Bible Study Methods
The short answer
Ask ten people about Bible study methods and you may get ten different answers: some will hand you a stack of commentaries and a Greek lexicon, while others will tell you to just open the book and read. The surprising truth is that both answers have deep roots in Christian practice, and the best approach holds them together.
On the disciplined side, careful readers pay attention to the language the biblical writers used, the historical backgrounds of their books, the cultures they lived in, the literary forms they chose, and the communities who first received their words. This kind of work is sometimes called biblical criticism, a phrase that can sound hostile. It isn't. In this context, criticism means careful evaluation, not fault-finding. The goal of all these tools is not to sit in judgment over Scripture but to clear away obstacles between the text and the reader, so that we can hear what God is saying through it.
On the simple side stands the plain act of sustained reading. Rowan Williams points out that the theologian Jürgen Moltmann traced his Christian faith to reading Mark's Gospel with no special preparation at all, as a prisoner of war in 1945. No study guide, no background lectures, just the text itself, read straight through at a moment of personal crisis.
A good method, then, is less a single technique than a posture. It begins with humility, letting the Bible speak on its own terms through unhurried reading, and it continues with diligence, gladly using every resource available to understand what we have read. Neither replaces the other. Reading without study can miss what the text meant; study without real reading can miss what the text says. Held together, they form a way of studying the Bible that is both honest and open.
What scholars say
McKim answers the question of what responsible Bible study actually involves, describing biblical criticism not as devaluing Scripture but as evaluating it carefully—studying its language, backgrounds, culture, literary forms, and first readers so we are equipped to hear God speak. Williams offers the counterweight: Moltmann, he notes, owed his faith simply to reading Mark without any particular preparation.
“The Holy Spirit also helps us interpret the Bible. Presbyterian Christians believe we should use all the tools we have to help us understand the Bible. There are various ways of approaching the Bible, using the insights of what is called “biblical criticism.” This does not mean a “criticism” that “criticizes,” or devalues, the Bible. Instead it means a way of evaluating the biblical writings. We study the language of the Scriptures, their backgrounds, the culture in which they were written, their literary forms, the communities that first read the Scriptures—all these dimensions. We study, using the best resources we have, in order to be as well equipped as possible to hear God speaking to us in the Scriptures.”
“And yet, Mark’s Gospel still has, for all sorts of readers, an exceptional impact. Two of the foremost Christian communicators of the twentieth century – one of them happily still with us – have claimed that they owe their Christian faith simply to reading Mark without any particular preparation. The great German Protestant theologian Jürgen Moltmann was a prisoner of war in Scotland in 1945; he and his fellow-prisoners had just been shown photographs of the horrors in the camps of Belsen and Buchenwald, and were dealing with the nightmare realization that they had been fighting for a regime responsible for unimagined atrocity.”
What it means for you
Start with the simple half: choose one book, perhaps a Gospel like Mark, and read it straight through in a few sittings, the way you would read any absorbing book. Resist the urge to stop at every difficulty. Let the whole story land first.
Then add the diligent half. Return to the passages that puzzled or moved you, and bring in help: a good study Bible, a commentary, some background on the original audience. Treat these tools not as a substitute for reading but as a way of listening better. Over time, the two habits reinforce each other, and study becomes less a duty and more a conversation you keep coming back to.
In context
The two excerpts on this page come from different kinds of books, which is part of the point. Donald McKim's passage appears in a book explaining Presbyterian beliefs, in a discussion of how the Holy Spirit helps us interpret the Bible and why believers should use every available tool to understand it. Rowan Williams's passage comes from a set of reflections on Mark's Gospel written for the season of Lent, where he is describing the unusual impact Mark has had on readers, including Jürgen Moltmann, who encountered it as a prisoner of war in Scotland in 1945.