Knowable Word

Helping ordinary people learn to study the Bible

Copyright © 2012–2025 DiscipleMakers, except guest articles (copyright author). Used by permission.

You are here: Home / Archives for Stephen Kneale

3 Mistakes with Commentaries

By

Stephen Kneale warns of three mistakes we could make with commentaries.

  1. Opening commentaries too early
  2. Opening commentaries too late
  3. Not opening commentaries at all

There is some good advice here, along the lines of our continued counsel to avoid becoming a commentary junkie. I’ve given my own set of mistakes with commentaries. And just as you can disagree with someone’s advice about commentaries, so also you ought to be free to disagree with the commentaries themselves.

The goal is always to allow the biblical text to speak the loudest for itself. Commentaries make great conversation partners but lousy agenda setters.

Check it out!

Follow the Bible’s Larger Story

By

To help guide you to stronger, more delightful Bible reading, Stephen Kneale offers four guiding principles:

  1. What does this say about Jesus?
  2. How does this fit with/relate to other passages?
  3. Read it knowing God ordained events as part of his story
  4. Let the clear interpret the less clear

Kneale writes:

Though we affirm the perspicuity of scripture and the fundamental clarity of its essential message, the ever-present issue when reading the Bible is this: how do I know I am reading it rightly? It is all too easy to read ourselves into the story when it isn’t necessarily about us, miss the main point of a passage or just badly misread what is said altogether. Whilst utter interpretative perfection is unlikely to any of us, there are some helpful guiding principles that can keep us on the right track with any passage of scripture.

While these are not the only principles that could or should guide your Bible reading, they represent some good habits to develop as you go.

Check it out!

When Biases Drive Your Interpretation of the Bible

By

Stephen Kneale has a brief but provocative piece on “Three ways we might find our biases driving our biblical interpretation.” Of course, I don’t ever think I bring my biases to the study. But shouldn’t I take note when the fruit of my study matches one of Kneale’s signs?

  1. The Bible always agrees with you
  2. The Bible always affirms your politics
  3. You cannot fathom why Christians in different contexts do things differently

This is worth your time to consider.

Check it out!

One of the Most Important Discussion Questions

By

Stephen Kneale writes about all the different kinds of Bible studies held in his church. Perhaps their example will give you some ideas for what could be possible in your church.

But at the end of his piece, he makes a crucial point. Regardless of what sort of discussion or study group we’re holding, we must always make sure our conclusions and applications are drawn reasonably from the argument of the biblical text. And when people make spontaneous connections to all the different areas of their lives, leaders ought to help them remain anchored to the text.

And one of the most direct ways to do that is to ask the simple question: So where do you get that from the text? As Kneale writes:

This matters because not every comment in every bible study is of equal worth. Not every application of scripture is a valid application of scripture. What we are trying to model to people in these studies is how we helpfully read the Bible. We are either showing how we understand the text in front of us or we are highlighting how we rightly apply the text to ourselves, without making applications that are not permitted or bear no real relation to the text itself.

Check it out!