Testament tells us about the “new covenant”: the covenant God offers to everyone in the world (not just Israel) by grace through faith in Jesus. For more detail on the differences between the Old and New Testaments, see this helpful article from Got Questions.

Which covenant are we in now?

Those who have placed their trust in Christ are under the new covenant, not the old one. Jesus fulfilled the old covenant (Matthew 5:17) and provided a new and better one for us through His sacrifice on the cross (Hebrews 8:6-13 and 9:15; Galatians 3). This was always God’s plan; He speaks of it in the Old Testament, too (Jeremiah 31:31-34, Ezekiel 36:25-27).

However, the old covenant is still important for us to study! In it, we are shown who God is, what He requires, and why we need Jesus as our Savior (among many other things). As Jesus Himself said, the Old Testament is all about Him (John 5:39, Luke 24:27)! So while we are not required to follow the law that God gave specifically to Israel in the Old Testament, and the promises God made to Israel do not directly apply to us, we still learn true and very important things about God, His plan, humanity, and more as we study the Old Testament – and we’ll understand the New Testament much better, as well!

For more on this topic, I highly recommend this two-video series on How to Understand the Old Testament Law, as well as this overview of the book of Hebrews, in which Hebrews is described as “a skeleton key for unlocking our understanding of the entirety of the whole Old Testament” (the first 4 ½ minutes will give you a great introduction).

Different genres of literature in the Bible

We also need to recognize that there are different genres of literature in the Bible. These are usually divided into seven main categories: history, law, poetry, wisdom literature, narrative, epistles (letters), and prophecy/apocalyptic (end-times). 

It’s important that we keep genre in mind when we’re reading the Bible, because just like with any other writing, we’re meant to read all of these types differently. We take history literally, which means, yes, a donkey actually spoke with a human voice in Numbers 22 – but we understand that “He will cover you with his feathers” in Psalm 91:4 doesn’t mean God has actual feathers. That’s a poetic metaphor to show the care God takes in sheltering those who trust in Him. 

When we understand the genre of wisdom literature, we will recognize that Proverbs is composed of general truths, not “if-then” promises that govern every situation. The books of the law are the instructions God gave to Israel as a nation as part of the old covenant, not to the whole world as binding for all time. And we know that prophecy, narrative, and the letters each have different purposes and presentation styles, so we should be sensitive to those differences as we read those books. 

If we don’t take the literary genre into account, we’ll misinterpret what God is teaching us as we read. Learn more of the specifics of those genres (and which books belong to each) in this Got Questions article. 

Prescriptive vs descriptive

Along the same lines, we should be aware that some of what we read in the Bible is what we call “prescriptive” – explicitly telling us (prescribing) things we should or shouldn’t do – but much of Scripture is not prescriptive. The rest is what we call “descriptive” – it’s simply describing what happened or giving information. Everything is teaching us something, but it’s not always teaching us what to do. Some of it is teaching us about God and His ways; some is teaching us about humanity and our ways; some is there for another purpose like providing evidence or explaining a concept. Just because behavior is recounted in the Bible doesn’t mean God approved of it or wants us to copy it. So it’s very important that we recognize whether a passage is prescriptive or descriptive!

The books of the Bible are not “in order”

Here’s something else you might not know: the books of the Bible are not all in chronological order. Some are; Genesis happened first, and Revelation will happen last. Some of the other books are in order, too, but many are not. In fact, even the contents of some individual books are not in chronological order! For example, Jeremiah 35 is chronologically before chapter 34. (When that happens, ask why! We all tell stories out of order sometimes, to make a point – so does the Lord.)

For details on the chronology and the order the books are arranged in, see this Got Questions article. The order of the books is not something God inspired, so it’s okay to read them in a different order.

The chapter and verse divisions weren’t provided by the Lord, either; those were added many centuries later. I’m certainly glad they’re there – it would be way harder to find specific sentences without them! – but we shouldn’t put theological weight on them. When we read the New Testament letters, for example, we should remember that they were written as one letter, not as 15 chapters. The flow and connection of the whole letter makes a real difference in our understanding! (If the numbered divisions are hard to ignore, look for a Reader’s Bible, which does not include those. They’re available in many translations.)

The Bible was not written in English

Speaking of translations, we should keep in mind that the text of Scripture has been translated into English – which is wonderful! – and that translation is not an exact one-to-one science. Because that’s the case, it’s a good idea to be open to reading and comparing different reliable translations. More about that in Part Three.

The Bible was written for us, not to us

One other important note to remember: the Bible was written for us, but it wasn’t written to us. As much as possible, we should read it with the original historical context and audience in mind to learn what God is saying, because what God was telling them is the same thing he’s telling us. Once we understand that original meaning, then we can apply the truth of it to our own lives and situations.

