How to Study the Bible

I would recommend that anyone who wants to study the Bible read the whole Bible all the way through before trying to study it. There are prophecies and stories that intertwine through out and it is virtually impossible to grasp what is being presented without a complete view of the entire work.

Anyone studying the Bible should keep in mind that it is presented as God communicating with humanity and your immortality is at stake. So don’t ever assume that any information in the Bible is trivial, mundane, or irrelevant. Everything is important and if you don’t know why something is important then you possibly don’t understand what you are reading. This brings us to the often overlooked concept that the Bible is a spiritual document and not a history book. It looks like a history book and at first blush it reads like a history book. The Bible was created to convey spiritual information from God to humanity using an historical backdrop to present the information.

The literal historical text can be understood by everyone. The spiritual information can’t be understood unless a person receives the Holy Spirit. On the day of Jesus’ resurrection, he met with two men on the road to Emmaus and he told them all of the prophetic information about himself in the Old Testament:

Luke 24:27 And beginning with Moses and all the prophets, he explained to them the things concerning himself in all the scriptures.

We aren’t provided with the information that Jesus told the two men. Later that same day Jesus opened the minds of the apostles so they could understand the scriptures while he talked with them about the Old Testament prophecies pertaining to him:

Luke 24:45 Then he opened their minds, so they could understand the Scriptures. 46 And he said to them, “Thus it is written, that the Christ should suffer and rise again from the dead the third day.

Ultimately, unless God opens your mind you will not understand the scriptures in the Old Testament that pertain to Jesus. In fact, you won’t even realize where many of them are and you will read right past them. For instance, when you read the story of Adam do you see the references to Jesus? According to Paul in Romans 5:14, Adam is a type for Christ. Another example is when you read the story of Moses do you see the references to Moses? According to Peter in Acts 3:22, Jesus is the prophet like unto Moses and fulfilled the prophecy in Deuteronomy 18:15.

A person without the Holy Spirit will not be able to see the parallels between Jesus and Adam or between Jesus and Moses. All they will see are stories that appear to have information about people who people who lived long ago. Whereas, a person with the Holy Spirit will see information about Jesus in both the story of Adam and the story Moses.

2Corinthians 3:14 “But their minds were hardened; for to this very day, when they read the old covenant, the same veil remains unlifted, because only in Christ is it removed. 15 Even to this day whenever Moses is read, a veil lies over their hearts. 16 But whenever a person turns to the Lord, the veil is taken away… 4:3 And even if our gospel is veiled, it is veiled to those who are perishing.”

By enumerating all the other appointments of Moses I can demonstrate that they were types, and symbols, and declarations of those things which would happen to Christ, of those who it was foreknown were to believe in Him, and of those things which would also be done by Christ Himself.

Justin Martyr – Dialogue with Trypho 42

The Old Testament Scriptures, and those written by Moses in particular, do everywhere make mention of the Son of God, and foretell His advent and passion. From this fact it follows that they were inspired by one and the same God.

Irenaeus Against Heresies Book IV.10

The first testament was not given without reason, or to no purpose, or in an accidental sort of manner; but that it subdued those to whom it was given to the service of God, for their benefit (for God needs no service from men), and exhibited a type of heavenly things, inasmuch as man was not yet able to see the things of God through means of immediate vision; and foreshadowed the images of those things which [now actually] exist in the Church, in order that our faith might be firmly established; and contained a prophecy of things to come, in order that man might learn that God has foreknowledge of all things.

Irenaeus Against Heresies Book IV.32

The things that took place of old in the wilderness, under Moses, in the case of the tabernacle, were constituted types and emblems of spiritual mysteries, in order that, when the truth came in Christ in these last days, you might be able to perceive that these things were fulfilled.

Fragments from the Scriptural Commentaries of Hippolytus - of the visions of Daniel and Nebuchadnezzar, taken in conjunction.

Dr. J. Clontz [Typology, The New Testament According to the Old Testament Prophets]