Twelve Keys to Investigative Bible Study

by G.S. Augustine

Learning to observe

Whether it is Sherlock Holmes, Columbo, or Danny Reagan of Blue Bloods, they all notice the small details that others miss.  The key to their success is they’ve learned to see things out of place, make connections between scattered clues, and identify patterns where others see only disorder. In the Sherlock Holmes stories, there is Inspector Lestrade, a somewhat inept detective from Scotland Yard who may as well be sorting clues with a cricket bat.  Rather than truly observing the details in a case in front of him, he simply assumes what he expects to see is what actually is. 

When studying the Bible many students and even many bible teachers approach the material not unlike Inspector Lestrade, assuming what is there is what they expect to see. Unless conscious effort is made, this will be our default position.  This is especially difficult when a passage sounds like something we have read elsewhere.  It is tempting to think that what is referred to before will be the same here and important insights will be lost.

What You Expect to See

For instance, in 1 Timothy 2:3 Paul writes: “For there is one mediator between God and man, the man Christ Jesus.” In a Bible Study I attended, the leader immediately said, “Ah now we know what this is about. Jesus is the only way of salvation!”  He then pivoted to John 14:6 where Jesus says, “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father but through me” and expounded the way of salvation.  But this is sorting with a blunt object.

What Is Actually There

Now Paul would have said about the leader’s approach something like, “You are right about Jesus, but that is not the point I’m making.”  A closer look at the first two verses of 1 Timothy 2 and the five verses after verse three, we notice that Paul’s subject is prayer, particularly for those in authority (kings) and the purpose of that is so we might live peaceful lives.  Paul is saying that God is the ultimate authority, not pagan kings, and there is only one human king who has access to God’s authority, the man Christ Jesus.  Bear in mind the foundational meaning of the word “Christ” or “Messiah” (the Anointed One) is King.

But the larger context of 1 Timothy 2 is Paul’s line of thought in 1 Timothy 1:5, “The goal of our instruction is love from a pure heart, a good conscience and a sincere faith.” The rest of the letter essentially expands on this thought with the question, “How do you love this way in a fallen, violent world?”  Well for one thing, says Paul, pray for kings and leaders because they are flawed and they are not ultimately in control.  There is another king and only he has access to ultimate authority.  It is also interesting that the last seven verses of 1 Timothy 2 concern a woman’s submission to authority.

What Causes This?

So how did that Bible Study leader miss this? Simply, he wasn’t careful to observe what was actually there because he defaulted to what he expected to be there. In doing so he missed what was transformative in the passage.  What he taught had participants nodding their heads to his profound doctrine but gaining really nothing from the passage.  The real problem with this approach is seeking to confirm doctrines we’re convinced of as the point of Bible study.  

At this point, a warning about theology:  the biggest obstacle to clear observation of Bible texts is our commitment to a certain theology.  Don’t get me wrong. Theology is helpful for gaining a shorthand way of organizing our understanding of God, salvation, the church, the return of Christ, etc., but ultimately only the Bible has God-breathed inspiration and authority.  If we are not careful, human theological constructions will replace what is actually there with what our theology expects to be there.  Remember, our theology is suppose to conform to the Bible, not the Bible to our theology.  

Steps In Careful Observation

So how do you learn to do detective style Bible study with confidence that you’re building your conclusions on solid ground? Like any skill, the more you practice, the better you get.  But with the right tools anyone can become proficient in a surprisingly short time.  The chart below will walk you through some of the things to observe in a passage and some mistakes to avoid making.

However, careful observation is only the foundation of accurate Bible Study.  Observation is not all that is necessary for understanding the Bible. Learning how to understand the original intentions of the Biblical authors is the other great task, but if you fail to observe properly, your conclusions will be built on faulty foundations.

