Reading Time: 5 minutesQuestion 1200. Some of the most commonly misinterpreted verses in the whole Bible are also some of the most quoted, which is exactly why the confusion spreads so widely. A phrase gets lifted out of its setting, repeated in a sermon illustration or a social media post, and eventually acquires a popular meaning that the…
Reading Time: 6 minutesQuestion 1188. If we want a model for biblical interpretation, we could have no better teacher than the Lord Jesus himself. He was raised on the Hebrew Scriptures, he quoted them constantly, and he settled every controversy of his earthly ministry by appeal to them. The way he handled the text is not one option…
Reading Time: 5 minutesQuestion 1182. The Antiochene school of biblical interpretation stands as the great historical counterweight to the allegorical excesses I described in What Was the Alexandrian School of Biblical Interpretation?, and its influence on how careful readers approach Scripture still matters today. Centred firmly in the ancient, historic Syrian city of Antioch, this tradition insisted on…
Reading Time: 5 minutesQuestion 1181. The Alexandrian school of biblical interpretation shaped how the early church read Scripture for centuries, and understanding it helps explain why so much older commentary reads so differently from the careful, literal-grammatical-historical method I use and teach today. Centred firmly in the great intellectual city of Alexandria in Egypt, this school of thought…
Reading Time: 5 minutesQuestion 1180. Can an ordinary believer genuinely study the Bible well without ever learning a word of Greek or Hebrew? I get this question often, usually from someone who has just discovered how much technical vocabulary surrounds serious Bible study and has quietly concluded that real depth is reserved for people with a seminary transcript….
Reading Time: 5 minutesQuestion 1179. Wisdom literature occupies a strange and wonderful middle section of the Old Testament, Job, Psalms, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, and Song of Solomon, and it is read badly more often than almost any other part of Scripture, precisely because readers bring the wrong expectations to it. Proverbs gets treated as a set of ironclad promises…
Reading Time: 6 minutesQuestion 1178. New Testament epistles make up a large part of the New Testament, thirteen from Paul alone, plus further letters from James, Peter, John, Jude and the writer to the Hebrews, and they contain some of the richest doctrinal teaching in all of Scripture, alongside deeply practical instruction for ordinary Christian living. Reading them…
Reading Time: 6 minutesQuestion 1177. Old Testament narrative makes up a larger share of Scripture than any other single genre, the accounts of Abraham and Sarah, Joseph and his brothers, the exodus from Egypt, David and Saul, Elijah and the kings of Israel, and yet it may be the genre most often misread in ordinary Bible study. Christians…
Reading Time: 9 minutesQuestion 1164. Interpreting biblical prophecy rightly is, I think, one of the more neglected disciplines in the church today, and one of the most abused outside it. Whole sections of the Old Testament, most of the Gospels’ final discourses, and the entire book of Revelation are prophetic material, and yet many believers approach these pages…
Reading Time: 6 minutesQuestion 1162. Biblical parables are, in my experience, some of the most loved and most misread passages in the whole Bible, because readers are tempted to hunt for a hidden meaning behind every single detail rather than asking what one main point Jesus was actually making. I want to give you the method I use,…