Read Part One of Basics in Bible Study Here

Here are my six basic rules of bible reading:

1. When reading the bible, use common sense

If a biblical passage is obviously symbolic, do not take the passage literally. If the biblical passage is meant to be taken literally, do not make it into a symbol. There is a verse in the bible which says, 'If your eye causes you to sin, pluck it out.'

I remember a co-worker telling me that she felt God was being very harsh to demand that people pluck their eyes out. I would've chuckled. But she was quite serious. I told her that God doesn't want you to pluck out your eyes. The verse really means: 'no matter how much you love your sin -even if it is as dear to you as your eyes - get rid of the sin.'

2. Read biblical passages in context

This is fundamental in all reading. It's the first thing they taught us in reading comprehension class. When we go to church, we rush from verse to verse as the preacher tells us. That's good. But, after church, when we're by ourselves at home, we should return to the passages to read all the verses in context...You won't get the entire story if you study only one verse. It is good to memorize favourite bible verses but this is no substitute for reading the entire bible passage. 

I remember an incident in college when an atheist challenged me on the bible. He said, 'The bible says we must forgive our enemies and yet it also says an eye for an eye. It contradicts itself.' I reminded him that both verses were found in the same conversation, same chapter. If he had read the entire Sermon on the Mount (Matt 5-7) in context, he would have understood that there was no contradiction. He would have seen the subtlety of Jesus' commands.

3. Use the bible to interpret the bible

The bible tells us to compare 'verse to verse, word to word, precept to precept and line to line.' It also tells us that it does not disagree with itself because God's Holy Spirit spoke through holy people to write the bible. The books in the bible are written by writers who lived centuries apart. Yet, amazingly, they all say the same things about human nature, God, faith, and sin. 

4. Beware of your own agenda

Racial, sexual, political and class agenda have been the major cause of biblical misinterpretation...There is a saying in the bible: 'Seek and you will find.' If an atheist opens the bible hoping to find that it is a horrible little book, she will find that it is indeed a horrible little book. She will only look at what offends her 'sensibility' and will -because of her agenda- not see what the bible is actually talking about. 

5. If you don't know about the meaning of the passage, withhold judgement

Some have dismissed the bible because they could not 'get past' a verse they had problems with. Or, they could not stand a particular biblical character. 'One friend kept wondering how God could call someone like David a man after His own heart?' Let's face it: there are only a few times in your life when knowing the exact right meaning of a bible passage will be a life or death decision.

6. Read the bible in a language you understand 

Okay, some of us are Shakespearean scholars. But I highly recommended that teenagers, new adult readers and those of us not fluent in King James English use a contemporary English version of the bible. The grammar, word order, and meanings of King James' English are different from ours... I'll give you some examples. What does the phrase 'suffer the little children to come to me' means? As Christians, we know that suffer means 'allow.' But this word can confuse an innocent searcher who will ask, 'Why does he want the children to suffer to come to him?' See what I mean?

The important thing to remember is that God has given us our own minds. It is not a good idea to have a Second-God and a second-hand knowledge of Scripture.

See part three for potential pitfalls in biblical interpretation

(This article was first published on Bible Reflections in January 2010, in a different format. It has been cut down from a longer version and is used with kind permission)