How do you study scripture?
Teleios’ most recent survey explored techniques used to study scripture. There were 455 responses. Below are explanations of biblical importance. For full results please click here.
Christianity is an exciting religion based in knowledge, wisdom and understanding (Ephesians 1:16). However, the Bible gives little specific direction on how to study God’s word apart from several general statements.
Biblical injunctions
- Know and understand – We should learn and comprehend the information that Paul received from Christ and gave to the church (Ephesians 1:17; Colossians 1:9).
- Instruction – This is an accepted mode of information transfer in the Epistles and so being taught by somebody else or teaching others is a Biblical principle (II Timothy 2:15,23-24; I Timothy 4:6,12,16).
Therefore, all the learning choices provided in the Teleios survey we can use to help learn scripture and meet the above injunctions, if done in sufficient quantity and quality to actually learn the Bible.
The problem
Unfortunately, Teleios has found that Bible education suffers greatly in our Christian culture. Several prior surveys showed a deep lack of basic knowledge in the:
- Gospel content and ability to express it
- Security of salvation
- The Holy Spirit
- End times events
Knowing the Bible is important because wrong information about God can cause us to believe lies about Him and profoundly affect our spiritual wellbeing. Interesting, Teleios also has noted in a number of surveys that those who study scripture more frequently have better wellbeing. We don’t know the reasons why but is probably related to incorporating biblical principles and the freedom of faith in their lives.
Learning goals
While scripture doesn’t provide a method of study per se, it does provide goals to which we should strive:
- Be holy as God is holy (I Peter 1:16)
- Be ready to provide a defense for what you believe (I Peter 3:15)
- Become a teacher (Hebrews 5:13)
- Rightly divide the word of truth (II Timothy 2:15)
- Have a close knowledge of God (Epiginosko, Greek) (Ephesians 1:17; Colossians 1:9)
It is up to us to link the goal to our method. Unfortunately, it appears the most popular techniques for learning scripture present in our survey are insufficient.
Table 1: What is my current method to study scripture? (Top 6 responses)
|
Response |
Percent |
|
Read down the text |
59% |
|
Use a devotional |
52% |
|
Search for verses about a particular topic |
50% |
|
Learn from what I hear around the church and/or friends |
45% |
|
Follow a year-long Bible reading plan |
25% |
|
Watch a movie or video about the Bible |
23% |
It is for each of us to drive ourselves to a more comprehensive study until we reach the goals listed above. That does not exclude the most popular methods listed in the survey, however, to really know God a deeper study of the word is provided by the following choices:
Table 2: More in-depth techniques to study scripture
|
Response |
|
Scriptural word search |
|
Study verse by verse using an inductive method |
|
Use online software or website such as e-Sword (https://www.e-sword.net/) |
|
Study a theology book |
|
Utilize a Greek or Hebrew word dictionary to enhance my knowledge of the original word definitions |
|
Study directly from the Greek or Hebrew text |
Know God and Christ! Study His fabulous word! It is freeing and satisfying. If you need help, let us know, and we can try to assist you as best we can.
Thank you again for taking our survey!
