So you want to study the Bible? Where do you start? How do you make sense of it all? Allow me to suggest a few helpful books.
The Joy of Discovery in Bible Study by Oletta Wald is an excellent starting point. This book will teach you how to read the Bible, how to observe what is really there, and sometimes more importantly–what is not. Each chapter contains numerous practical exercises to help reinforce the skills being taught. It would be well suited to a group Bible study or Sunday School class.
The premise of the book is that there is a systematic, methodical way to study the Bible, and that by being systematic, we are much more likely to grasp the true meaning of the passage we are studying. At only 96 pages, this book can easily be read in an evening, but learning the concepts and doing the exercises will take much longer.
Wald’s book is based on the larger work, Methodical Bible Study, by Robert Traina, an indepth guide written for seminary students. While very thorough, it is too academic for my tastes. Wald has digested Traina and provides his material in a much more accessible form.
While Wald provides great help in observing what the Bible says, she largely leaves the subject of interpretation alone. Yet interpretation is the area that often causes the greatest difficulty.
God Has Spoken But What Has He Said? by H. A. Habermehl is a recent attempt to provide guidance in this area. Subtitled, A Coherent Guide to Interpreting the Bible for Yourself, this book takes hermeneutics and makes it easy to understand. The author outlines eight basic principles of interpretation and then provides copious examples of their application. He suggests three criteria for judging an interpretation’s validity:
1) Does the resulting meaning clarify the text?
2) Are apparent contradictions eliminated?
3) Are multiple meanings reduced to one which is obvious?
His chapters on spiritualizing are particularly helpful. Typology is an area of interpretation that has been abused on one hand by hyper-spiritualizers and by rigid grammatical-historical interpreters on the other. Habermehl suggests eight different levels of types, each category having a descending level of “authority.” At the top level are those items which are explicitly declared to be types in Scripture–“That rock was Christ…” (1 Cor. 10:4). At the bottom level are those items where there is no scriptural indication at all of a spiritual meaning and the parallel is simply a product of the interpreter’s imagination. As one descends the scale from one category to the next, there is a decreasing amount of “pureness” and an increased chance of false doctrine. By this scheme of categorization, Habermehl validates the typical principal while at the same time providing safeguards against its abuse.
Habermehl seems convinced that theologians have made the Scriptures seem far more complex and complicated than they really are. In his search for clarity he seems to lean at times towards the opposite extreme of oversimplification. Nevertheless, this book will provide much helpful guidance in interpreting the Word of God. Not all will agree with his conclusions as he applies his principles to the controversial issues of election, divorce, and prophecy in the closing chapters of the book.