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About Jesus - Steve Sweetman How
I Study The Bible First;
I study the original text, whether Greek in the New Testament or Hebrew in
the Old Testament, to see what I can learn.
The grammatical construction of a sentence is vital in
understanding the sentence.
For example, verb tenses are important, especially in Koine Greek,
the language of the New Testament.
Verb tenses are much more detailed and colourful in Koine Greek
than they are in English.
Another simple example is knowing whether the word "you"
is singular or plural, something you can't always easily see in English,
but you can easily see in Greek.
Second;
I check out the immediate context of the passage.
Beyond that I consider the passage in light of the context of the
book or letter it was written in, the context of the author's life and
other writings, and then the context of the rest of the Bible.
Third;
I see if there is any historical or cultural information that is relevant
to the passage, and there usually is.
One mistake we make today when studying the Bible is that we impose
our 21st century culture and definitions of words into the Biblical text
that was written centuries ago in a culture and language that has little
to no relevance to our world today.
Knowing some history and the cultural setting of any passage helps
us understand the passage. Fourth;
I check out Bible commentators to see what I can learn from others.
If I'm the only one in history that has come up with a particular
comment on a verse, I'm probably wrong.
Fifth;
I try to keep in mind all of the hermeneutical (art of Biblical
interpretation) rules I've learned over the years.
After
all of this, I remain open to learn more.
I'm always learning.
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