Bible Study Methods

Below you will find several Bible study methods each more involved than the last.  I suggest you download  free Bible study software, Wordsearch Basic, here: https://www.wordsearchbible.com/basic?ref=be/

And this company offers 212 free books that can be used within the free software, a few of which you will need for the Bible study methods explained below.  You’ll need a Bible (KJV comes with the software for free), a Bible Dictionary (Easton’s is fine, and it’s one of the 212 free books), and the ability to search the Bible for particular words and names.  This ability is included in the free software itself.  So, there will literally be no cost to learn how to study the Bible on your computer.  You can go as deeply as you like and pay nothing.

I took a correspondence class in Bible study methods over 30 years ago from Moody Bible Institute.  The author of the class hit it right on the head when he said Bible study is a lot like prospecting for gold.  You can walk around your claim looking for nuggets and find a few.  You can pan for gold and maybe find some more more quickly.  You can build a sluce box and find even more.  But mining a vein of gold is finding a vein and following it.

In Bible study, we find nuggets when we’re reading our daily devotionals or going through Scripture during the Sunday service.  The study methods listed below will help you find a vein of Truth and follow up on it to gain the riches of God’s Word for yourself.

Some Universal Rules:

1.  Always pray first – you have the ability to speak to the Holy Spirit, the Author of the book you’re studying.  Why not ask Him to help you understand it.

2.  Try to find a quiet place, free of distractions to conduct your study.  You’ll find God speaking to you more clearly if you can listen uninterupted.

3.  Read the passage over several times before you begin your study so you will be familiar with the context.

Now for the methods:

Paraphrase

Most Bible studies are fairly easily explained.  You just have to follow some rules and instructions to accomplish the study.  Paraphrase is a very simple approach to Bible study.  You ready a verse or short passage and rewrite it in your own words.  You can even personalize it.  For instance, Romans 8:1 could be paraphrased as, “I no longer am condemned for my sin because I no longer walk in the ways of the world but seek to walk in God’s commandments.”  You can do this with just about any passage in the Bible.

Now why don’t you paraphrase Romans 9:1-3 into a short paragraph?

 

ABCD Study

An ABCD study is when you read over a passage looking for particular things:

A – A Title – What does the passage say overall?  What is it’s main theme?

B – Basic Verse – Pick a verse that seems to state what the passage has to say or is representative of the passage.  For instance, you might pick John 3:16 as the basic verse for the third chapter of John or even the entire book of John.

C – Commitment – What commitment do I need to make concerning this passage or what commitment has God made to me?  To use John 3:16 again as an example, the commitment might be that you need to believe in Jesus in order to obtain eternal life.  Or, Proverbs 7:1 has the committment for me to obey and keep God’s Words.

D – Difficulties – Write down any difficulties you might encounter in your study.  There are other study methods below which may help you answer those difficult questions you might have about a passage.  For instance, James 2:17 says faith without works is dead.  Yet you know that we are saved by grace and not works.  How do those two coincide?  You should be able to deal with that difficulty by reading the surrounding context.  If not, you could do a word study on “faith” and on “grace” to see other passages where the words are used and how they are used.

Why don’t you James chapter 2 and give it a title, find the basic verse, ask yourself what commitment this chapter makes on your life, and write down any difficulties.  Maybe you can already answer the question I asked about grace, faith, and works.

Topical Study

A topical study is a study to find what the Bible says about a particular topic.  You’ll need to be able to use your concordance for this (it is the “Search” feature in the Wordsearch software).

This study can be done to see what the entire Bible says about a particular topic or a particular book of the Bible or even a chapter.  Let’s say you want to do a study on “faith” in the Bible.  You would look up the word, “faith” in a word search and write down how it is used in Scripture.  Then you form all those notes into a paragraph or more describing how the word is used.  That should give you a pretty good idea of how God’s Word defines the word, “faith.”

The word, “faith” occurs nearly 250 times in the Bible, so it may be best to narrow your study to maybe one book.  The word is used 21 times in Galatians.  So, look up the word each time it appears in Galatians and write notes on the information you can glean from the passages in Galatians where “faith” appears.  That will give you a lot of information on how Paul, the writer of Galatians, defines “faith.”

In Galatians 3:23, you will find faith used two ways: “faith” and “the faith.”  That might be something to list as a difficulty to be researched later.

So, why don’t you do a topical study of “faith” in Galatians and see what you find out?

Character Study

A character study is very similar to a topical study except you are looking for a particular person’s name rather than a biblical term.  You look at all the passages where that name appears and write down what you learn in each passage.  Then assemble the notes you’ve taken into a paragraph or more to describe that person.

Tychicus is a character found in Acts 20:4.  Why not do a character study on Him and see how often he is mentioned in the New Testament and maybe even what his role was in the early church.

Word Study

A word study is not the same as the Topical Study listed above.  A word study is a study of how a particular Greek or Hebrew word is used in Scripture so that you might gain a better understanding of a passage where that word appears.

To do a word study with the WordSearch software (again, this is a free download from here: https://www.wordsearchbible.com/basic)  You can click on the pound sign in the upper tool bar when viewing he King James Version.  This is a toggle between showing you the Strong’s Number and not.  You will also see a geen number called a Strong’s number next to almost all the words in the KJV text below.  This number is unique to the word to its left.  Place your curcor over the Strong’s number and it will give you a pop-up window which shows you how many times that Greek or Hebrew word appears in Scripture, the different ways it is translated in Scripture, and the number of times it is translated that way.  A definition of that word is also included in that pop-up window.

If you right click on the Strong’s number in the KJV text, you will be offered a search for that particular Greek or Hebrew word.  If you take advantage of that, it will list for you every verse where that Greek or Hebrew word appears.  Now you can look at those verses and get a good idea of how that word is used in Scripture.  Be careful of the context, though.  Just like any other language, the context and modifying words can make one word mean something quite different.

In doing an ABCD Study, words studies often help you resolve difficulties you find in your study.

Look at the word, “trangressions” in Gal. 3:19 and see how many times it appears in Scripture, how it is used in those passages, and what the definition of the word is.

 Book Study

A book study is a study to find the background of a book before you begin to analyze the passages within it.  It helps to know who wrote the book, to whom it was written, and the conditions around the writing of the book before you begin to study it more in depth.

You’ll need a Bible Dictionary for this.  Again, the free software at https://www.wordsearchbible.com/basic offers 212 free books with it including at least one Bible Dictionary.  Look at the Book of Jude and see what you can find from reading it through a few times first, then look in your Bible Dictionary to see who Jude was, who he was writing to, and the conditions there that prompted Jude to write his epistle.

Analytical/Inductive Study

An analytical (often called an inductive) study is a study combining all of the methods above starting with the most general and progressing to the more specific and putting them together to produce a very indepth study of a book, chapter, or shorter passage.

Apply the methods already described to the book of Philemon to see what you can find.