Bible study can become a little difficult just because the differences in how we think. Think about the geographic area in which you live today and how people will communicate differently in a different geographical area not too far from you. In America, the southern portion of the country communicate differently than the north east portion, which is also different from the west. Even within our closer communities, we communicate differently. When looking at the caucasian, African American, Asian, and Mexican communities, we all communicate differently. It doesn't matter if we are all speaking the same language, words, thoughts, slangs, etc are communicated differently and this can lead to difficulties. Read More…

Many people have their favorite Bibles and they have different reasons for using that particular Bible. The most common question I get is, "Which Bible should I use? Which one is the best?" Read More…

We've all watched the movies where someone is looking for a treasure. They have a treasure map and they are trying to interpret the clues to find that treasure. Typically, the main problem with the understanding of the clues is context. The map is old and written in different areas of the world. This means the treasure hunter must interpret these, along with other, contexts to understand the clues of the map. Read More…

When studying Scripture, we need to understand the different types of context of Scripture so we don't make the Bible say something it was not intending to say.

What if I told you that Paul was a sports fan? This is highly possible as he often talked about running races and made references to sports of that day. But, what if I told you that he was a Georgia Bull Dogs fan? "Watch out for those Dogs" Philippians 3:2. Now, that's an extreme example but it makes an extreme statement, we can make Scripture mean whatever we want if we ignore context.
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We've all been here, a person snaps at us and we may think, even possibly say, "Don't talk to me like I'm your child!"

In life, we communicate differently with those who we are talking to. We talk to our children differently than our spouse, which is different than our boss (or it better be). Our friends have a different type of communication from us. We don't communicate the same way to each person in our lives. We must understand that the Bible is doing the same thing. Read More…

In looking at pronouns we're trying to see how things connect in this Treasure Map. Pronouns help us see connections in the text. Remember that a pronoun is saying, "I" instead of my name and instead of saying your name I say, “you”, “he”, “she”, etc. Pronouns connect a conversation with whoever the statement is intended for. Remember that, especially in the New Testament, we see Y'shua speaking to multiple groups of people, sometimes at the same time. We see letters where the Apostles are correcting actions of those they are writing to. This will cause shifts in pronouns that will lead us to clues of better understanding of the meaning of the text. Read More…

There are all kinds of ways that the text emphasizes something. One way it emphasizes is through VERBS.

There are a few ways we need to look at verbs and we're going to look at those. Buckle up, we're going back to grammar school.
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Repeating words are often a clue in the Treasure Map and gold may be found. Does the author intentionally repeat anything in the text? Whenever you're studying the Bible and you notice something is repeated over and over again it does not mean that the author forgot that they already said it - he's doing this for reason. The author is trying to point something out that is really, really, important. Read More…

There are lists all through Scripture. The authors didn't list things just to list them. Even the genealogies, that most find boring and a good way to get to sleep at night, have a reason for being recorded. Many times we have to put ourselves in their context to understand the reasoning of these lists but it's worth it. Look for any instances of two or more itemized things and observe what they are trying to say. When we see a list, we want to ask “How are these listed?” and “Why are they ordered in this way?” Read More…

Let’s look at a few dangerous approaches to Bible study. These are common approaches that we need to try and avoid.

First, avoid the emotional approach. This is where we look at Scripture and ask, “What feels right to me?” If you want what feels right, you're going to skip over all kinds of text in the Bible. Not all Bible text gives us that nice fuzzy feeling. When we start to read about the wrath of God, when we read about the prophets of old, we are not going to walk away feeling great. Lamentations can get you down right depressed.

Avoid the spiritual approach; which is when we look for that deep, hidden, meaning. This is when we say, “I see it says this, BUT, what does it really mean?”. A portion of this is not bad, but there’s a danger of over analyzing things.

Avoid the pragmatic approach. This is when we ask, “What works best for me?” This is when we look for text, or translation of text, that best fits within our lives. This is a self-centered and arrogant way to study the bible. When we study this way, we miss the whole point of God’s truth for our lives. This is the point in which we say, “This is my life and I’ll live it how I want; so, I’ll use the Bible to justify what I want”. This error of Bible study is happening all over this country today.

Avoid the superficial approach. This is when we ask, “What does this mean to me?” Now, I’m sure we have all been to a Bible study and someone reads a passage then asks, “What does this verse mean to you?”. We end up going around the room with each person saying what it means to them. Everyone walks out of the Bible study saying, “I learned so much” but the truth is, they didn’t learn about the Bible, they learned about each other; because, they never asked, “What does the text mean?” This isn’t saying that Scripture does not apply differently to different people, but we must first determine what the Scripture means before we look at application. So, let’s not ask, “What does this verse mean to me?”; let’s ask, “What does this verse mean?”

You've probably noticed that the Gospels tend to have a different pattern to the story lines given. This is due to each author having a different agenda to paint a picture of what they want you to discover about Y'shua.

This study is coming soon.

Much of the New Testament consists of quotes from the Old Testament. These are called Remez (Hebrew) which is a hint towards something larger. We must remember that most of the Bible was written to Hebrews and even if it wasn't, the Gentile Christians were taught through Old Testament text (Acts 15:21). While we struggle with remembering what we were doing five minutes ago, people in these days did well at remembering Scriptures; especially the Jews who were raised with them taught to them morning and evening from childhood. The Hebrews knew Scripture and the author knows all they had to do is give a small quote to bring their reader back to the Old Testament Scripture that would paint a bigger picture. Read More…

What we call CHIASM today was a common way of speaking and writing in Biblical times. There are several literary structures used in the Bible and the chiasm is one of the most complex and also revealing structures. Lost for centuries, chiasms have recently been re-realized and there's been many in-depth studies of chiasm by all literary scholars. Read More…

So, we talked about Chiastic Structures and now let's talk about Parallelism's. Parallelism's are another vastly used literary structure used in the Bible. Parallelisms are a regular recurring juxtaposition of symmetrically constructed sentences carried out in substance as well as in form. It points to the relation of the expression to the thought. If you're already feeling overwhelmed please keep reading as it gets easier as examples are given. Read More…