How to Study Scripture

When a Christian takes the Bible in, it becomes a preventative to sin. How shall a young man cleanse his ways? How do you clean your life up? People come to me from time to time and they say, I wish my life was clean. It's a mess.

How do I clean it up? By taking heed according to thy word. You see, the way to clean your life up is to learn the book. Welcome to Grace to You with John MacArthur. I'm your host, Phil Johnson. New Christian, long-time Christian, the Christian somewhere in between wherever you fall in the spectrum, or if you're outside that spectrum wondering what being a Christian is all about. You'll want to hear what John MacArthur says today on Grace to You as he begins his classic series, Spiritual Boot Camp. It's a look at the disciplines necessary for spiritual growth and a deeper relationship with Christ. Well, John, you know that proverb that people say, failure to prepare is preparing to fail.

And the study you're about to launch is all about preparation, preparation that a lot of people might not even think about. Yeah, and you're talking about preparation for the most important engagement you'll ever have in your life, the most important battle you'll ever fight, the most important walk you'll ever walk, life you'll ever live, and that, of course, is spiritual life. You're talking about living for Christ, and it takes preparation. And that is why we are going to do a series called Spiritual Boot Camp. This is your preparation. This is where you get all your training out of the way so that you can move forward and live a life that brings glory to Christ. There are some boot camp things that you need to be trained in, things like how to study the Scripture, so basic, how to pray, how to function in the body of Christ, that is how to use your gifts and talents in the life of the church, and how to witness.

Think about it. Those are really the four things that you are going to be facing in your Christian life—handling the Word of God, a life of prayer, functioning in the church, and witnessing to nonbelievers. I really love these basic lessons. In fact, they come from long, long ago in my ministry.

I love them, too. We actually did a video version of Spiritual Boot Camp in 1983, the year I began working at Graceview, almost 40 years ago. Couldn't use that anymore.

I looked like a high school student that long ago. But these are lessons originally given to a fairly small group, and that's still a great use for this series. And over the next week and a half, you're going to hear my lessons and the Q&A that followed those lessons, and I think you're going to find both the components helpful as you reconnect with these fundamentals. Some of you are new believers.

Some of you may be not even believers in Christ yet, but you're interested in the gospel. These are very, very vital foundational truths. So Spiritual Boot Camp awaits. Don't miss a day. That's right.

Stay with us. And friend, if you're a Christian, the world is not your own. In fact, it's hostile territory, and you need to be trained in the fundamentals if you're going to stand strong. That's what this study is all about.

So with that, here's John MacArthur calling you to attention for Spiritual Boot Camp. It is very obvious, I think, to every Christian that the Bible is the revelation of God, that God has written His Word for us. It is the only rule we have for life. It is the only standard we have for behavior.

It is the only authority. Now there may be other things that you learn in life that help you through life, but they don't have the authority that this does. When the Bible speaks, that is the voice of God, and it is authoritative, and it becomes then for us the standard of life. Now if that's the case, then it is very important for us to learn what the Bible says, to be able systematically to approach the Scripture and find out what it says. Not only what it says, but what it means by what it says. So in the life of every Christian, there must be that daily nourishing in the Word of God.

It is critical. First of all, it is necessary to study the Bible in order to grow. In 1 Peter 2, verse 2 says, Newborn babes desire the pure milk of the word that you may grow by it. Throughout the New Testament, Christians are spoken of as having been born again. You become a child of God. Repeatedly you're called a child or a son of God. You have been born into the family of God. You have been adopted as a son of God.

You sometimes are even called babes. Now that implies that there is the capacity of life and growth within a new Christian, and that of course is obvious. We are to be growing, and here he says, Peter does in 1 Peter 2, that we are to grow by the pure milk of the word, like babies grow. In Colossians chapter 2, it says in verse 6, as you therefore have received Jesus Christ the Lord, so walk in him, rooted and built up in him and established in the faith. And here again the idea that Christians are to grow, rooted and build up, and the way that that happens is through the faith. That is through the content of Christianity. The more we understand Christianity, the more established we are, the more built up we are.

In Acts chapter 20 in verse 32 where Paul is saying goodbye to the Ephesian elders, he says, I commend you to the word of his grace which is able to build you up. So the word is necessary if we are to grow, and growth is basic to usefulness. Babies aren't really that useful. I mean they're nice to have around. They're kind of cuddly and you pet them a lot and kiss them and do that kind of stuff, but you can't really do much with them. You can't say, all right, baby, go out and clean up the bedroom or whatever. You know, they're not really too helpful. And there are a lot of Christians like that that are just in the way.

