Bible Study Resources

On Sunday at CBC we were talking about being biblical - and one of the things I said was that none of the Bible was written with us in mind. So when Paul was writing the letter to the Galatians he was not thinking about the Christians at CBC. 

And I specifically mentioned a verse that is often quoted, Jeremiah 29:11, "for I know the plans I have for you," declares the Lord, "plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future". Maybe I should say I mentioned a verse that is often misquoted - because Jeremiah wrote these words to the exiles in Babylon - not to the Christians at CBC.

My point was not that none of the Bible was written to us and therefore it doesn't apply or isn't relevant. 

Part of what it means to be biblical is that we believe that the Bible is the inspired Word of God, that it is a living word, and that it is relevant and speaks today through the Holy Spirit.

My point was that therefore we always need to go through a process of interpretation. That's obvious when we read a verse where it is clear that the biblical context is far removed from our context - say, a verse in Leviticus about not wearing clothes made from two types of material. But it is not always so obvious when we read a verse like Jeremiah 29:11. 

There are two main stages in this process of interpretation.

The first is to work out the meaning of the text in its original context - what did it mean then. The technical term for this stage in the process is 'exegesis'.

Once that's done we then ask God to show us how that applies in our situation - what does it mean now. This part of the process is called 'hermeneutics'.

On Sunday I mentioned some additional resources that can help us with the first part of this process. This first part in this process involves knowing something about the historical context about when a passage was written. We need to know something about the literary context - part of this involves reading more than just one verse - but unless you know Hebrew, Greek and Aramaic you are probably going to need some help here too. And then we're going to need some help understanding unfamiliar words.

Alongside the Holy Spirit and prayer, a good friend or home group and a good Bible translation the following are useful resources.

A Study Bible


A good study Bible is a great place to start because alongside the Bible text you will find helpful notes that will give you a brief insight into relevant issues. Lots of study Bibles are available - I currently use the NIV Life Application Study Bible and the NIV Study Bible.

The advantage with a Study Bible is that you only need to purchase one book and everything is contained in that one volume. This saves both space and money.

One of the disadvantages is that the notes are necessarily short and brief. Another danger is that because the notes are right there on the page we go straight to someone else's notes rather than prayerfully reflecting on the text itself and listening to God.

Of course many of these resources are available online or can be purchased via various apps and computer programs. 

For a number of years now I have used Olive Tree Bible Software. I have this on my laptop, iPad and phone which means I can have a whole library in my pocket. Another great advantage of using this kind of software is that it quickly links a whole range of resources together around a particular verse or passage.


A Commentary

The second resource that I mentioned was a commentary. A commentary is basically a book where someone else writes about the interpretive process. So it will tell you about the historical context. The linguistic issues. The literary context. Difficult words. Many commentaries will also make an attempt at application.

There are hundreds and hundreds of different commentaries to choose from - but a single volume commentary is a good place to start - this deals with the whole Bible in one book but in a bit more detail than the Study Bible.

I use the IVP New Bible Commentary and also the Africa Bible Commentary - which is written from an African perspective for an African audience and provides some value insights that get missed when we read from a purely white, western perspective.

You might decide, maybe because you're preaching on a particular book of the Bible, that you need more information than can be provided in a single volume commentary. This is when you start to turn to specific commentaries - a whole commentary written about one book of the Bible. You won't be surprised to discover that once again there are a whole variety to choose from. I tend to use commentaries from the NIV Application Commentary series and the BST (Bible Speaks Today) series.

A Bible Dictionary

A Bible dictionary will help you with those words that you don't understand, but will also contain information about the people and places that you read about in the Bible. The main dictionary that I regularly use is the IVP New Bible Dictionary.

Obviously, there is a whole range of resources and some of them are quite expensive. So if you want to borrow or have a look at some of them just let me know.