How to Read the Bible

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StartWhat kind of book is the Bible?Start

Foundations of reading

  1. What kind of book is the Bible? The Bible is a library of sixty-six books by many writers over many centuries, and one story that leads to Christ: God's word in human words, to be read with faith and with care.
  2. Reading with prayer and the Spirit's light The Spirit who gave the Scriptures opens them to us. So we open the Bible with prayer, hear it humbly and do what it says, and search it carefully day by day. The Spirit's light is not a new revelation: it makes plain what is already written.
  3. Reading with the church No one reads the Bible alone. We let Scripture explain Scripture, read within the rule of faith the church has confessed, look first for the plain sense, and take the church's long reading as a guide that stands under Scripture.

Observe, interpret, apply

  1. Observation: what the text says Observation is slowing down to see what is in a passage before asking what it means. Reading the storm in Mark 4 together, we look for people, places and times, repeated words and contrasts, connecting words and questions, and learn to write down what we see before what we think.
  2. Context: around the passage and the whole book A verse means what it means in its paragraph, in its book and in the whole Bible. This lesson shows how to read the words around a verse and the setting it was written in, and reads three often-quoted verses in their own places.
  3. Interpretation: what it meant then Interpretation moves from what a passage says to what it meant for its first readers. We look for the author's meaning through words as they are used, the flow of the sentences, the kind of writing, the historical setting and the light of other Scriptures, and we read the hard places humbly.
  4. Application: what it means for us Application crosses from what a passage meant then to what it says to us now. We ask what it shows of God, of us and of Christ, and what it asks of us; and with the good Samaritan we learn to apply a passage beginning from grace.

Reading by genre

  1. Narrative Story is the largest part of the Bible. We look at plot, characters and setting and at the narrator's rare comments, read God as the main actor, and learn to tell what a story reports from what it commends, with David and Goliath in 1 Samuel 17.
  2. Law The law is God's instruction to a people he had already saved. We learn the moral, ceremonial and judicial law as the Reformed confessions distinguish them, their fulfilment in Christ and the law's three uses, and read the gleanings and the love of neighbour in Leviticus 19 that way.
  3. The Psalms and poetry Hebrew poetry speaks in paired lines and in pictures, and pours out the heart before God. We learn to read parallelism and images and the different kinds of psalm, and read the lament of Psalm 13 as a prayer.
  4. Wisdom The wisdom books begin with the fear of the LORD and teach how to live well in the world God made. Read Proverbs as sayings about how life usually goes, read Job and Ecclesiastes whole, with the questions those sayings cannot settle, and follow wisdom to Christ.
  5. The prophets The prophets were messengers of God's covenant who above all warned, called to return and comforted the people of their own day, and who also foretold. Learn to read them in their times and as poetry, to hear judgement and hope together, and to read near and far fulfilment with the New Testament.
  6. The Gospels The four Gospels are four portraits of one Jesus, each drawn for its own purpose, and all of them lead to the cross and the resurrection. Learn to read each Gospel whole, to set them side by side without forcing them into one, and to read the kingdom of God and the parables as the Gospels present them.
  7. The letters The New Testament letters were sent to real churches and people for real needs. Learn to read a letter at one sitting, to find its train of thought and its occasion within the letter itself, and to tell with care what is for all and what was for then, practising on Philippians 2.
  8. Apocalyptic Apocalyptic writing opens heaven in visions and symbols to give suffering believers hope. We learn to read the symbols of Daniel and Revelation by what the text itself says they mean and by the Old Testament they echo, and to hold first the centre that every church confesses.

Reading the whole Bible

  1. The Scriptures that point to Christ Jesus said that the Law of Moses, the Prophets and the Psalms were written about him. We learn to read Christ in the Old Testament through promise and fulfilment, types and shadows, and the story's arc, anchored in what each text first meant and without reading him into every detail.
  2. Reading with cross references, commentaries and the original languages Cross-references, commentaries and the original languages do not replace the Bible; they are hands that send the reader back to the text. Reading Romans 8:28-30 together, we follow cross-references and check them in context, compare commentaries, and sort out what a word in the original can tell us and what it cannot.
  3. A life of daily reading God's word is daily bread. We learn three ways of reading, through the whole Bible, slowly in one passage, and together with others; we learn to ask God to revive us by his word on dry days; and we end the course where it began, in the chariot.