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Some guidelines for Bible Study

Prepared by Dr. Wong Wai Ching for SELF 2001

DON'Ts

1. Don't read the Bible as a proof text to argue for your own cause. E g. Many argue that man is superior to woman because in Gen 2 God has created man first and woman second. However, in Gen 1, God has created human beings last and made it the climax of Divine creation.

2. Don't use the Bible literally or follow it word by word. E g. There are just too many texts in books such as Leviticus and Numbers that we could not use any longer.

3. Don't take any one interpretation as the only interpretation of a particular text; every text has variegated meanings at the same time. Eg. If you read the four different gospels, you find four different understandings of Jesus. And if you read Paul, you would wonder how many does Paul really knows about Jesus.

4. Don't use only the text you are most familiar with; use a good number of different texts and prepare for the surprises. Eg. How many of you have read Matt. 1?

5. Don't let the written words stand between God and us, revelation of God to us continues through and beyond the written text of the Bible. Church fathers through the early centuries all read the Bible differently and remember Luther who declares that the Book of James has no use for Christians and should be taken out of the Cannon. There is a continuous tradition of understanding the Biblical text in our different contexts.

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DOs

1. Read the Biblical text in its context. Eg. The word "help" in Hebrew context is not domestic help (as many would read in Eve's role) but an act of salvation most of the time led by God.

2. Read a particular passage in light of the whole structure or message of the whole text. Sometimes one book may contain two or more contradictory messages. Eg. Abraham is called the father of faith but remember how little faith he has when he lied about Sarah being his sister instead of his wife in face of Pharoah's interest in the woman.

3. Read the Bible in our context. What are the questions we are most concerned with in our community? How does the text illuminate our situation? What does God say to us here and now through the text? The answers to the last question would never be direct. It has to be an understanding work out through a serious effort of wrestling with the possible meaning of the text as well as a self-understanding of ourselves and our contexts.

4. Always locate the voice/silence of the underprivileged in our text. The Bible has been mostly written by the elitist class and kept by those who have a lot of say to what should be kept as the "tradition." But many times the "real" picture with the community/communities within the context of the Bible could provide extremely important information for us to understand the richness of the world in the Bible.

5. Ask all the questions that come to your mind. This is the key to open up a most genuine dialogue with our Biblical text and through it our God. New questions can always bring new insights to our understanding of the Bible and find the most relevant messages to us and the community in contexts.