Swindoll Study Bible and Searching the Scriptures - Flipbook - Page 5
Searching the Scriptures
In my years of teaching and preaching the Word of God, I’ve encountered many followers of Jesus who express frustration and confusion about how to study the Bible: “It’s
long.” “It’s confusing.” “I can’t get through Leviticus.” These frustrations are real, and
they aren’t easy to overcome without some guidance from wise mentors. Therefore,
here I will share with you my time-tested method for studying the Bible. I learned this
method from Dr. Howard G. Hendricks, one of my favorite professors during my time
at Dallas Theological Seminary.
Once I learned Professor Hendricks’s Bible study method, I began to realize how
incomplete and inadequate my approach to the Scriptures had been for most of my
life. Though I had slowly grown in my knowledge of God’s Word prior to taking his
class, I didn’t have a consistent method of studying the Bible’s truths and interpreting
them—one that would lead to insightful and accurate applications of the Scriptures.
While I had been sincere and committed during those earlier years, my method had
lacked a systematic, trustworthy approach.
Thanks to what I learned in this magnificent course of study from “Prof” Hendricks,
I finally discovered how to engage in a meaningful and reliable process of searching
the Scriptures. I want to share it with you now.
Before Getting Started
Fruitful Bible study requires a good plan, but there are some things you need to get
started—you need a few simple tools, and you need a particular condition of the heart.
First and foremost, in order for you to do your own work in the Scriptures, it’s essential
to consider the crucial matters of the heart. In order to understand the Scriptures, you
must know the Lord and be walking the path of daily purity and humility. Integrity
and purity go hand in hand. You also need willingness—a personal desire to follow
the Lord.
I can tell you from my experience over these many years that when I open the
Scriptures I can’t wait to get into them, because I have cultivated a willingness to allow
the Word of God to get into me! Another essential for studying the Scriptures is passion. When you become motivated to study God’s Word, such excitement becomes
contagious and begins to rub off on others. You and I are to go after truth the way
someone in love pursues his or her beloved. Another thing you need to do is set aside
time specifically for studying the things of God. It takes time to pray, meditate, and
turn thoughts over in your mind. These aren’t things that happen overnight. You’ll
need to invest time in order to make them happen.
Having addressed those conditions of the heart—integrity, willingness, passion,
and time—you’ll also need some tools. First of all, you’ll need a Bible—specifically,
a Bible that is in a translation you can understand. You’ll also need a concordance,
an alphabetical listing of the primary words in the Bible, so that you can more easily
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