Brief History of Bible Study

Bible study is an important and prevalent aspect of Christian practice.  From the very beginning of Christian history the church’s theologians turned to the Bible to encounter the word of God and develop the church’s doctrines.  However, the Protestant Reformation inspired the new phenomenon of widespread Bible reading by ordinary Christians.  The theology of the reformers, a growing literacy among ordinary people, and the development of the printing press all contributed to this movement. 

Martin Luther, famous for his dictum “the priesthood of all believers,” said that before the Bible every person stands as an equal.  What he meant was that all people are capable of meeting God in the Scripture.  He was taken seriously.  From the introduction of the printing press until now the Bible has outsold every book of every kind.

Approaches to Bible Study

While Luther’s dictum sounds simple enough, there has been disagreement throughout history about how God speaks through the Bible.  Many interpreters believe that if one is to comprehend the Bible, one must understand the history and culture in which the Bible was written.  They believe that if we understand what the Bible was trying to say to its first hearers, then we can apply that meaning to our time and situation.  Others have seen reading the Bible as a catalyst to think about the way we live.  For example, if you read about the temptation of Jesus, you might ask yourself questions about how you have been tempted by power, wealth or something else.  Others have taken a more mystical bent.  These believe that by reading and meditating on Scripture one may mysteriously encounter God.  Still others believe that the Bible is a literal rule book that we should read to receive plain direction for our lives.  Our interest here will be in the first three approaches.

In the UCC or Congregational tradition there has always been an emphasis on education.  Thus, it is no surprise that the most common form of Bible study includes learning as much as we can about the background and original meaning of the text.  Our web store has many resources that can help.  A good Study Bible will have articles and explanatory notes that will help quite a bit.  All of them are good, but if I had to recommend one, it would be the New Oxford Annotated Study Bible.  You can find a couple of blog articles that I wrote about choosing Study Bibles.  If you really want to dig deeply, one of the Logos computer libraries will excite you.  Also, there are many websites that have good-to-excellent resources, some of which are linked on the left panel.

I find myself coming back over and over to the Serendipity Bible for life-application inspiration.  Literally every passage in the Bible is accompanied by an outline for individual or group use that will lead you through a thoughtful set of questions.  In addition, it contains several reading plans for thinking about particular life situations or topics (money, relationships, grief and so on) as well as reading plans for reading through whole books of the Bible.  

Finally, for the more mystical or prayerful approach to reading the Bible, select the tab ‘Praying the Bible’.