How did you first meet the Bible? Was it a verse on a bookmark, a verse on a mug, or a verse a friend sent when you were low? Those verses do real good. But Mel Lawrenz, writing on the Bible Gateway blog, says focusing on one verse at a time is inadequate and even dangerous, because a single sentence only gets its meaning from the wider context around it. Greg Koukl of Stand to Reason offers one rule to guard against that danger: never read a Bible verse. Read a paragraph, at least. He calls it the most important practical skill he has learned as a Christian.
Why does it work? Meaning flows from the top down, Koukl says, from the larger units to the smaller ones. The paragraph gives the verse its meaning, not just the words inside it. Justin Taylor of The Gospel Coalition passed the advice along with a warning from Koukl: a devotional thought may be uplifting, but if it is not the message of the text, it lacks biblical authority, even when the quote comes straight from God's Word.
Here is the method. First, notice what kind of writing you are in: history, poetry, proverb or letter. Each has its own rules. Second, stand back and look for the breaks that mark a unit of thought. Ask what idea is being developed and how the thought flows. Third, sum up the verse in your own words. Fourth, and Koukl says this step is critical, put your summary in place of the verse and read the passage again. If it does not fit, start over. He calls this a reliable negative test. It cannot prove a reading right, but it quickly weeds out readings that do not belong.
The verse numbers themselves can mislead. Lawrenz notes that chapter and verse numbers were not added to the biblical text until the 13th through the 16th centuries. Paragraph breaks and section headings came from translators. They help, but they were not in the original. He says it is fine to feature a single verse as the highlight of a passage, so long as we remember the author meant for us to understand the whole.
Try it this week. Lawrenz walks through Hebrews 11. Read the chapter slowly, then again, then once more out loud. Notice the statement about faith in verse 1, the roll call of heroes of faith, the intense conclusion in verses 32 to 38 and the broad truth in verse 39. Then keep reading into chapter 12, where the real-life application comes. Next take Psalm 23. Koukl points out that we must first know what a shepherd is before the line about the Lord as our shepherd has any power. Read the whole psalm and ask what that picture is doing. Give each one a few unhurried minutes.
Koukl presented the advice in a 2013 Stand to Reason article titled "Do You Take the Bible Literally?" He writes that he never likes that question. His answer is that he takes the Bible at its plain meaning unless he has a good reason to do otherwise, the same rule anyone applies to novels, newspapers and poems. He notes that even non-Christians read the Bible this way when they agree with a passage, taking the commands to love your neighbor and remember the poor at face value. Figures of speech are no problem either, he says, because a word must have its plain meaning first before it can carry a figurative one, and a metaphor is always meant to clarify rather than obscure.
Koukl says he uses the paragraph rule on his radio program to answer most of the Bible questions callers bring, even when he does not know the passage well. Justin Taylor quotes him saying that only when we are properly informed by God's Word in its context can we be transformed by it. Lawrenz's post is one lesson in his "How to Study the Bible" series on the Bible Gateway blog. He is the author of 18 books, including How to Understand the Bible: A Simple Guide. He adds that a pastor could sum up all of Jeremiah in one sermon, but a passage of a few verses or a single chapter serves listeners far better.
Scripture: Hebrews 11:1, Hebrews 11:39, Hebrews 12:1, Psalm 23:1, 2 Timothy 2:15