What To Think Thru	Why This Is Important	Bible Examples
1.  Knee-jerk Assumptions Be careful to observe exactly what is being said and more importantly what is not being said	Our minds often supply ideas to Bible statements when they are not there.  This usually happens when we allow our theology to interpret meaning before we’ve actually observed the passage.   In the end, it may be proper to supply the missing idea, but we don’t want to do this before carefully observed.	Ephesians 2:1 “… you were dead in your transgressions and sins” It does not say, “spiritually dead.” It just says “dead.”  Supplying the word “spiritual” is a knee-jerk conclusion related to a particular theological perspective.  Physical death is possible. Adam was told “in the day you eat of it, you shall surely die” referring to physical death. Paul could be saying, “You were like dead men walking” and that physical death was embodied in them through sin.
2. Unverified Definitions Avoid missing what the Bible means by defaulting to clever preaching illustrations or modern definitions.	The Bible was written in Ancient Hebrew and Hellenistic Greek not English or other Modern languages.  We must not extend all that we know of an English or modern language word into the text. The Greek or Hebrew word may used in the text may not carry the same weight.	Ephesians 2:1 from above Extending the idea of the word “dead” to mean sinners cannot respond to anything (like someone dead) and therefore are incapable of responding to God until he makes them alive goes beyond the text.  Even our English word can mean other things like “I’m dead when my dad finds out.” Dead there just means “severe consequences.”
3.  Geographical Locations Observe the geographical place markers and ask, “Has anything important happened here before	The Bible does not add extraneous information.  When a Bible writer mentions a place, he is often invoking prior history to that place and intends to add that theological significance about the event he’s telling us about.	John 1:28 “This all happened at Bethany on the other side of the Jordan where John was baptizing.” Question:  What is special about this place? It is the place where the waters parted for Joshua and Israel to go into Palestine (Josh 3) and where Elijah and Elisha parted the Jordan river and crossed (2 Kings 2) and where Naaman, the Aramean, was cleansed of leprosy (2 Kings 5).  This is a place of God’s past salvation activity and  recalling God’s past promises.
4. Time Markers Observe phrases like “After this” “Immediately” “The next day” “That same day” “After six days” “Early in the morning” “After the Sabbath” “In the year of”	Time references are placed to give the reader clues to the pace of the narratives, to signal new sections or to connect to the preceding one. They are also used to connect different narratives together to the one under present consideration.	Isaiah 6:1 “In the year that King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord seated on a throne …” (temple scene) King Uzziah died c. 740 BC and marked the beginning of the end of God’s patience with Israel and Judah.  King Uzziah also entered the temple of God to make a sacrifice resevered solely for chief priests and was struck with leprosy till the day he died (2 Chron 26:16-21).  Isaiah who was not a priest finds himself in God’s heavenly temple before the Lord similar to Uzziah and is rightly terrified.  See Isaiah 6:5
5. Speakers and Audiences Who are the primary listeners? The Secondary ones? Who is speaking and under what conditions? What is the conditions of the hearers?	Bible writers often tell us something about the condition of the speaker or hearer: what he’s been through, if he’ hungry, afraid, angry, ashamed, tired, longing for something, etc.  This is often an important factor in the author’s message. In John 4, Jesus is hungry and tired but says that he is somehow fed and refreshed. We are reminded of Deuteronomy 8:3-4.	Luke 5:4-5 Jesus asks Simon (a secondary listener to the passage) to let down nets for a catch after Jesus spoke to the crowd.  “Master,” says Simon, “we’ve worked hard all night and caught nothing but because you say so, I will let down the nets.”  Simon is exhausted, up all night working and now all morning.  He lives by the sea and is from generations of fishermen whereas Jesus, he knows lives inland and is from carpenters knowing next to nothing about fishing.  Midday is a lousy time to fish.  What does Simon see in Jesus that makes him go against his otherwise better fisherman’s judgment? And is Luke asking us to understand something important about faith?
6. Repeated Words Observe words repeated three times or more and ask, “Is the author making this word central to his message?”	Gertrude Stein famous phrase “A rose is a rose is a rose” is applicable to all literature.  Writers repeat words and phrases to give emphasis and in the case of Bible writers, it becomes a space saving device.  Remember, writing materials were scarce and expensive.  They tended to use them efficiently.	Genesis 1-3 In Genesis 1 God sees what He made as “good” six times.  In Genesis 2 God sees something that is “not good”: man being alone.  He also tells the man he “must not eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and bad.”  (Good and Evil is a poor translation of the Hebrew word which simply means “bad” in the sense of “not good.” In Genesis 3, the woman calls something “good” that God said was “not good” i.e. “She saw that the tree was ‘good’ for food and able to make one wise.” The point being made?  God is the only source of knowing what is “good or not good.” When humans take on this role, their decisions bring death.
