We need more Bible students! We need better Bible students! The church is suffering for lack of Bible knowledge. Elders and preachers need to be great students. Parents need to be students, and then teach their children to be students. Teachers must be students. Let me suggest five approaches that will make a great student:
1. Study your Bible consecutively for information. Study from Genesis to Revelation. Start at the beginning and move to the end. The Bible has progress and movement. All knowledge builds upon prior information. Studying from the beginning with continuity will reveal the unity and harmony of the whole.
2. Study your Bible dispensationally for application. This approach will enable the student to know where he is in the Bible. He will be able to distinguish between the Law and the Gospel, bondage and liberty, the Sabbath and the Lord’s Day. Much confusion has resulted from a failure to “rightly divide the word of truth” (2 Timothy 2:15).
3. Study your Bible typically for illustration. The Old Testament abounds in, “types,” which find their substance” in the New Testament. The types serve as portraits, glimpses of things to come. The types are like the parts of a puzzle that ultimately come together to form the whole picture in the New Testament.
4. Study your Bible devotionally for inspiration. This approach enables the student to meditate and “delight in the law of the Lord” (Psalm 1). Rather than going through the Book, he allows the Book to go through him. Such will nourish the soul.
5. Study your Bible doctrinally for stabilization. There are so many “winds of doctrine” blowing (Ephesians 4:14)! Strange sounds can be detected only if you know the certain and true sound. Any error can be seen only if you know the truth.
May I challenge you to be a good Bible student!
-Clarence DeLoach, Jr.