The Spiritual Qualifications for effective study of God’s Word
Liberty University - Greek Language Tools, Class, NGRK 506
Part 1 of 3
You must be born again
1) John 3:5-7 –You cannot really understand God’s word without being born again. The Holy Spirit’s teaching ministry is available to you if you are saved, because He indwells you.
2) 1 Cor. 2:14-16 – Spiritual things are discerned through the Holy Spirit.
Unless you are saved, you will find God’s Word to be merely a collection of old stories and moral principles with little connection to your life.
You must have a passion to know God's word
Ps. 119:34 – Give me understanding, and I shall keep Your law; Indeed, I shall observe it with my whole heart (NKJV).
Knowing the Bible cannot be merely an academic exercise—though it must be that as well, and as a foundation for much else. Nor can it be merely a matter of “getting up a sermon” for Sunday. You must really care deeply what God has to say to you in the Bible, and want to discover it.
You must have a deep reverence for God
See your work of exegesis and using the Greek tools as a matter of loving God, not just finding information. As you examine each verb and adjective, noun and pronoun, and labor to understand each preposition, don’t seek just for understanding. Remember that these are the keys to unlock everything God has said to us. Exegesis should be for you a labor of love. By encountering God’s word very closely and exactly, you will find yourself in touch with what He has to say, not only to you personally but also to the church for all time. If we love Him, that should motivate us to deep study and exacting care in handling God’s word.
Do not make the mistake of “reading the Bible devotionally for a word from God” and then doing deep study for sermon preparation. All study of God’s word is “devotional” even if you are preparing a sermon or lesson—and your devotional reading will be rather poor devotional reading if it is separated from sound interpretive principles and good exegesis.
You must depend on the Holy Spirit to guide and direct
The Bible promises that the Holy Spirit will guide us into all truth. We must take this seriously. Go to God’s word with a prayer for illumination in your heart. When you lay your Bible, concordance and other tools out for use, imagine that your desk is an altar, and you are laying these items, and even more, your very mind, on the altar as an offering to God for service to Him and to His church.
Spiritual Preparation for Exegesis
Pray for wisdom and understanding as you begin
(For the Lord gives wisdom; From His mouth come knowledge and understanding; He stores up sound wisdom for the upright. Prov. 2:6-7a, NKJV).
Have a consistent, systematic study time
(For Ezra had set his heart to study the law of the Lord, and to practice it, and to teach His statutes and ordinances in Israel. Ezra 7:10, NASB77).
If, for reasons of work or other schedules you cannot set aside the same time every day, be sure to plan and set aside some time every day to study God’s Word.
Do original investigation
(These were more fair-minded than those in Thessalonica, in that they received the word with all readiness, and searched the Scriptures daily to find out whether these things were so. Acts 17:11, NKJV)
Be teachable
(All your children shall be taught by the Lord, And great shall be the peace of your children. Isaiah 54:13, NKJV).
Make direct applications
(For if anyone is a hearer of the word and not a doer, he is like a man observing his natural face in a mirror; for he observes himself, goes away, and immediately forgets what kind of man he was. But he who looks into the perfect law of liberty and continues in it, and is not a forgetful hearer but a doer of the work, this one will be blessed in what he does James 1:23-25, NKJV).
This is the last step, and will be covered much later in the course, but be aware that it is a step in the process.
Share what you learn with others
(And the things that you have heard from me among many witnesses, commit these to faithful men who will be able to teach others also, 2 Tim 2:2, NKJV)
The activity of Exegesis
The place of the tools
Never place any commentary or interpreter in judgment above the Word of God. Never place your own interpretation above the Word of God (This is hard to avoid, for we don’t often see our own biases. Good exegesis will help correct your interpretation in light of what God’s Word actually says.
You need to use good exegetical and interpretive tools -- in order to avoid:
1) A veiled egotism -- "I don't need the help of scholarship. I get truth directly from God by studying His Word!
2) Confusing your own ideas with what God’s Word says. This happens when we read the Bible with an eye to “finding a word from the Lord” (which usually means “finding a verse that gives us an emotional charge”). This is not good Bible study, and can lead you astray.
3) Misunderstanding due to lack of knowledge of biblical words and their meaning. God has chosen to communicate with us through words, specifically the words of the Bible. We are responsible before Him to know what these words actually say, and to believe them, and to live our lives in light of them.
A caution about commentaries and background books
Never let them replace your work with the Scriptures. Remember the preacher who once said, “I picked up a Bible this week. It shed interesting light on my commentaries.” This course should help you get into God’s word more deeply so that you can understand and present it more accurately. Let nothing take the place of the Bible in your ministry, but let the tools and resources point you more deeply into the Bible as you come to understand it better and better over time.