7. Repeated Phrases Similar to above but with the added idea that the repeated phase is like a flashing light pointing to an important theological purpose	Particularly in the prophets but elsewhere writers will repeat a phrase as an indicator of the purpose of the statements or actions by either the principle characters or of God Himself.  These phrases limit the application of certain ideas in the Bible to that purpose and may be connecting many passages together into a large theme	Nine times in Exodus, Deuteronomy 29:6, 1 Kings 20:13, 28, Isaiah 49:26, Jeremiah 24:7, Joel 3:17, and 72 times in Ezekiel “Then they (or you) shall know that I am the Lord” Most of these passages refer to judgements on the nations or Israel and the purpose given for these judgments are that humans will know that he is God. To conclude, at least in these passages, that God purpose in judging nations is to insure justice may make one wonder why he overlooks so many other evils.
8. Problem – Solution Progressions Observe a problem that may develop over several chapters and then a solution might be introduced next chapter	Sometimes a big picture approach and will take skill in identifying properly.  However, whole narratives or discourses can be built around this pattern which will determine much about the writers intention and message.  It can also be used in shorter Bible sections as well.	Genesis 12:3 “And all the peoples of earth will be blest thru you.” In Genesis 4-11, violence rules, God saves Noah’s family out of it, but the pattern repeats at Babel.  God confuses languages, creates competing nations to prevent world dominance, but in Abraham sets in motion a solution to reunite the world under God.
9.  Identifying and Ranking Ideas Identify the chief idea in a passage and what ideas are subservient	Focusing on a side issue and making that the center of interpretation distorts the message of the writer and misses the point he is making.  One method for this is sentence and paragraph diagraming, graphing out nouns, verbs and modifiers and what modifies what.	Ephesians 4:1-16 “He gave some as apostles, some as evangelists, etc.” Spiritual gifts has been taught in ways that divided the church into factions, but Paul says the purpose of gifts is unity. “Make every effort to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace.” v. 3, “until we all reach the unity of the faith” v. 13, “From him the whole body, joined and held together by every supporting ligament, grows and builds itself up in love, as each part does its work.” Clearly an emphasis that doesn’t encourage unity is in error.
10. Juxtaposition or the Principle of Selectivity Observe how writers place ideas and events next to each other for shaping their message	Bible writers place ideas or events next to each other in order to get us to see them together.  This is all over the Bible and impossible to show in depth here. Gospels use this extensively. In Mark 4-8 there are 3 sets of the following: 3 miracles followed by opposition to Jesus, followed by teaching.	Genesis 3-6 Genesis 3 relates the fall of the first couple.  In Genesis 4, the killing of Abel by Cain immediately follows though maybe 30 years or more elapsed. Cain’s genealogy is interrupted to tell about Lamech who kills a man and justified it to his wives. Genesis 5 has centuries pass in a single chapter. Then Genesis 6:11 says violence is ruling the world.  Violence is a central affect of the fall and the author wants us to know it.
11. Symbolism Identify the central teaching point to symbols and parabolic material	As in all literature, symbols are used to illustrate and give visual depictions to appeal to our senses to make a deep impressions.  As with all symbols, it is necessary to limit the interpretation to the author’s central point and not take symbols as though describing actual reality without strong evidence.	Revelation 14:9-10 “If anyone worships the beast … he will be tormented with burning sulfur in the presence of holy angels.” Revelation is full of images and symbols. In Rev 13 beasts coming out of the sea are mentioned; a symbol but not a literal description.  To use the above passage in Rev 14 to say God will gleefully torture humans who reject his rule is not warranted. That the experience will still be horrific is.
Literary Devices Observe literary techniques writers use to group, emphasize, or develop ideas	Ancient writers used many techniques to compress a wide range of thoughts within a manageable space that can be understood across cultures and generations. Like good poetry, it stays fresh even after hundreds of years.  It is no accident that we still find Shakespeare compelling.	See Most Commonly Used Devices by Ancient Writers Chart Since there are many types of literary devices in use in the Bible, some of which have been actually described above already (e.g. selectivity, repetition, symbolism), a chart below gives examples of some of the major devices used in the Bible.

