I previously explained how to study a bible, but this time I’m going into more detail about how to pick a passage for bible study.
The simplest, most basic way to do it is to pick any passage you want to know more about. Follow your curiosity. Sometimes the reason you’re curious about that passage is ’cause the Holy Spirit is nudging you about it. Other times it’s much less supernatural: You want to understand it better. And the Spirit isn’t gonna discourage wanting to know the bible better. On the contrary; he’s all for it. So run with that.
For today’s example I’ll use the often-quoted verse, “Not by might, nor by power, but by my Spirit, says the LORD.” It was even made into a worship chorus in the 1980s, and of course other musicians have set it to music in other ways. Of course, once you run it through Google you’ll find it comes from Zechariah 4.6.
Now, as I keep harping, we must read these verses in context if we’re gonna understand them properly. Yes, “Neither by might nor power, but my Spirit” sounds nice and inspirational: We assume it means God’s gonna achieve stuff not through human effort, but by his own. Or we assume it means God’s not gonna achieve stuff physically, but spiritually—whatever that means. Or we assume it means God can achieve the impossible. We assume a lot of things. We shouldn’t. We need to look at context and see what it really means.
So let’s turn to Zechariah 4, and see how much context we gotta read in order to understand this verse.
…And if you’re already groaning, “You mean I gotta read more?”—fight that attitude. It’s laziness and complacency. People are perfectly happy to continue to believe their assumptions, without ever checking to see whether they’re correct or justified. Remember, we are wrong. Jesus is right. We’re never gonna grow as Christians when we assume we already know it all. Yes, you gotta read more. You always gotta read more. Growth must continue forever.
The context: Zechariah 4.
Big long quote time, ’cause I’m gonna quote the entire chapter.
Then the angel who had been talking with me returned and woke me, as though I had been asleep. “What do you see now?” he asked.
I answered, “I see a solid gold lampstand with a bowl of oil on top of it. Around the bowl are seven lamps, each having seven spouts with wicks. And I see two olive trees, one on each side of the bowl.” Then I asked the angel, “What are these, my lord? What do they mean?”
“Don’t you know?” the angel asked.
“No, my lord,” I replied.
Then he said to me, “This is what the LORD says to Zerubbabel: It is not by force nor by strength, but by my Spirit, says the LORD of Heaven’s Armies. Nothing, not even a mighty mountain, will stand in Zerubbabel’s way; it will become a level plain before him! And when Zerubbabel sets the final stone of the Temple in place, the people will shout: ‘May God bless it! May God bless it!’”
Then another message came to me from the LORD: “Zerubbabel is the one who laid the foundation of this Temple, and he will complete it. Then you will know that the LORD of Heaven’s Armies has sent me. Do not despise these small beginnings, for the LORD rejoices to see the work begin, to see the plumb line in Zerubbabel’s hand.” (The seven lamps represent the eyes of the LORD that search all around the world.)
Then I asked the angel, “What are these two olive trees on each side of the lampstand, and what are the two olive branches that pour out golden oil through two gold tubes?”
“Don’t you know?” he asked.
“No, my lord,” I replied.
Then he said to me, “They represent the two heavenly beings who stand in the court of the Lord of all the earth.”
Hope you didn’t skip it or skim it.
The question is now, “How much of this passage must be studied in order to really understand verse 6?” And if your answer is, “Just verse 6,” buzz, wrong answer.
Obviously 4.6 is part of an entire statement by an angel to Zechariah, in which the angel is explaining an apocalyptic vision which Zechariah is seeing. To be reasonable, we have to at least include the angel’s whole statement. That’d be verses 4.6 and 4.7.
The angel’s statement, however, is an interpretation of the vision that Zechariah has had. Should we study the interpretation, but not include the vision? That doesn’t really make sense. So yes, we have to include the vision, which begins at verse 1. That means we’re looking at 4.1-7.
Now, how about the message that comes directly from the LORD in 4.9-10 to confirm the angel’s interpretation? Need we include that? Maybe we do. It’s part of this same revelation; it helps us understand the vision that prompted 4.6. But if you’re asking, “What’s the least number of verses I have to study?” (and again, I remind you: Wrong attitude) we might be able to let 4.9-10 slide. If we’re just focusing on the angel’s statement in 4.6-7, we can set aside the LORD’s statement for now. But only “for now.” We’ll likely want to go back to it later. It is, after all, the LORD talking.
So: Minimally, we can just look at 4.1-7. Maximally… well, maximally, we can read the whole book of Zechariah. Or we can just read the part that interprets this specific vision, and that’d just be chapter 4.
And there you go.
…What, you thought I was gonna explain Zechariah 4.6 for you? Man alive are you lazy.
Applying this practice elsewhere.
Go through the same deal whenever you’re studying other verses: Look at the context of the verse. Figure out the minimum number of verses you would need to look at in order to get the context. It might be one or two. It might be an entire chapter. You won’t know till you look at it.
Some folks assume since Proverbs is a collection of wise statements, there is no context: You can pull each proverb out of the book, and study it singly. But that’s not so. The people who edited Proverbs together bunched them up by subject area. In order to understand a proverb better, sometimes you gotta read all the other proverbs in that section and figure out the theme. Some proverb-like psalms, proverb-like prophecies, proverb-like commands, and proverb-like teachings of Jesus and the apostles, are the same way. There will always be extra reading.
Extra reading might mean extra study. But extra study means extra growth. That’s the point, isn’t it?