How to Transform your Bible Study with an Outline

What is an Analytical Outline?

An analytical outline displays the text of Scripture in a way that makes the author’s flow of thought and how each phrase relates to the others easy to see.

Instead of rewording the passage, you keep the author’s words and break them into lines, indenting the supporting phrases beneath the ideas they modify. The goal is simple: help your eyes trace the logic so your mind can follow the meaning.

Making an analytical outline causes you to slow down and carefully observe the text. It forces you to recognize interpretive options you might otherwise have missed.

Think of it as a map, not a paraphrase:

• You keep the text as-is. No rewriting, no “in your own words.”
• You show relationships. Main statements start at the left margin; dependent phrases and clauses sit underneath the words they explain.
• You show the structure. Indentation makes parallels, lists, and contrasts visible at a glance.

Tiny example (made-up verse). “Give thanks” is the main command; the two “for” lines show why.

Give thanks to the LORD
    for he is good,
    for his steadfast love endures forever.

When you outline this way, repeated words pop, rabbit trails reveal themselves, and interpretive options become clearer, before you ever crack open a commentary.

More complex example (made-up verse):

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Download my Analytical Outline of Philippians

Analytical Outline Tips

There’s no single “right” way to do analytical outlines

Analytical outlines exist to help you see how the words of a passage fit together grammatically. Use a method that actually helps you think. The guidelines below will get you started, but feel free to adapt them as you learn what serves you (and others) best.

Tool, not verdict. An analytical outline isn’t your interpretation; it’s a tool that reveals the text’s structure. Grammar gives strong clues to meaning, but the structure on the page isn’t always identical to the author’s intent.

Why it matters. If your understanding of a passage can’t account for the grammar, it’s probably off. Meaning comes from words; without words, there’s no meaning. Keep refining your interpretation until it fits the structure you can show in the text.

Be flexible—and consistent. Language is elastic. No single, rigid scheme captures every construction. Use common-sense guidelines that work in most cases. When a verse is hard to outline, don’t panic; note the difficulty and keep going. What matters most is developing a clear, consistent approach you can apply across passages.

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General Guidelines

1. Divide the whole text into paragraphs. Then work on one paragraph at a time.
2. Start main (independent) sentences at the left margin.
3. Put modifying (dependent) phrases or clauses under the words they modify.
4. Make the parallel phrases obvious.  If necessary, connect them with lines.
5. Place lists of qualities, actions, etc. in vertical columns.

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Making the Most of an Analytical Outline

1. Look for different interpretive options as you write your outline. Each time you put a phrase under a word, ask yourself if it could go under anything else. These different possibilities may open up new ways of seeing the passage, and perhaps a new understanding of what the author means.
2. Watch for repeated words or phrases.
3. Distinguish main statements from explanations, modifying clauses,  and rabbit-trails.
4. Identify crucial words of the text for later word studies.
5. As you outline, create a list of questions to be answered as you study.
6. The New American Standard Bible is closest to the grammar of the original languages and therefore one of the best versions to use when making an analytical outline.
7. Use color to help you see related ideas and connections. 

The color scheme I’ve adopted is:

Purple Bold – Major conjunctions and transitions
Purple text – minor conjunctions and transitional phrases
Black Bold – names and places
Red underline – section theme (may also be imperative)
blue text – phrases modifying the section theme
      orange text – conclusions from section theme
green underline – commands/imperatives
Pink – interesting pronouns
Yellow Highlight – repeated phrase/idea

Specific Guidelines for an Analytical Outline

These are the “rules” I’ve developed over time that I use in my analytical outlines. Feel free to adapt them to your style.

General Rule: Start the thesis sentence of a paragraph at the left margin.

Examples:

• If the sentence begins with “and”, “but”, etc. put it in the middle of the line by itself, then start at the left margin continuing as normal.
• If the sentence introduces the book, put the author, the recipient and the word(s) of greeting all out to the left margin.
• If the sentence is a command, put the command verb at the left margin. (It’s okay to change the word order.)
• If the sentence begins a series of commands, put each command at the left margin.

If the sentence resumes following a list, continue it on the last item on the same line.

Place major logical conjunctions (“therefore,” etc.) and independent questions in the middle of the line in all capital letters

Put important connectives at the beginning of a line with any corresponding parts lining up in parallel.

General Rule: Indent phrases under the word or phrase they modify.

Examples:

Indent explanatory sentences and phrases (“for”, etc.) under the word or phrase they explain.  Same for causal sentences (“since,” “because”, etc.) and purpose sentences (“in order that”, etc.).

Indent the relative under the word or phrase it modifies. A relative clause is a subordinate clause that modifies a noun, introduced by words like who, whom, whose, which, that, where, when (e.g. “The disciples, who heard the news, rejoiced.”)

Indent participles under the main verb they modify. The participle (or participial phrase) modifies the verb of the main clause by showing manner, time, cause, condition, etc. (e.g. “Seeing the storm, we turned back”)

Indent appositional phrases under the word they modify. An appositional phrase is a noun or noun phrase that renames or further identifies another noun right beside it (“Phoebe, a servant of the church”).

When an author begins a transitional sentence, indent it under the point of transition.

In any list of two or more similar parts of speech, write them in parallel under one another.

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