How to look into the Bible

 HOW to Look INTO THE BIBLE?

There are few basic mindset you should
bring to the Bible when engaging God's
word.

 
1. The Bible can never be wrong.
Concerning the whole truth of the Bible,
the Bible is never wrong. The word of
God is of the highest degree of truth,
even though we the readers may not
have grasped the true meaning of a
passage due to probably;
a. Human nature: Our being in this
mortal flesh still makes us prone to
errors without the guide of the The
Holy Spirit. We may miss the actual
interpretation of a passage if we do not allow or follow the necessary
guides.
b. Insufficient resources at our
disposal: A good Bible student ought
to have good resources to aid his/her
personal Bible study. Such resources
include a Bible dictionary, a good
Bible commentary, Concordance,
writing materials and good
translations of the Bible.
2. Historical Background of the Bible
Days is Essential.
We must do our best to get familiar with
the history and culture of the Bible days.
If we are not familiar with such, we will
miss what such passage is all about or
we will shift our focus from the major and
focus on the minor. Take for instance,
Paul was a widely read man and he used
his understanding of many things in his
writings. In Ephesians 6 when he was
discussing the armour of God, he brought his understanding of how a soldier in
their days dressed to explain how
effective believers ought to be in Christ.
However, I have seen Christians carrying
their Bibles and swinging it as they would
a sword. This is a poor interpretation of
that passage.
Also, unless we understand how the
Jerusalem temple had a barrier which
specifies where the gentiles can enter in
the temple, we may not appreciate Paul’s
explanation that Christ had broken the
wall of partition and we may not also
know why the Jews were angry with Paul
when they saw some gentiles with him in
the temple in Acts 21:28.
3. Context
When you are reading any verse or
passage of the Bible, the surrounding
verses and passages are essential for
you to understand that particular verse or
passage. No single verse of the
scriptures stands alone. You must look at the verses before it and also after it to
derive the meaning of the verse.
Sometimes, you may have to look at the
whole chapter or better still the whole
book. Sometimes, you may have to treat
a verse in light of the whole books of the
Bible because every verse of the Bible
finds its larger context in the Bible as a
whole. For instance, Elijah calling down
fire on his enemies does not give the
believer license to practice such, since
Elisha who was the heir to the ministry of
Elijah did not follow such footsteps,
neither did our Lord Jesus practice it. For
in the New Testament, we are instructed
not to render evil for evil.
"Dearly beloved, avenge not yourselves,
but rather give place unto wrath: for it is
written, Vengeance is mine; I will repay,
saith the Lord.Therefore if thine enemy
hunger, feed him; if he thirst, give him
drink: for in so doing thou shalt heap
coals of fire on his head. Be not overcome of evil, but overcome evil with
good." Romans 12:19-21.
4. The author, audience and the
situations.
A friend of mine once made an illustration
to me, using electric gadgets. If you have
a source of electricity, an extension box
and let’s say a television, the electricity
flow is not defined basically by the size of
the television or by the extension box, but
it depends on the source supplying the
electricity. In interpreting a particular
passage of the Bible, we must allow the
author's thought come alive. We must
notice the condition of the audience and
the situation in occurrence.
In reading 1 Corinthians for instance, we
must understand that Paul was dealing
with a church struggling with many issues
because the church itself was in a pagan
society. Some of its members just
converted from idolatry to Christianity. Hence, they had many issues they were
struggling with.
5. External sources do not define

scriptural terms or situation.
In our modern days, the term "Adoption"
does not carry the same weight which it
carried during the Bible days. You do not
therefore, depend on our own
environment or current system to get the
meaning of a Bible passage. You must
look into the Bible to grasp the relevance
of and meaning of such term. Our
understanding of a day for instance may
lead us to doubt whether Jesus really
spent three nights and days in the grave
before resurrection. But if we first
understand that the Jewish day which
follows the creation account begins from
evening to evening the next day to
complete twenty four hours, and also
realize that Friday was not the day Jesus
died because there are other Sabbaths
apart from the sixth day Sabbath since the next day after Passover is also a
Sabbath. If we then do a three evening
count, we will realize that Jesus
completed the three days in the grave.

How to look into the Bible Part 2