THE IMPORTANCE OF CONTEXT:
One of the most important principles for the study of any literature, including the Bible, is the principle of context. All passages of a book must be understood in light of the whole book. Taking passages out of context is a dangerous practice. Let me illustrate.
One of the basic tenets of ' is that the 144,000 who are saved will return to this earth with Christ to co-reign with him forever. The reason they believe that is because the Bible says, "Blessed are the meek for shall inherit the earth" (Matthew 5:5). That verse is found in what is called "The Sermon on the Mount" in Matthew 5-7. ' misinterpret this verse because they treat it as a prophetic verse -- as a verse of prophecy. But, an examination of the passage will show that this was not a prophetic passage. It was a passage outlining essential principles of living in the Kingdom of God on earth today. It has nothing to do with eschatology (the study of last things). What Jesus was saying in that verse is that meekness has its rewards and is to be chosen over and against a haughty, boasting spirit one might use to get his or her desires. It is the spirit of meekness that accomplishes much. If we fail to see the context of the verse, then we will misinterpret it. The cults invariably take scripture out of context on all of those points that separate them from orthodox Christianity. It is dangerous to take scripture out of context.
In order to avoid that danger, it is best to do a survey of a book before studying individual verses. On this page are going to learn how to do the first steps in a survey of a book.
As noted earlier, the first step in Bible study is to pray. If you have not read the page on "Prayer in Bible Study," let me suggest that you do so now, and then come back to this point.
Once you have prayed, the next step in the survey is to read through the book, preferably at one sitting. There are two options on this reading. The first is to engage in a word-for-word reading of the text, where the emphasis is on reading every word. This method works well for shorter books such as Ephesians or the letters of John. The danger of this method is that the student can get bogged down in details and never finish the survey.
The second option is to engage in a skimming or scanning of the book. This method is useful for longer books such as Isaiah, Genesis or Exodus. The idea behind this method is to get a general understand of where the book is going, to see the big picture and the main events, ideas and characters, but not to get bogged down in details. So, one moves rapidly over the text, skipping over genealogies and other lists. In modern day books, we often look at the Table of Contents and read the chapter titles to get an overview of a book's contents. But, the writers of the Bible did not give us a table of contents with each book. So, we can write our own. And that's the next step. Click on the page above titled "Chapter Titles."
