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TIPS ON STUDYING THE
BIBLE
People have studied the Bible their entire lives and
never run out of learning new truths. The Word of God is
simple and in plain sight, but the more you get to know
Who God is, the more He will reveal to you His hidden
truths tucked inside the verses. God has written many
mysteries in the scriptures and they are very relevant
and prophetic for these end times.
There are many ways of interpreting the mystery
scriptures, but most scholars agree the
best and most
accurate way is to let the Bible interpret the Bible.
Why? Because God spoke the Words and His Words bypass
time and space and the more you understand that, you
will see how the same truth was recorded again hundreds
of years later through another prophet.
In practical terms, letting the Bible interpret the
Bible is when you find a scripture that you don’t
understand, and you find all the other places in the
Bible that mention the same thing. The more places you
find, the more your understanding grows. In other
words, if you are trying to understand the book of
Revelations and you come across the word candlestick,
find out how God described its meaning and purpose other
places in the Bible. You will be amazed when you
start applying this principal in interpreting and
understanding mystery places in scripture.
How do you find those places? There are several ways to
find them. Cross references in your study Bibles will
help, along with cross references in the margins, and in
the back of your Bibles. The best and most thorough
cross reference source is the New Strong’s Exhaustive
Concordance. It records EVERY word separately that is
in the Bible. Every word is given a number and a a
listing where you can find that word defined in the
Hebrew and Greek language. This book comes in various
sizes depending upon the print size. You can also use
free on line Concordances where you can type in your
word and search. Also a very good computer program
is PC Study Bible. PC Study Bible has many extras that can be
purchased that equal a complete library for Bible study
and research.
Another way to find the important "buzz" word that
seems to be a mystery word, is to find the places where
scripture uses the identical Hebrew or Greek word.
The list of places that use the identical words are also
in the Strong's Concordance. Englishman's
Concordance also lists these in PC Study Bible. That one
tip alone will open your eyes to understand God's
messages and how they connect together in time.
The best way to understand the scripture is to ASK the
Lord. Understanding the scripture is an EXPERIENCE in
God.
Luke 24:45 NKJV
And He opened their understanding, that they
might comprehend the Scriptures.
Luke 9:45 NKJV
But they did not understand this saying, and
it was hidden from them so that they did not
perceive it; and they were afraid to ask Him about
this saying.
Luke 18:34 NKJV
But they understood none of these things; this
saying was hidden from them, and they did not know
the things which were spoken.
Luke 24:27 NKJV
And beginning at Moses and all the Prophets,
He expounded to them in all the Scriptures the
things concerning Himself.
THE LAW OF FIRST MENTION
A most important way to understand mystery scriptures
is what they call the Law of First Mention. It is
basically the first time a Hebrew or Greek word was
recorded in the Bible. Scholars have found wonderful
truths about the hidden revelations through connecting
the verses that use the LOFM and cross references using
the same Greek or Hebrew word.
The LOFM is found after you look up the original
Hebrew or Greek word in the verse you are pondering.
You can use the
Strong’s Concordance
to look up the English word in
the exact verse you are reading, and then see the
original Hebrew or Greek word that it came from, and its
translation and definition. You can see the very first
time that original word was used in the Bible. The
first time it was recorded becomes the best way to
understand the context and environment from which the
word was originally used. From then on, whenever they
use that same word, they may enlarge upon it for another
situation, but the way it was first used was always an
important foundation.
THE CONTEXT OF OTHER
SCRIPTURES
Studying the original language from what the Bible
was written can help you understand the word better.
After we look up the word in
Strong’s Concordance to learn of its definition,
then we can also look up in the
Englishman’s Concordance. The Englishman’s
Concordance generates a list of scriptures that use that
same identical Hebrew or Greek word. The list of
scriptures are found by typing in the Strong’s number.
Seeing how the word is used in the context of other
scriptures, gives a broader understanding of its meaning
and how to apply it. This way of studying scripture
gives a more thorough understanding.
Englishman’s Concordance is a part of
PC Study Bible, which I highly recommend for any
Bible student.
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