HANNAH HAGARTY | GUEST

In the life of a believer, “What should I read today?” is a common question when it comes to Scripture. Often, we answer that question based on feelings. What do we feel like reading? What do we feel applies to the situation we are walking through? Feelings are real, necessary, and Scripture addresses them, but there is a better way to begin. Because, inevitably, the day will come when we don’t feel like reading. If feelings are the motivating metric, we won’t. A better approach to reading and studying Scripture is to begin with Spirit-led understanding by asking good questions of the text. Many Christians have been taught that the first question in response to reading Scripture is, “what does this mean to me?” But when application comes before understanding, we risk trading Scripture’s richness for whatever feels relevant at the moment. 

Asking Questions

Whether we are children learning about our world or an adult learning a new skill, the means of understanding come through the same route: asking questions. This is why Bible study books often include a few questions at the end of each chapter. It is not enough just to read the Bible; we need to meditate or think about the text in order to absorb it. Questions bring us to this beneficial, deeper reflection. The precedent is a good one: Jesus asked and answered a lot of questions. Reading John 3:1-21, we observe how the Spirit makes use of the questions in Nicodemus’s heart. Jesus, in the shadows of the darkness of night, patiently explains and re-explains spiritual birth in answer to Nicodemus’s questions. We are left wondering if those answers were understood. Did Nicodemus leave that conversation in a state of belief or unbelief? We find the answer later as we read John 19:38-42. As a member of the ruling Sanhedrin, Nicodemus willingly made himself ceremonially unclean by touching and wrapping the body of Christ for burial, rendering himself strictly unable to participate in Passover (Num. 9:6-14). However, his faith had already credited to him a better cleansing through the final Passover Lamb (Heb. 9:13-14). 

Likewise, the Spirit gives us other examples of questions in John. The woman at the well in Samaria asked a variety of questions, including, “Are you greater than our father, Jacob?” (John 4:12). There, at the very place that Jacob provided means of temporary thirst quenching for Hebrew people, Jesus offered living water to satisfy all people for all time. Jacob dreamt of a ladder between heaven and earth. As the living connection between God and man, Jesus used her questions to point to His identity. Questions are an excellent mechanism for finding truth. Like the Bereans, we too can learn to be better Bible readers by asking good questions as we read.

Questions in Bible Study

Here is how we use questions today. In our mid-week inductive Bible study class, we begin by reading the text together out loud around the room. Turning to the whiteboard, we discuss and answer four questions together. We observe who is speaking and being spoken to in the text, what is happening, when the passage is taking place, and where it is happening or where it is  written. In a culture of me-centric Bible study and sermons, we rightly reorient our brains and hearts when we ask the question: “who.” It compels us to consider the culture, lives, and beliefs of the people to whom Scripture was written. In this way, we gain a more faithful understanding of the text before we ever move to personal application as the people Scripture was written for. When we examine what is happening, looking at what happened in the preceding and following texts, we do likewise. Reading Jesus’s farewell discourse to His disciples is richer and more poignant because, from our vantage point, we know Passover is at hand. We know something His disciples did not: that He is about to willingly give Himself as the final, perfected Passover Lamb. When we read the end of the Gospel of John and ask where, we first find the disciples behind locked doors. Later in the text, they are far across the sea in secular Tiberias and have even returned to their previous occupation! Those details matter. We know from John 20:21 that Jesus’s disciples had already received their first commission: “As the Father has sent me, so I send you.” Asking where they are reveals their struggle with fear. By faith, they should have been stepping into what the Spirit had called and enabled them to do. Understanding their fears and failures allows us to more fully understand the character of God in His response. Knowing exactly where they were on the Sea of Tiberius, Jesus appears. He blesses their empty nets with an abundance of fish and in their exhaustion, cooks them breakfast. Then, He gently and lovingly restores Peter without once shaming him. 

Understanding God’s character is helped by progressing to the final “w” question of interpretation: why. Why did the Spirit include this passage for the Church? What place does it hold in the grand narrative of Scripture and God’s redemption plan? Why is it important that I understand it? What applications does this hold for my walk with Christ? What does it move me to do, be, or understand? The passage might move us to repentance, to belief or hope, or to determined understanding. What it will never do is leave us unchanged. Scripture is living and active, judging the attitudes and thoughts of our heart (Heb. 4:12).

If someone asks, “What should I read today?” suggest that they choose a book of the Bible and slowly begin reading through it using these five questions. As a part of the inductive method of Bible study, these questions are used by the Spirit to bring a richness and depth to our reading. A Scripture journal is a great companion to this inductive process as it allows us to highlight and take notes as we read. When we allow the Holy Spirit to speak through the text and be our navigator, instead of our feelings, we land at a much better and more faithful place of understanding.

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