Once you have established your text, made accurate observations, and discerned your passage’s contexts, it is time to determine your text’s meaning. To do this, it is critical to understand biblical theology, the discipline that considers how the whole Bible progresses, integrates, and climaxes in Jesus.

As you examine your passage in view of the whole book, there are at least three areas you want to keep in mind: literary placement, literary function, and literary details.

By considering a passage’s historical context, we are asking, “Where does this passage fit in space and time, and how do these data points inform the reading of our passage?”

This post will overview the key tools, principles, and process for doing word and concept studies in the Old Testament for those without knowledge of Hebrew. 

“Argument-tracing” is step 6 in understanding and apply the Old Testament. Perhaps more than any other step in the exegetical process, this one helps us grasp a passage’s message. In this post, I will show how to trace the argument of a passage by using an argument-diagram.

With step 5 of the interpretive process we move from “Text” to “Observation,” and we consider a series of issues related to how a passage is communicated. Our initial goal is to assess the makeup and relationship of words, phrases, clauses, and larger text units. In short, we need to study grammar. According to His […]

Whether you know the biblical languages or not, several good English translations will serve you well in studying the Bible and teaching.

Just as an alert reader can understand a book that has typographical errors in it, so too God’s word is able to speak for itself despite the scribes’ minor corruptions.