You know, you trip open, they're always crawling around the floor messing with stuff, and they're really not a whole lot of use to anybody, and the longer they stay that way, the more tragic it becomes. And so we assume that you want to grow. We assume in Christian life that where there is life, there is growth. And so we desire that Christians would grow, and the way to grow is from the Bible, and so we must study the Bible.

Second thing, and we'll move ahead. The second reason that it is necessary to study the Bible is to defeat sin. We will never be able to defeat sin unless we defeat it with the Word of God. In Ephesians chapter 6, what is the armor that is used to fight against Satan? What is the one weapon the Christian had?

The sword of the Spirit, which is what? The Word of God. The thing that defeats Satan's temptation is the Word of God. There are a lot of Scriptures that relate to that. It says in Psalm 119 11, Thy word have I hidden in mine heart that I might not sin against thee.

When a Christian takes the Bible in, it becomes a preventative to sin. Listen, it says in verse 9 of Psalm 119, Wherewithal, or how shall a young man cleanse his ways? How do you clean your life up? People come to me from time to time and they say, I wish my life was clean. It's a mess.

How do I clean it up? By taking heed according to thy word. You see, the way to clean your life up is to learn the book. It is necessary, thirdly, to study Scripture in order to prepare yourself for service. In order to prepare yourself for service. You'll find that when you get into the service of the Lord, the knowledge of the Word of God becomes your support. So that when you get into a tough situation, you have confidence in it.

It becomes your information so that when you get into a situation, you know the principles to solve the situation. You know how to serve, you know the direction, you know how to operate to please God. It's critical that if you're going to serve the Lord, you know the Scripture. Otherwise, you'll go blindly into some activity thinking you're serving God while violating His principles.

Joshua 1 8 gives us insight into this. The book of the law, God's word, shall not depart out of thy mouth, but thou shalt meditate therein day and night. Meditate day and night that thou mayest observe to do according to all that is written therein. For then thou shalt make thy way prosperous and then thou shalt have good success. Success in your life is dependent upon the occupation with the Word of God. This brings success.

Alright, it is necessary to study the Scripture in order to be blessed. I don't know about you, but I like to be happy rather than sad. I'd much rather be happy than miserable. And I know that life is made up of miserable times and happy times.

But I also know this. That the more I study the Word of God, the happier I am no matter what the circumstances are. The Word of God makes me happy.

That's really practical. You say, where does it say that? Verse 1 of Psalm 1. Happy is the man who walks not in the counsel of the ungodly, nor stands in the way of sinners, nor sits in the seat of the scornful, but his delight is in the law of the Lord.

And in his law does he meditate day and night. That's a happy man. A happy man is somebody who studies the Bible.

That's a happy man. Alright, it is necessary also to study Scripture to help others. You really can't help anybody else unless you know something.

God never put a premium on ignorance. Your ignorance not only makes you unable to help yourself, but it makes you unable to help anybody else. And Christianity is all about helping other people, isn't it? How best can you help a person in trouble? By showing them God's solution to their trouble, right?

How best can you solve a person's problem? By knowing what the Bible says about their problem and how to handle it. So you help others when you know the Word of God. For example, 2 Timothy 2 says that we are to teach faithful men in order that they may teach others also. The only way we can teach other people the principles, the only way we can help other people is to learn the principles ourselves.

In 1 Peter 3.15, Sanctify the Lord God in your hearts. Be ready always to give an answer to every man that asks you a reason of the hope that is in you with meekness and fear. You need to know some answers.

You can't help anybody if you don't know any answer. I had a fellow come to me the other night that I'd been discipling and he said he got into a situation and he just, this guy was asking him questions and he couldn't think of the answers. And then when he thought of the answers he couldn't think of the verses to support them so the guy thought he was just giving his opinion. And so he said that did more to convict me of my lack of Bible study than anything that ever happened to me. So he went right back in, got his Bible and started studying the Bible like mad because he realized that he couldn't help the guy. Now those are some of the basics.

How is it done? How do we study the Bible? Well, first of all, there has to be some preparation. If you're going to read the Bible, study the Bible, there are some basic things you have to do to prepare. Again, we would look at 1 Peter 2 verse 1. Verse 2 says we're to study the Word to grow. Verse 1 says, laying aside all evil, all evil and all guile, that's deceit, all hypocrisy or phoniness, all envy and all evil speaking, that's talking about somebody behind their back. Put all that aside, then desire the milk.

Now what does that tell us? Before you can ever study the Bible with any effect, you've got to get rid of what? Sin.

