Interpretation

How’d You Do That? (9/16/12)

September 18, 2012 By Peter Krol

From time to time we like to “show our work” and explain what principles drive our Bible study.

In Sunday’s post, we examined Proverbs 1:10, ESV (“My son, if sinners entice you, do not consent”) and saw how the Bible commands us to reject easy money. Here’s how we got there.

Observation

By observing the grammar of the verse, we noticed that the main sentence is a command: “Do not consent.” Also, we observed the words: the thing we ought not consent to is enticement from sinners.

In my study, I started with a question: what is the enticement from sinners that we ought not consent to? Is it just anything, or does Solomon have something specific in mind?

Answering that question led me to observe the whole section (Prov 1:10-19) in its context. This examination led me to observe the final verse (Prov 1:19), which makes clear that the chief enticement Solomon has in mind is toward “unjust gain.”

What is “unjust gain”? Acquiring money or possessions through any unlawful means. Since most of the section describes a gang recruiting someone to violence against another person, it would appear that Solomon considers “unjust” any means of gaining money that will hurt other people.

Thus, my conclusion of the main idea: “the pursuit of a quick buck, at the cost of serving others, will always keep us from being wise.”

Application

From here, we merely had to consider what it looks like in our generation to gain more money at the cost of serving others.

The chief heart application is that we allow ourselves to be sucked into money-making schemes (like going into more credit card debt, getting a new car like the neighbor’s, or spending too much time at the office).

By way of head application, we must know which things will tempt us, and we must choose in advance to watch out for them.

For hands application, we should make different choices when the temptation comes. We should reject easy money.

See here for an explanation of these three types of application.

My hope in walking through this process is that you will be able to duplicate it in your own study of the Bible!

Summary of the OIA Method

August 10, 2012 By Peter Krol

"Open Bible" by Ryk Neethling (2011), shared under a Creative Commons Attribution License

Ryk Neethling (2011), Creative Commons

I’ve argued that everyone has a Bible study method, whether conscious or unconscious. So here’s mine.

The acronym OIA summarizes the method:

Observation – what does it say?
Interpretation – what does it mean?
Application – how do I need to change?

You can restate these three steps as what? why? and so what? Or again, as what did the original author say? What did that mean to the original audience? And what does it mean in our context?

Knowable Word did not invent this method. It’s an old, old method. Seminaries call it the “historical-grammatical method of Bible interpretation,” but that title can be big and scary to most people. Some more popular treatments call it the “inductive Bible study method,” but I think that’s an unfortunate misuse of the wonderful term “inductive” from the realm of logic. So I prefer to call it simply “OIA.”

The wonder of the OIA method is that it allows the text to speak to us, rather than reading our own meaning into the text. The beauty of the OIA method is that it can be taught at seminary and get very, very deep, or it can be taught to the youngest children, enabling them as well to know the Lord in his Word.

I’ve explained the method in more detail in other posts, but for this summary, note what happens if we miss any part of it.

If we neglect good observation of what the text says, we have no true foundation upon which to know Christ. We have great intentions, but in all the wrong directions. We’re the people who failed to observe which weekend was the daylight savings time switch, and we show up to church an hour off from everyone else. An example of poor observation of Scripture is found in Luke 24:25-27.

If we neglect good interpretation of what the text means, we might not know whether what we believe or do is biblical or not. We might be honoring the Lord, or we might not be. We won’t be certain until we meet him face to face. A good example of poor interpretation of Scripture is found in Mark 12:24.

If we neglect good application of how we ought to change, we are like foolish builders founding a home upon sand. We are to be pitied. We give lip service to Christ, but our hearts are far from him (Matthew 15:8-9). God wants to make us more like Jesus (Rom 8:29), and he won’t rest until his Word accomplishes that purpose (Isaiah 55:10-11).

For much more detail on the OIA method see my How to Study the Bible series of posts.

Thanks for visiting Knowable Word! If you like this article, you might be interested in receiving regular updates from us. You can sign up for our email list (enter your address in the box on the upper right of this page), follow us on Facebook or Twitter, or subscribe to our RSS feed.

How’d You Do That? (5/3/12, continued)

May 8, 2012 By Peter Krol

Here are two more Bible study principles I employed in last Thursday’s post:

2. Read the Bible as Literature

Every book of the Bible is a book. Each of these books was written by a person to a group of people. We ought to read these books like we read other books. That means they have a beginning, a middle, and an end. The ideas flow from one thought to the next. This is why I’ll work through Proverbs 1-9 section after section.

3. Pay Attention to Context

This point flows right out of the previous one. When we forget that the Bible is a collection of books, it’s easy to read a verse here and a verse there as we feel inspired. However, each of those verses has a context. There is a literary context (the thoughts written before and after) and a historical context (the person who wrote the book, and the circumstances under which he wrote it).

Here’s an example. If I told you that on May 3, The New York Times quoted Tobias Meyer as saying, “I have all the time in the world,” what would you think of? Does the quote inspire you or frighten you? Do you share the sentiment, or do you envy it?

It’s impossible to evaluate such questions when the quote is isolated from any context! So let me fill you in with more details.

Tobias Meyer is an auctioneer. A few days ago, painter Edvard Munch’s famous work, “The Scream,” came up for auction. Once the bidding reached $99 million, the participants paused, likely in anticipation of the $100 million milestone. At this moment, Mr. Meyer exclaimed, “I have all the time in the world.” As you know, auctioneers are not known for taking time or for drawing things out. This moment was one to be savored.

The bidding continued, and the painting finally sold for $119.9 million, becoming the most expensive piece of art in history. See the full article here.

Now that you know the facts in their context, does the quote take on new significance?

Let’s do the same whenever we study the Bible, making sure we understand it rightly in its context. I will seek to do it in Proverbs by focusing on Solomon’s main points and flow of thought. You can do it as you read the Bible, too.

How’d You Do That? (5/3/12)

May 7, 2012 By Peter Krol

Everybody loves show and tell. It’s that time in elementary school when you get to show all your friends something that really excites you, and then explain why it’s so exciting.

That’s why some of our blog posts will be given to showing you how to study the Bible, and others will focus on telling you how to do it. Our hope is that by frequent showing and telling, you will be encouraged to practice these skills in your own study of God’s Knowable Word.

On Thursday, I began a series of posts on the Wisdom of Proverbs. Even though Thursday’s post was a broad introduction, it still involved some weighty Bible study techniques. So I want to briefly comment on the key principles of Bible study demonstrated there.

1. Know what the Bible says about the Bible.

We should read the Bible the way God wants us to read it. Therefore, as we approach any passage of Scripture, we ought to know what the Bible says about the Bible. On Thursday, I referred to 2 Timothy 3:16, which tells us that every passage of Scripture is useful. Thus any Bible study we do ought to provide some sort of practical instruction, correction, or training in righteousness. A Bible study that fails to provide practical help is incomplete.

Also, Jesus himself clearly stated in Luke 24:44-47 that the entire Bible was about Him. He specifically referenced four components: his death, his resurrection, the forgiveness of sins, and the proclamation of these things to all nations. So every Bible study ought to lead us to Jesus by illuminating one or more of these four areas. If we haven’t seen Jesus, we haven’t rightly understood the text.

These two things are not all that the Bible says about the Bible; they’re just the two points I focused on in Thursday’s post. Please feel free to leave a comment below about other sections of God’s Word that can help us in our study of any passage.

We’ll pick up two more principles tomorrow.

« Previous Page