Common Biblical Literary Devices

Although not exhaustive, below is a chart of seven of the most commonly used literary devices in Biblical literature. Learning to identify these devices in any particular passage of Scripture will take practice. Further, understanding fully how these literary devices help understanding is also a process. But “seeing” the structure of a passage helps greatly in understanding the whole scope of the author’s thought process and what parts go together to create a whole picture. Seeing all the parts of a particular picture prevents us from focusing on fragments of ideas that lead to distorted interpretations.

Device	Use	Example
Inclusio Verse or verses that are repeated before and after a section	Used to bracket a section so that it can be all seen together as a single unit much like quote and end quotes or like parenthesis and end parenthesis.  This device is used extensively throughout the Bible to group several chapters or simply a paragraph or two.  Used a lot in Proverbs 10-23.	Matthew 4:23 and 9:35 (with only slight variation) “Jesus went throughout Galilee (towns and villages), teaching in their synagogues, preaching the good news of the kingdom and healing every disease and sickness (among the people).” This verse precedes the famous Sermon on the Mount and is repeated after 9:34.  Matthew wanted us to see the whole of chapters 5-9 as a single unit.  This means that we need to see the teaching of the Sermon on the Mount in 5-7 as connected to the Miracles of chapters 8-9 either as an expression of the teaching or as a logical outcome of the teaching.
Parallelism Often consecutive verses that say things in similar ways but also help to narrow the definition of terms as the writer intends us to see them.	Used in the poetry of the Psalms and Proverbs but also found in bible narratives and is extensively used in Parables. Types: synonymous-lines alike antithetical-lines opposite formal-lines express 1 idea synthetic-2nd builds on 1st emblematic-1st line symbol illustrates 2nd	Synonymous: Psalm 19:1 The heavens declare the glory of God The skies proclaim the work of His hands Antithetical: Proverbs 10:27 The fear of the Lord adds length to life But the years of the wicked are cut short Formal: Psalm 2:6 I have installed my King On Zion, My holy hill.   Synthetic: Psalm 66:18 If I had cherished sin in my heart The Lord would not have listened Emblematic: Proverbs 25:14 Like clouds and wind without rain Is a man who boasts of gifts he does not give
Inverted Parallelism (aka Chiasm) Named after the Greek letter Chi (X).  Verses are parallel in X-like pattern:        ——A                ———B                       ————–C                ———-B’          —–A’	Writers use this pattern to build up ideas around a central thought.  The center of the Chiasm (C) is the author’s most important idea.  The pattern can vary in structure using a few verses or in the case of Luke’s travel narrative, the pattern has 19 levels from Luke 9:51-19:48 centered in 13:22-35. Used extensively in the Bible with many variations.	Luke 15:8-10 Or suppose a woman has ten silver coins     —–A  And loses one            ———-B  Does she not light a lamp, ———–sweep … seek … and finding it —————-C  She calls together her —————friends saying rejoice w. me ———-B’ For I found the coin      —–A’ Which was lost Even so, there is more rejoicing in heaven over one sinner who repents.
Cruciality The turning point in a narrative or discourse that the beginning built up to and the end recedes away from	Used in a similar manner as a Chiasm though not with the same strict form.  It can simply be the high or crucial point that drives the narrative or discourse	2 Samuel 11 David’s sin with Bathsheba and Uriah From 2 Samuel 1-10, the writer chronicles David’s unparalleled successes everywhere he turns.  After chapter 11, the writer chronicles one disaster after another in David’s family: the baby, Tamar and Amon, Absalom’s rebellion, estrangement of Joab, etc.  The writer wants us to see David’s sin with Bathsheba and Uriah as the turning point of his life.
Parable Literally “To place or cast along side.” A vivid story told to emphasize a singular point	Used to avoid speaking directly about a subject that might not be welcomed and to allow the hearer to place themselves in the story and repent. All over the Bible not just in the gospels.  Takes practice to achieve careful analysis.  See works of Kenneth E. Bailey	2 Samuel 12:1-4 “There were two men in a certain town, one rich, the other poor.”  (The rich man had large herds, the poor man had only one ewe lamb that was like a daughter to him.  The rich man took the poor man’s lamb to cook for a guest.) The rich man was David, the poor man was Uriah, the lamb, Bathsheba.  The point was to get David as King to see he and we, no matter our position, are not above God’s law and repent.
Recapitulation Telling a story a second time with new characters reliving or recapitulating previously told events	Used to compare one event with another either to show same or opposite results.  Often to show recurring tendencies in people of different eras	Genesis 16:3-4 Recapitulating Genesis 3:6 “Sarai, his wife took her Egyptian maidservant Hagar and gave her to her husband to be his wife.  He slept with Hagar and she conceived.”  “When the woman saw that the tree was good for food and able to make one wise, she took some and ate it.  She also gave some to her husband who was with her and he ate it.” The verses in Genesis 16 recapitulate the fall in Genesis 3.  The author wants us to relate these stories together and in Hebrew, the same wording is used for the woman taking and giving to her husband.  The point being that Abraham, though called to be the one in whom God would reunite the world in peace is also part of the problem that needs to be solved.  He is a true son of Adam.
Personification Giving personality to something inanimate or using personal pronouns in place of a collective people	Used to allow something like Wisdom in proverbs to be able to speak to the audience with the concerns and personality of a caring guardian but also used to make personal something that might be swept aside as irrelevant to us	Romans 7:9 “Once I was alive apart from the law; but when the commandment came, sin sprang into life and I died.” From Romans 7:7-25, Paul is using the rhetorical device of personification.  He is using the first person “I” and “me” to represent the whole nation of Israel and what purpose the Law was given to Israel. He uses the first person to identify with Israel as a Jew but he is not talking about his own backsliding. It is also not about own personal struggle with keeping the law, although that would be true.  This is a theological argument comparing the failure of the law and the need for grace.  Failure to notice personification has made this passage inscrutable to generations of believers.