Now, we don’t have to have all the details to understand, so don’t get discouraged! It’s great to learn more, and there are many resources available to help with that, but you don’t have to become a historical scholar to be able to rightly grasp what God is saying through His Word. Keep in mind when it was written, stay aware of the fact that the culture at that time was different from our post-postmodern society, and take into account which covenant you’re reading about, and you’ll be well-positioned to avoid a lot of errors in understanding and applying the truth of Scripture.

What else should I keep in mind as I read and study the Bible?

Who gets to decide what the Bible means? 

In the post-postmodern culture soup we swim in, it’s easy to adopt the general practices we see around us. One of those is the notion that we all get to place our own meaning on everything we see, hear, experience, and read. “You do you!” “Live your truth!” “Follow your heart!” “Find your own meaning!” Slogans like these are taught and pushed everywhere we look (Dove chocolate wrappers, I’m calling you out here).

Without necessarily realizing it, we can have a tendency to read Scripture from our own individual perspectives, looking for (or imposing) meanings we resonate with, prefer, or approve of. We might discuss the meaning of verses or passages in ways like “What does this passage mean to you? Oh, well here’s what it means to me…” And we might inadvertently ignore – or even outright choose to disagree with – verses or passages we don’t like.

Scripture only has one meaning

But just like any other nonfiction writing, Scripture has only one actual meaning – and we aren’t the ones who get to decide what that meaning is. Who determines that meaning? God does, because He’s the true Author. Just like the author of a book or an article (or the note I left my kids about pulling the weeds) is the one who determines what that writing means, God alone determines what His Word means. 

So when we read and study the Bible, we should keep in mind that we don’t get to decide what it means. Our job is to discover what it means – to recognize and learn what it means. And that meaning is one and the same for everyone who reads it. It can’t mean something different for each of us. It means only what God originally intended (and still intends) it to mean.

“[T]he faith that was once for all delivered to the saints” (Jude 3 ESV, emphasis added) doesn’t change, and neither does the meaning God gave to and through His written Word. As God tells us through Peter, “knowing this first of all, that no prophecy of Scripture comes from someone’s own interpretation. For no prophecy was ever produced by the will of man, but men spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit.” (2 Peter 1:20-21 ESV) People didn’t decide what to write as Scripture or what that writing means.

God, the ultimate Author of Scripture, determined what it means when He had it written, and that meaning doesn’t change, because God doesn’t change (Malachi 3:6). Our job, our responsibility, and our great delight and privilege, is to discover what He means by it.

One meaning, but what about applications?

The one true meaning of a given Scripture may have different accurate applications, though, depending on the circumstance. Once we learn what God means by it, we then use wisdom to correctly apply that to our lives. 

For example, the promises God made to the Israelites in the Old Testament (and the consequences He laid out when they disobeyed) do not directly apply to us today, but they do teach us about God’s character and purposes. God promised the nation of Israel blessings and prosperity if they obeyed Him, but it’s important that we understand that a) those promises weren’t to individuals, even in the Old Testament, and b) He hasn’t promised us the same things in the same ways (see Laura Z. Powell’s article on Jeremiah 29:11 for a great example and explanation of this). 

Even when we read the New Testament, we need to be careful to discover the meaning before we make application to our lives – including when we read the words of Jesus Himself! While His words and instructions are recorded for us, He wasn’t speaking directly to us. And while it may sound shocking, I can confidently say that He didn’t mean for us to do all the exact things His disciples did. 

How can I know that? Great question! I know because even they were not supposed to do the same thing all the time. At one time, He told them to go out two by two into neighboring cities with no money, only the clothes on their backs and the sandals on their feet (Luke 10:1-4). But another time, He told them to take money, supplies, and a sword (Luke 22:36)! If we are to do everything He told them to do as if He were speaking directly to us, which of those should we follow? 

This shows us that context matters, timing matters, and instructions can be different for different people at different times – even though the meaning of the words of Scripture never changes. It’s so important that we take the necessary time and make the effort to learn the underlying singular meaning before seeking to apply it to our lives or our situations! 

Next Step: Bible Study!

As I said in Part One, there will always be more to learn, but these basics should give you a solid foundation to begin really diving in to studying God’s Word. Keep these truths about the Bible in mind as you read, keep your heart humble before the Lord, and ask Him to open your eyes to the wonderful truths in His Word (Psalm 119:18), and I’m confident you will be amazed at the beauty you find!

The final installment of this series,
Part 3: “How Can a Regular Person Study the Bible?”
is full of practical steps you can take as you read and study.

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