Mining the Word

Looking back over the past year or so I realize that I have taken a big step in Christian maturity as I have learned to handle the Word better. Having grown up in a church with a high view of the Bible the idea of studying the Bible to learn God's authoritative Word on everything was never really new to me. However, I did not really know how to do this at all until I was in college. I learned an inductive study method as a freshman and began using it. This was enough for a while, but in the last year and a half I had a building conviction of my need to begin studying the Word at a deeper level. If I hope to be used by the Lord I had better be able to use the primary tool He has given me.

At a conference a year ago I heard what has turned out to be a revolutionary idea in my understanding of scripture. A speaker explained the need to first understand the Biblical author's original meaning and then to address the present importance of the author's meaning to our lives. This two step process forces us to understand the context, audience, author, etc. This approach also emphasizes application, bringing the Word to bear in our lives. This is a rather simple concept, but I guess I had never heard it put so clearly before and it really clicked in my mind.

It can be tempting and easy to read the words off the page of your Bible and take the most obvious, favorable, controversial meaning. Much of the Bible can be easily misunderstood because it so different in form and content than our modern literature. When we are seeking to understand what the author is saying we can avoid a lot of these problems because we are actually seeking to understand what God is saying through His inspired servant/authors.

All of this is not to say that the Bible is meant to be an opaque piece of literature. The meaning of many parts of the Bible is quite plain and certainly all of the crucial points of the Gospel are evident. I do however see, as I study and read more, that some of the richest truths that the Lord offers us in His Word take some work to get to (check out the previous post for examples). This encourages me to continue laboring in the Word.