Easy Bible Study Lessons
The short answer
Many people come to the Bible hoping each passage will hand them a tidy moral, the way a fable ends with a lesson printed in italics. But the Bible often works differently. Some of its most gripping stories — like the account of Jephthah and his daughter in Judges 11 — end without any comment at all. No narrator steps in to say whether what happened was right or wrong. As John Goldingay observes, this silence is not a flaw. It is one of the ways Scripture works on us: instead of telling us what to think, it makes us think things through, using what the Bible says elsewhere as our guide.
That insight suggests the first step of an easy Bible study method anyone can practice: read closely without rushing to a verdict. Notice what the story actually says, what it leaves out, and where it stays quiet. Resist the urge to wrap it up too quickly.
The second step comes from Shirley Guthrie's discussion of the phrase "image of God." For centuries, he notes, Western readers assumed the phrase must mean human reason — not because the Bible says so, but because Greek philosophy had trained them to think that way. In other words, we all carry assumptions into the text, and we often insert them without noticing. So the second step is a simple self-check: ask yourself, "Where did I get that idea? Is it actually in the passage, or did I bring it with me?"
Put together, these two habits make a beginner's method that is genuinely easy without being shallow: first, sit with the text patiently and let it raise questions; second, test your instinctive interpretation against the wider witness of Scripture rather than against your own inherited assumptions. Good Bible study is less about finding answers fast and more about learning to ask the text better questions.
What scholars say
Goldingay explains why a story like Jephthah's offers no approval or disapproval — the Bible sometimes makes us reason things out in light of what it says elsewhere. Guthrie shows how readers have long inserted outside assumptions, like the Greek ideal of rationality, into the phrase "image of God" before asking what the Bible itself means by it.
“It is an extraordinary feature of the story of Jephthah and his daughter that it resolutely refrains from telling us what to think about what went on. It offers no expressions of approval or disapproval with regard to what happened. That is not uncharacteristic of Old Testament stories, as it is not uncharacteristic of Jesus’ parables. The price it pays is that people come to very different conclusions about the meaning of the story (or the parable). But refraining from incorporating judgments has advantages. Whereas the Bible sometimes works on us by telling us exactly what to think and what to do, sometimes it works on us by making us think things out for ourselves in light of the kind of things it says elsewhere. That may have a more powerful result.”
“We will look first at some of the more popular of these "inserted" views of the image of God and then at what most contemporary theologians believe the Bible itself means by it. Rationality? Western civilization in general has followed the ancient Greek belief that it is the capacity to reason that makes human beings human and like God. It is not surprising, then, that Western Christianity assumed for centuries that "image of God" means ability to reason and act in accordance with what is reasonable and rational. (Whatever you may think theoretically about this, did it occur to you to say "I am a rational animal" when asked who you are?) But although the Bible does not deny that we are thinking beings and shows no contempt for the intellect, nowhere does it suggest that this is the key to our humanity.”
What it means for you
Next time you read a passage that leaves you unsettled or unsure, treat that as an invitation rather than a problem. Write down what the text says — and what it noticeably doesn't say. Then write down your gut reaction and ask where it came from: the passage itself, or something you absorbed from culture, upbringing, or habit.
This practice takes no special training, only honesty and patience. Over time, it builds the two skills every mature reader of Scripture needs: attentiveness to what is actually on the page, and humility about the assumptions we carry to it.
In context
The two excerpts here come from different corners of the Bible and of Christian teaching, which is exactly the point. Goldingay is commenting on Judges 11, where Jephthah makes a rash vow that costs his daughter her life — and the narrator says nothing about whether God approved. Guthrie is discussing Genesis 1, where humanity is made in God's image, a phrase the text famously leaves undefined. Both passages leave gaps that readers must fill carefully, making them ideal training ground for learning how to study any part of the Bible well.