Four Simple Steps to Studying the Bible

Reading and studying the Bible, either for yourself or leading a Bible Study group in church, does not need to be hard.  All Bible passages can be understood and interpreted by applying, in ascending order, these four steps that get at the meaning of the biblical passage.  Each is a sort of “informed meditation” on the Bible, and asks us to find the “sense” of the Bible, to listen to the Bible with its own voice and let it speak the Word of God to us, to increasingly enrich us in faith, hope and love.  The four steps or “senses” for understanding the Bible are:

1. The Literal Sense
2. The Christological Sense
3. The Spiritual Sense
4. The Heavenly Sense

This is the oldest and most often used way the Church developed for getting at the meaning of the Bible, and for good reason.  It is a way of deep listening.  By listening to the Bible ever more carefully for each of these senses, we find that we do not presuppose what the Bible “must” mean or bring our own ideas of what the Bible “ought” to mean.  Instead, we find that we must leave ourselves and our world outside, so that the Word of God has the opening in us to renew and revive us in our faith, and further conform our lives to Christ, both toward God as the Father’s children and toward the world as sisters and brothers to our neighbors in need.

Each sense is simple, but not easy.  This is a way of thinking we are not used to.  And each step or sense must feel completed and answered as far as we can go “this time,” before moving on to the next step or sense.  Each sense builds upon what we have learned by listening to the Word of God in the way of the senses that have gone before.  This is thinking by meditation, not by objective analysis.  We do not take the Bible apart to find a meaning within or behind the Bible; we take the Bible as a whole and listen to it as the transforming power of God.  This does not mean we just “make it up as we go along!”  We still need to know some history and some theology as helps and aids.  But learning history and theology need to happen before we sit down to really read and know the Bible. 

The Literal Sense:  What does this Bible passage say?  Not what does it mean!  What was it about, what is it about.  This is where you will need to do most of your homework in Dictionaries, Commentaries, etc.  Find out what you don’t know: people, places, names, historical background, unfamiliar words.  What kind of document is this passage: a letter; biography; history; prophecy; poetry; advise for living; fiction (e,g. the Book of Esther)?  How does knowing this help you understand the plain sense of the passage: what it is saying and to whom it is speaking?  The literal sense is always the basis and foundation of what this passage means.  The next three senses are not just flights of fancy; they must connect with the literal sense and come from the literal sense.  The Bible says what it means and means what it says.

Christological sense:  How is this passage God’ revelation of Jesus Christ as Savior?  The Christian understanding of the Bible is that the whole Bible points to Christ as the fulfillment of all God’s promises of salvation, redemption, reconciliation, and glorification.  What can you say about salvation in Jesus Christ based on this passage?  Is it promise or fulfillment?  Is it the Law of God from which Christ delivers us and frees us from its condemnation of our sins?  Is it the Gospel — the “wonderful message of salvation in Christ” — that lifts us up, gives us assurance, comforts us, shows us God’s love and mercy for us, sets us in a right relationship (“justification;” “righteousness”) with God on account of Christ?  The Christological sense is about Jesus Christ and the salvation he gives to us, for us; to me, for me, apart from and other than and before I ever do anything about it.  We are justified before God by grace, through faith, on account of Christ, and not by any good works we do! 

The Spiritual Sense:  What does this passage show to us as what we ought to do because of what Christ has done for us?  Try to be specific; keep tied to the literal sense; do not use generalities like, “help others” or “feed the hungry.”  The spiritual sense covers both spirituality and morality — how we become like Christ before God (spirituality), and how we become like Christ in our relationships with others (morality).  The key is become like Christ.  Often, even usually, this is a gradual process, a “growth in grace,” a “conforming to the likeness of Christ,” that takes practice, repeating, and will experience falls and back-sliding; no one becomes entirely or perfectly conformed to Christ — holy — in this mortal life; that is why we trust ourselves in faith to the boundless grace of God that we receive from Christ, and not in our efforts to become Christlike.  What guidance, hints, clues, directions, “do’s and don’t's” does this Bible passage in particular offer or suggest or lead us to find?

The Heavenly Sense:  What vision of our final salvation, our goal of union with God in Christ, is suggested by this Bible passage?  What is heaven in the eyes of this passage or behind the surface of this passage?  Is it “the New Jerusalem?” The “Kingdom of God?” “Becoming like Christ in the life of God?” Change from this existence into a “divine existence?” Victory over “sin, death, and the devil” (as Luther often put it)?  A great and endless banquet feast or bridal feast? A return to “Paradise,” a new and perfect innocence like Adam and Eve before the fall into sin, only with no serpent and no possibility of sin in this restored Garden of Eden?  Or some other image?  Of course, nobody knows what heaven or salvation will be like or look like, what the experience of it will be.  Even the inspired authors of the books of the Bible could not know, because heaven is transformed, transfigured divine life with the life of God in perfect happiness and harmony — and humans have no language to describe that, any more than we can describe God as God is in Himself.  Here, in the heavenly sense, the three prior senses must be turned inside out to see the splendor and glory of God within each, concealed in each, shown in signs and symbols. 

Following this four-fold way of interpreting the Bible is not just making it up off the top of your head.  Even more, it is not merely repeating what you already think you know.  It is opening yourself up to truly hear the Bible on its own terms.  The Bible is the witness of the apostles and prophets to the cross and victory of Jesus Christ, the Son of God.  This four-step approach is meant to pay attention to the voice of that witness.

Every step requires study and serious thinking.  For example, the Christological Sense will be impossible to grasp if you do not have a firm grip on just what Christian doctrine teaches about salvation, atonement, redemption, reconciliation, and justification.  If you are not able to explain to an unchurched person why Jesus died on the cross, how that death on the cross takes away our sins and the sins of the world, and what the victory of Christ’s resurrection triumphs over, then the Christological Sense will stump you.  If you cannot tell that same person why believing in Christ is the most important thing in your life (and is it?), where it all leads, the ultimate goal of hope in salvation in Christ at death and beyond death and the grave, then the Heavenly Sense will have no meaning for you.

You don’t need to be a “theologian” to be prepared in these ways! Actually, all Christians are already “theologians.”  “Theology” simply means to think about God.  Just going to church on Sundays makes you think about God; so there you go — you already are a theologian!  All you need is some guidance and incentive and insights from more experienced theologians to get you going and get you up to speed.  Going to Bible Study classes and classes on Christian doctrine and beliefs at your church can get your mind working in “theological” ways.  Ask your pastor for advice on books to read; don’t start out with weighty tomes — start small; short and basic, broad-view sorts of books.  Martin Luther’s Large Catechism is a great place to start; he wrote it for beginner “theologians” who were responsible for teaching the basics of the Christian faith in their churches.

The four steps are not rigid; they are meant to lead, not to lock you in.  This does not suggest that every Bible Study be divided into four equal sections of the same length to force you through each step until you get to the end and the “final results.”  There are no “final results!”  Let the Holy Spirit, and Christ the Word, and the passage you are studying, take you where you need to go.  Especially early on, you may get no farther than the first two steps, and find the Christological Sense so deep and rich that it occupies all your time.  Good!  That’s where Christ and the Spirit wanted you to do your work this time!  (The only thing you ought to watch out for and question is if you keep staying in the first step, the Literal Sense; there may be good reason for that, but it can also mean that you are getting bogged down in the “safe” world of fact-finding and historical trivia.)

The only way you will know if this four-step way works is to go and do it for a while.  One try is not enough.  It takes patience, so give it time.  I think you will be surprised at how rich and fulfilling Bible study will become with practice!

 

Advertisement