You've got to deal with it. So before you approach the Scripture, what's a good way to start? With confession, a time of prayer. When you lay those things before the Lord and you confess your sin to the Lord, you purify your mind. Before God, then you become a willing and capable pupil of the Word of God. As long as your mind and heart and life is cluttered up with sin, you're never going to be able to grow. So preparation involves purification, and that is a good place to start. In James 1.21, put away all filthiness and overflowing of wickedness and receive with meekness the engrafted word, which is able to save your life. Now there is a general principle there. Sin being set aside, you become able to receive the Word of God.

And so this is important. So that's the preparation. Before you study each day, you spend a little time in prayer and confession. And you just acknowledge to the Lord whatever the sin might be and set it right, and then you go into the Word of God.

How do you actually study? First of all, it's important that you read. And you know, you have to believe that just reading the Bible is an exciting thing because God promises to bless somebody who reads the Bible. I've had people say this to me, you know, in different schools. They say, well, some parts of the Bible, you know, I don't understand. One guy said to me, I always avoid the book of Revelation. I never read that because that's just too weird.

I don't understand it. So I quoted in Revelation 1-3, Happy is he that reads, and they that hear the words of this prophecy. You want to be happy, read Revelation. That's a happy thing to read Revelation. You should be happy reading all about all that horror. You've got to read all the way to the end. Then you get happy. You get happy that you weren't in the other part. Revelation can be a very happy experience.

John says, when I tasted all of this, it was sweetness in my mouth, even though it was bitterness in my stomach. And so we are blessed, we are happy if we read. So it is important to read. When Paul was giving instruction to Timothy about how to preach, he says, first of all, read the Bible.

Read it. We need to do that. Set aside a time every day to read the Bible. Now I'll tell you how to do it, and I suggested this in the little book on God's Will is Not Lost.

This is a plan that really helped me. I used to struggle with the reading of the Bible. I'd read it, and I'd forget what I read the day before every time. And I'd read through a book, and I'd get done and wouldn't know anything about the book. And then I'd read another book, and then I didn't know anything about that one either. And I was just piling up tremendous ignorance and spending a lot of time doing it. You know, I was working real hard to be stupid.

And I couldn't retain anything. I began to think, well, probably the best way to read the Bible is to read it repetitiously. So I decided to start with 1 John, and that's what I would do.

Now I'll tell you how it works. You start with 1 John. It's a good place for you to start. 1 John is not an easy book. It's a simple book in many ways, but it has some great complexities, and you'll find that the more you read it, the more meat you'll begin to be able to receive. But you take 1 John, you sit down, and you read it straight through at one sitting. Now it'll only take you about 20, 25 minutes because it's five chapters, and it's not that tough. You just sit down and read it through. Do the second day, do the same thing third day, fourth day, fifth day, sixth day, seventh day, do the same thing.

Do the same thing for 30 days. Every day for 30 days, you've read through 1 John one time. At the end of those 30 days, you will know what's in 1 John. Somebody will say to you, where does it say, if we confess our sins, just say 1 John 1, right-hand column, halfway down, right on this end. You know, that'll be in your mind.

You know, if I were to say to you right now, quote me Romans 12, 1. That's the first thing you see in your mind. You see a page, you see a column, and you see a chapter heading, right? Because your mind creates a picture.

You cannot learn without a mental picture. And so, what's hard about Bible memory is that all the pages look alike. That's why I draw in my Bible a lot.

Because then every page has its own little quirks. And I see that page in my mind and I remember it. People ask me how I remember scripture. That's one way. I have little squigglies in different places in the Bible, little sweat marks or tears or rips or something, and I remember those.

Whatever works, right? And so, at the end of 30 days, you know what's in 1 John. Somebody says, where does it say, love not the world, neither things that are in 1 John 2, 15, right-hand page, right-hand column, halfway down, right over. You begin to know what's in 1 John.

Now, you haven't defined everything and you haven't studied everything out, but at least you know what the book is about. Now, about the 10th day, you're going to feel like you got it all licked. I don't need to keep doing this.

I know this thing. But you keep doing it and keep doing it. And the 30th day, you'll realize you really don't know much at all because the more you read it, the deeper it becomes. I remember when I did this, I went through 90 days because I began to get excited about 1 John. Now, you finish 1 John, then you go to the Gospel of John. Now, you say, well, wait a minute, John, that's 21 chapters. I don't have time.

Well, that's good. But you divide it into three sections of seven chapters. And you read seven chapters every day for 30 days, and then the second seven chapters from chapter 8 through 14, then chapter 15 to 21, see? So the first 30 days, you're reading 1 through 7 over and over and over and over and over and over.

