The Living Church of God is active worldwide with over 230 ministers serving over 400 congregations around the globe. The Living Church of God also produces Tomorrow’s World magazine and telecast. In the following article, the Living Church of God reviews the seven keys to studying the Bible so that Christians can reprioritize the understanding and application of God’s holy Word.
Studying the Bible, God’s living Word, is a practice that is meant to renew the mind of Christians and help them believe encouraging and enlightening truth. This is especially the case during hardship. However, after a 2022 study, the reported Christians who study the Bible daily had dropped to just 10% in America. To counteract this, the Living Church of God has prepared seven keys for Bible Study to better understand the importance of Scripture study.
Seven Keys for Study
The Living Church of God reviews these seven collections when it comes to studying the good book in the list below:
- The Bible is Still Relevant
- The Bible is Complete
- The Bible is Sufficient
- The Bible’s Position on a Topic Should Be Thoroughly Studied
- The Bible’s Context Should Be Understood
- The Bible Should Be Proven
- The Bible Should Not Be Studied Without Prayer
Below, the Living Church of God analyzes and explains each of these seven components for the purpose of using them and remembering them before each attempt to study.
The Good Book is Still Relevant in 2023
The Living Church of God reviews that often, one of the biggest obstacles to daily Bible study is the idea that it is not a necessary element to getting through everyday life. After all, even its most recent books were written almost two millennia before the present day.
However, it is important to place the Bible in its correct position comparative to our lives: it is completely relevant for the present day. Not only that, but the prophecies in the good book actually predict the future of all mankind and the destiny of our species.
This offers not only hope but proves that the book is powerful and authoritative. According to
Matthew 24:14, the Gospel, will be preached throughout the entire world, to all nations, before the end-time arrives.
The Bible is Complete
The Living Church of God explains that the Bible is sometimes difficult to understand because those reading it do not realize that the Old Testament and the New Testament are meant to work together, not separately. Many focus entirely on Jesus’ words in the New Testament, forgetting that He not only quoted Scripture from the Old Testament, but was the one who spoke the original law into being.
In other words, Christ was quoting Himself. This is essential to understand because without knowing that the Bible starts in the Old Testament book of Genesis and truly ends in the New Testament book of Revelation, readers will have an incomplete understanding of who God is and what the Gospel teaches.
The Bible is Sufficient
Another common reason people of faith do not consistently study is that they feel they are not equipped to understand it. In part, this is true; after all, human beings have no power to understand an infinite God on their own.
However, the Living Church of God reviews that the Bible is meant to work as a whole - prophecies in the New Testament book of Revelation, such as those in Revelation 1:16, can be understood after understanding the symbolism used in the Old Testament book of Daniel, chapter 2, verse 35.
Essentially, God’s Word explains God’s Word; He provided a way for us to understand portions of the Bible that are confusing by studying more of it and gaining an understanding.
The Book’s Position on a Topic Should Be Thoroughly Studied
According to John 10:35, Scripture cannot be broken. This means that Scripture does not contradict itself, making it “internally true.” It is important that those trying to understand a difficult topic through the worldview offered by the Bible know everything that it has to say on that topic, instead of relying on one or two verses.
This helps readers to avoid confirmation bias, as well as to understand God and His opinion on topics thoroughly.
The Bible’s Context Should Be Understood
Speaking of being thorough, it is impossible to truly understand any given truthful statement without taking context into account. After all, when examining email interactions for evidence in a court case, we would not read only one email in the middle of a long correspondence without making sure we’d understood the emails that came before!
In fact, we would also normally understand who the sender and recipients of each email are, and know a little something about them. Otherwise, we might come to the wrong conclusions about their meaning within the emails.
The Bible is the same way; if a verse is taken out of context, it can be twisted to mean something it doesn’t, and therefore can be stripped of its relevance, importance, and authority to instruct daily living.
It Should Be Proven
In Thessalonians 5:21, God proclaims that human beings reading the Bible should test what they are taught, making sure it is true. Though faith is a gift, it is one that goes hand in hand with the reasoning abilities God has blessed humans with. For example, in
Acts 17:11, Bereans who analyzed Scripture and put to test what they’d heard were called “fair-minded.”
This will also aid the Christian in avoiding false teachers who might make a convincing argument about what the Bible says but could be easily disproven if a reader studied the context and other aspects of a Biblical topic thoroughly for themselves.
The Good Book Should Not Be Studied Without Prayer
Finally, the most reliable way to change one’s heart about the importance of Scripture, as well as the most reliable way to assure one understands what they read, is to appeal to the author Himself!
Living Church of God says its best to pray before every Bible study as the Psalmist did in Psalm 25:4-5, asking God to show him His ways, teach him His paths, and lead him in God’s truth and teachings. It is important to recognize the God-breathed authority of the Bible, and part of this is admitting that we have no ability to make the Bible say anything, or to understand what it actually says without His help.
In Conclusion
In summary, the seven keys for Bible study includes having a true understanding of how authoritative and relevant Scripture is through prayer and acknowledgement that it is a complete book of both the Old and New Testament combined. Then, one must put to test what they have read, and understand a topic’s context and coverage thoroughly.
