Bible Study Procedure
Wondering how to put all the tools and pieces of Bible study together so that you can tackle a specific passage of Scripture? Here’s the overall procedure.
Observation
The first step in Bible study is observation. The goal is to slow down your reading and generate a list of questions that must be answered to understand the passage. I tend to break observation into the following 4 steps which generally correspond to my first few readings through the passage.
Principal People in Colossians
Principal People in Colossians and where else they are mentioned in Scripture.
16 Jeremiah 50:1-20 Will the bad guys get what’s coming to them?
In Jeremiah 38, we talked about how doing the right thing sometimes leads to punishment. But what about the people doing the punishing? When Babylon destroys our city or we get thrown into a cistern of mud, what happens to the guys doing the destroying or throwing? Will the bad guys get what’s coming to them? And, is it okay to want that to happen?
Psalm 98 Make a Joyful Noise
Psalm 98 is a victory or coronation psalm. It has 3 stanzas: 1-3: praise the Lord as savior; 4-6: praise the Lord as King; 7-9: praise the Lord as judge.
Psalm 19 Divine Revelation
The heavens are telling of the glory of God; And their expanse is declaring the work of His hands.
Online Bible Encyclopedias
Multi-volume encyclopedias used to be too expensive for home use and were confined to those with access to a large library system. However, they are becoming more widely available on computer software and online.
15 Jeremiah 38:1-13 Why do I get punished for doing the right thing?
Sometimes we despair over our sinfulness and turn the Lord for mercy (Psalm 130). But other times, we do the right thing and are punished for it. That’s the situation we find in Jeremiah 38:1-13. Jeremiah has spoken the message that the Lord asked him to speak and others are seeking to kill him for it.
Psalm 130 Hope in the Lord
Psalm 130 is an individual lament and a repentance psalm.
Jeremiah in the New Testament
Quotations and allusions to the Old Testament book of Jeremiah found in the New Testament.
“God told me”: The role of personal revelation in Bible teaching
You’ve probably heard a teacher, pastor or preacher say something like “and then God told me.” What role does personal experience and/or personal revelation play in Bible study? Here are the guidelines I use when teaching.
14 Jeremiah 36:1-32 What’s so special about the Bible?
You don’t pick up a cookbook looking for the same things you would find in history textbook or vice versa. You expect a different kind of experience from a “beach read” and a suspense-thriller or from a travel guide and a self-help book. What do you expect from the Bible? What kind of book do you think it is? What do you hope to gain from reading it? Jeremiah 36:1-32 records a story about Scripture and reveals part of the process of how it was written down. In looking at why God instructs Jeremiah to write down His words, we’re going to answer, “What’s so special about the Bible?”
About the Author
Krisan Marotta is a Bible teacher and host of Wednesday in the Word, the podcast about what the Bible means and how we know.