The second 30 days, you're reading 8 through 14, the third 15 to 21. At the end of 90 days, you've knocked off the Gospel of John. At the end of two and a half years, you've knocked off the whole New Testament. Two and a half years, you'll be the only one on your block to do it, believe me.

Two and a half years and, well, you're going to study the Bible the rest of your life anyway, you might as well do it so you learn it. And then the thing that's going to happen is you'll be able to cross-reference. You'll be going through, oh, yeah, that's over there in Philippians 2.

Oh, I know, that's over there. And pretty soon, you'll cease to be a concordance cripple. Somebody asks, well, I don't know where it is, but I'll look up the word in the back here, see?

And you can't ever find anything. Pretty soon, by repetition, you'll begin to know where things are, and then you'll be able to go to those things. And then when somebody wants to answer the question, you have that answer. So just imagine if you'd have started two and a half years ago. Now, beyond reading, it is important that you study. You've read it, you've been reading it for two and a half years, and really, if you didn't do anything but just read it and come to church and listen and come to Bible studies and listen, that's fine.

That's a great way to start. But once you've gotten it all read, you're going to find out that you already are pretty well able to interpret it because the Bible is interpreted best by itself. All right, so then once you've read it all, then you begin to study it. Now, how do you study the Bible? For example, let me give you an idea. What about if you just decided, I'm going to study all the prayers of the Bible? That'd be a great study.

It'd take you a long time to do it. You start out in Genesis, find every time there was a prayer there and study about it. What did they say? Who prayed? What was he praying for?

What was the answer? Terrific. Then maybe you'd want to say, I think I'll study all the prayers of the Apostle Paul. What a tremendous study that would be. You can make any topic you want. I'd like to study the subject of forgiveness. So you could go to the bookstore and you could buy a little book that's called A Topical Index and you could look up the word forgiveness and it would tell you every passage in the Bible where forgiveness is discussed. And you could take that, look them all up, do a little study on that.

And that would be exciting. I would suggest, and I'll suggest some things in a minute, that you take some notes that I suggest for you in a minute because they can really be a great help to you. You could say, for example, I want to know about God's judgment. So I'm going to go through the book of Isaiah and find everything I could find in there about judgment.

And then I'll know something of why God judges and how he judges and what the response is. Another great way to study the Bible is biographically. Take somebody like Elijah and do a study on Elijah. Or take somebody like David and study the life of David.

That absolutely is fascinating. Or Joseph. Or find somebody really kind of offbeat like Ahithophel or something like that. Somebody who's just kind of a little bit of a strange character. Or take a character that's not talked about too much in the New Testament and try to dig a little bit and find out all that the New Testament says about him.

Maybe somebody like Andrew who isn't quite as predominant as others. Now, also in your study, read good books. Whatever your study is going to be on, find some good material on that.

Or get some tapes on that and get some outside input. You ought to find a good library wherever your area is, a good Christian library where you can check books out or where you can go and just sit and do some reading and reference books. There are good tapes available that supplement and you ought to purchase good books. Don't spend a lot of your money buying popular kind of Christian books.

You know what I mean? The kind of Christian book you read once because it's the testimony of somebody and that's it, you put it away. That's fine if you want to check it out of the library or maybe once in a while if somebody gives you one or you really want to buy one once in a while. But build your library on the books that are going to become reference books that you'll use again and again and again. For example, it's good to have a concordance, not the one in the back of your Bible, but one that has much more information than that because that one's very limited. And then it's important also to have a topical index.

There are many of them. There's all kinds of topical index books and all that means is you can go to that book and it'll tell you every scripture on any subject you want so you can study them, find out all there is about it. Really a helpful thing to have.

One other thing I would suggest is that you have a commentary. A commentary is a book that explains the meaning of the Bible. You can look up any passage in the Bible and it gives you a basic explanation of what it means. Very, very helpful. Okay, in studying the Bible then you want to study subjects, you want to study outside books so that you're studying in the Bible and you're studying those who have commented on the scripture as well. All right, one other thing in studying the Bible.

Very, very important. While you're studying, find somebody else that you can share your information with. Find somebody else that you can share your information with. If you're a parent, it may be one of your kids, it may be your spouse. If you don't have a family situation, it may be another Christian, it may be another person you've led to Christ.

I don't know, but find somebody that you can share your information with. Otherwise, you're not nearly as motivated to learn. The greatest motive that I have to study the scripture is the responsibility of the ministry. I have to be faithful to God to teach the people He's given me. If you don't have anybody that you're teaching, then you really don't have any motive beyond yourself. And sometimes it's hard to drum that up.

