Studying the Bible Can Be Dangerous

It seems to me that Bible study may be the primary activity in the life of most churches—even more so than worship.

In any given church, consider how many different groups meet to study the Bible—on Sundays and through the week, at the church building and in homes or offices or over coffee or for breakfast. What might the total number of participants be? How many hours are invested each week in the study of the Bible? Although United Methodists (and others) make worship the central focus of their life together, the number of groups, the number of people participating, and the number of hours invested suggest Bible study is the primary activity of the church.

Given the amount of time and energy invested in Bible study, a logical question would be: what does that investment produce? What is the outcome of all that study? How is any church member different after studying the Bible for twenty or thirty or forty or fifty years? What difference does the study make in the life of the participants or in the life of the church or in the life of the community? To my knowledge, these kinds of questions are seldom asked.

What Bible study produces is dependent on how the study is done.

Done well, studying the Bible can be life-changing. The apostle Paul taught that our lives are transformed as we learn to think differently. “Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your minds,” Romans 12:2. “The renewing of your minds” refers, as I understand it, to thinking shaped by the character of God and the ways of God. This new way of thinking displaces the way the world trained us to think. The exhortation “do not be conformed to this world,” in the original, is “stop being conformed.” The world has already trained us how to think. That thinking has shaped how we live. We only move beyond the shaping influence of the world by learning to think differently—with the mind of Christ (1 Corinthians 2:16). Studying the Bible is a primary means by which we learn to think different, by which our thinking begins to be shaped by the character of God and the ways of God. Thus, Bible study can be life-changing—if it is done well.

So how do we study the Bible so that it is life-changing?

First and foremost, we read and interpret the Bible in light of the life and teachings of Jesus. Jesus is the fullest revelation of who God is and of the ways of God. As the writer of Hebrews said, “He is the reflection of God’s glory and the exact imprint of God’s very being,” Hebrews 1:3. The Bible does not displace Jesus as the fullest revelation of God. Jesus, not the Bible, is the last word about God and the ways of God. Thus, the life and teachings of Jesus guide how we interpret the Bible.

We read and study books of the Bible rather than independent snippets, randomly chosen. In doing so, we read and interpret individual stories in light of their larger context, the flow of thought within the book itself.

We read and interpret the Bible in light of a text’s historical, cultural context. To whom was the text written? What was the situation the text addressed? What did the biblical writer say to those in that situation? We seek to understand the human dimension of the text so that we can understand the divine dimension, the spiritual truth expressed in the text.

We read and interpret the Bible with a teachable spirit. We study with an openness to what God would say to us. We read with the intent of learning and growing—growing in our knowledge of God and the ways of God, growing in our relationship with God, growing in the likeness of Christ. In other words, we read with a clearly defined purpose: to grow spiritually. We read as the followers of Jesus seeking to grow in our discipleship—i.e., through the lens of discipleship.

We read and interpret the Bible in conscious dependency upon the Spirit of God. The Spirit teaches us the things of God that Jesus taught (John 14:25-26). The Spirit orchestrates and guides the transformation of our hearts and minds that leads to a transformed life (2 Corinthians 3:18).

We reflect on, think about, and meditate on the spiritual truth the Spirit revealed to us in our study. The study is not over until the spiritual truth is incorporated into our thinking and into our lives. The ultimate objective of Bible study is the renewing of the mind that produces a transformed life.

Bible study that follows these principles should carry a warning label: Beware! Proceed with caution! Studying the Bible has been known to change how you think!

While studying the Bible has life-changing potential, I have not seen much of the kind of transformation Paul spoke of—moving beyond the way the world trained us to think, thinking shaped by the character of God and the ways of God, lives patterned after the life of Jesus—come out of most Bible studies. Which naturally leads to the question, why not? The answer lies in how we study the Bible.

What I have observed about most Bible studies, particularly in adult Sunday School classes, is that Bible study is secondary to the fellowship the class shares. Relationships, not growing as the followers of Jesus, are the primary driver of most adult Sunday School classes. The Bible study that is offered often is based upon another person’s thought—a denominational resource such as a “quarterly” or a book someone has suggested. Studies generally deal with an isolated text without awareness of the larger context. The text is used to support a theme the writer wants to communicate or an agenda the teacher has. This use of a text generally ignores the spiritual truth the biblical author attempted to communicate to the original audience. Many read and study the Bible seeking validation for what they already believe and think. They read, looking for facts to believe. As a result, they remain unchanged in how they think or how they live.

The term “recycling” could be used to describe this kind of Bible study—old ways of thinking, old beliefs, old understandings being recycled and used again. I once heard Sunday School described as shared ignorance, passed down and passed around.

Studying the Bible can be dangerous. How we study the Bible determines what the danger is—a transformed life through the renewing of the mind or a life unchanged through recycled thinking and beliefs.