But if you've got some little bird in the nest who keeps opening its mouth and hollering for food, then you're going to have to be responsible to give it something. You say, but I'm a new Christian. Yeah, but there's a newer Christian than you. Or maybe there's somebody who isn't even one yet and you need to teach them. So find somebody that you can share the information you're learning with. Maybe it's even somebody who knows more than you do. Believe me, there are people who know less than I do about the totality of scripture who can minister to me because they have fresh insights. Or they see new things that I have never seen. Or they see new applications in their life.

Find somebody that you can share it with. One other thing in study, and that is find a pattern that you can follow. Find a human pattern that you can follow.

Very important. Maybe somebody like your teacher in a Bible study. It may be a very godly person that you know very well, another Christian brother or sister.

It could be any number of people, but find a pattern that you can follow. And you ought to somehow try to establish enough of a relationship with that individual to be able to speak with them and to concern yourself with the things in their life that would apply to you. Alright, one other area in terms of how it is to be done. Preparation, reading, study, fourthly, teaching.

Teaching. Now what we mean by this is submit yourself to teaching, good Bible teaching. May I add that this is never a substitute for your own study. Don't ever think that because you came to church and heard the sermon on Sunday morning and Sunday night and you went to the Bible study on Friday that you don't need to study on your own. If that's the case, you know what you've just forfeited?

All those things that we gave you in point number one in their fullest possible capacity. You are being benefited by teaching, but you are most benefited when you are being taught and when you are studying on your own. And you say, well, I haven't been a Christian long enough to study on my own. If you've been a Christian ten minutes, that's long enough. Get at it. Start.

So you want to be sure you submit yourself to a teacher. Be in a Bible class, be in a church service where somebody's teaching the Word of God. I see so many new Christians whose only orientation to Christianity is they sort of follow around the Christian stars.

You know, tonight we're having da-da-da-da in his orchestra. Wonderful saved Christian something or other. And so they gravitate over there and they hear Christian music. Well, over here they're showing the latest Christian movie. And over here they've got the greatest Christian ex-convict. And over here is the, you know, and they just go. They're sort of like vagabonds.

They just travel around to whatever's happening. Submit yourself to systematic teaching of the Word of God someplace. That's very, very important. You know, one of the things that we see so much in Christianity is when somebody gets saved, if they have anything that is marketable, the Christian community will suck them up and make a commodity out of them. I talked to a guy in his death bed who told me his life was destroyed as a Christian because he was a celebrity. He got saved. The Christian community marketed him as a saved celebrity and he spent the rest of his Christian life going around telling how wonderful it was to be a saved celebrity and never learned a single thing about the Christian life. Consequently, his whole life was defeated and he had terrible, terrible guilt because of all the sin in his life. He was trying to get up and tell everybody what wonderful thing it is to be a saved celebrity and the truth of the matter was that he was eating his heart out because he wasn't growing. That's a problem in Christianity.

I don't care if you are a celebrity. You still have to submit yourself to some teaching and some solid feeding by men who are gifted of God and given to the church to teach you. Very important. This is Grace to You with John MacArthur. He's Chancellor of the Masters University and Seminary and today's lesson showed you how to study Scripture and you'll hear more about that crucial discipline tomorrow when John continues his series, Spiritual Boot Camp. Now, in addition to looking at how to study the Bible, this series will cover prayer, your role in the church, and evangelism.

These are key aspects of growing as a Christian and being useful in your church. So let me encourage you to download the MP3s to review at your own pace as well as pick up the new Spiritual Boot Camp study guide when you contact us today. You can order the study guide at our website, gty.org, or call us at 800-55-GRACE. The Spiritual Boot Camp study guide costs $6 and shipping is free and it's a great resource for personal devotions or group studies. And again, you can download the entire Spiritual Boot Camp series at gty.org. Now, turning the corner, today's lesson on how to study the Bible is just one example of how this ministry helps equip believers around the world, showing people how to think through God's word on their own and how to develop discernment. And friend, know that when you support Grace To You, you take part in that ministry, helping strengthen believers in your area and across the globe. To partner with us, call 800-55-GRACE or make a donation online at gty.org. Or you can just write to us at Grace To You, Box 4000, Panorama City, CA 91412. Now for John MacArthur, I'm Phil Johnson, encouraging you to be here tomorrow when John will answer some of the most practical questions he's been asked about how to study the Bible. So don't miss this helpful Q&A. It's another 30 minutes of unleashing God's truth, one verse at a time, on Grace To You.