How Do You Actually Study the Bible

A method for studying the Bible has to work on an ordinary weeknight, with no seminary training and no shelf of commentaries. Through Eyes of Color, a Jude 3 Project curriculum, offers one built for exactly that reader. It has five steps for any passage: get still, get familiar, get curious, get understanding, get real. Each step trains you to notice something you would otherwise skim past. Together they move you from reading words to grasping what the author meant, and then to changing how you live.

This guide walks through those steps by doing them. Alone, you need about an hour, a Bible, a pen and paper. A group can cover it in one long session or split it in two, saving the practice passage for the second meeting. No background is required.

Before you start: notice how you read now

Take two minutes and write an honest answer: when you open a Bible, what do you usually do? Flip to a favorite chapter? Read only when something has gone wrong? Open to a random page and hope a verse jumps out? Keep what you write. You will come back to it at the end.

Through Eyes of Color cites LifeWay Research on how Americans actually use the Bible. Most view it positively, yet only eleven percent, by that report, have read it cover to cover. Others pick it up only when they need to, stick to favorite parts, or read at random. If your answer sounds like one of those, you are in large company, and this method was written with you in mind.

Why the method exists at all

The chapter gives a definition worth memorizing: “Hermeneutics is the art and science of biblical interpretation.” Interpretation is an art because, like a painter choosing a brush, you learn which tool fits which passage. It is a science because you follow a careful method of observation, interpretation and application.

The goal is not winning arguments. The lesson says we study to know and worship God by bringing our lives into harmony with his character and will, and it draws on Dr. Luke Bobo’s point that Bible study is one of the ways we come to know God deeply. Knowledge that equips us to defend the faith but never touches how we live falls short. If knowledge of God “doesn’t change our lives, we have completely missed the point.”

That shapes the whole sequence. The first four steps help you understand the passage on its own terms. The fifth is where the passage gets to address you. Skip the first four and you risk applying something the text never said. Skip the fifth and you have collected information without obedience.

The five steps, one at a time

Step 1: Get still

Open Scripture with reverence and expectation. In practice that means three things: find a place where you will not be interrupted, settle your heart in prayer, and ask the Holy Spirit to lead you into the truth.

The expectation comes from Paul’s prayer in Ephesians 1:18. The KJV reads, “The eyes of your understanding being enlightened; that ye may know what is the hope of his calling.” Many modern translations say “the eyes of your heart.” Paul does not ask that his readers gain new facts. He asks that they see clearly what they already have in Christ. That is a good prayer to borrow before you read.

Try it: Before your next reading, put your phone in another room. Pray one sentence asking God to help you see the passage clearly. Then begin.

Step 2: Get familiar

Read the passage several times. Look for repeated words and phrases, which usually point to the author’s main concern. Then watch for connecting words such as “but” and “therefore,” which usually signal important turns in the flow of thought.

The lesson’s example is Matthew 5:21-22. Jesus recalls the old command, “Thou shalt not kill” (Matthew 5:21), and then turns with “But I say unto you” (Matthew 5:22) to say that anger toward a brother brings judgment too. Everything hangs on that “but.” On one side stands the outward act of murder; on the other, the inward anger that comes before it. Jesus does not cancel the command. He shows how far down it reaches.

Try it: Read Matthew 5:21-22 three times. Circle the “but.” Write one sentence on what is the same on both sides of it and one on what is different.

Step 3: Get curious

Dr. Cynthia James, as the chapter reports, gives two explanations for why people who own Bibles do not read them. Some have come to see it as a dead document with no relevance to their lives. And treasuring the Bible takes work. The answer to both is curiosity. When you ask the passage real questions, it comes alive. This is sometimes called interrogating the text.

Start with four questions:

• Who wrote this passage? The opening of the book, or its title, often tells you.
• Who was it written for? Again, look at the beginning of the book.
• Why was it written? Why did Paul write to the church at Corinth? Why did Moses record the laws in Leviticus?
• What does this mean? Any word, phrase or statement you do not understand gets written down, not skipped.

That last question is the one most readers ignore. A list of honest questions is not a sign you are failing at Bible study. It is the raw material for the next step.

Step 4: Get understanding

Here Through Eyes of Color names the real obstacle. Reading the Bible is like entering a foreign country, with unfamiliar language and customs, stories that do not make sense through twenty-first century eyes, and passages that unsettle our picture of God. “It can feel a lot like being on the outside of an inside joke,” the lesson says, calling this probably the biggest barrier to reading.

God has given three helps:

• His Spirit. Jesus promised, “he will guide you into all truth” (John 16:13). That Spirit lives inside every believer.
• His Word. Many answers sit elsewhere in the Bible. This is the literary context, and it is essential.
• His people. Ask someone you trust in your church or family, and use a study Bible or commentary, especially for historical and cultural background. As the chapter puts it, “Don’t let pride or fear keep you from growing.”

The sharpest example of literary context is Jeremiah 29:11: “For I know the thoughts that I think toward you, saith the LORD, thoughts of peace, and not of evil, to give you an expected end.” People often read it as a personal promise about their own plans. To know who Jeremiah was writing to and why, the lesson says, you only need to read verses 1-10.

Try it: Read Jeremiah 29:1-10 before rereading verse 11. Write down who receives this letter, where they are, and how long verse 10 says they will wait. Then reread verse 11. What changes? What still holds? A good reading accounts for the surrounding verses, whether or not it feels encouraging.

The three helps work together. A sense that the Spirit is telling you something should not override what the surrounding verses plainly say, and a commentary should not replace your own reading. People and books are for when you get stuck after doing the work, not instead of it.

What the method cannot settle

Five steps will not make every passage clear. Genre matters: a proverb states a wise principle, not a guarantee; a narrative describes what happened without automatically commanding you to repeat it; poetry and apocalyptic visions speak in pictures. Some questions turn on original-language details or ancient background that only careful study can supply, which is part of why the lesson points readers to study Bibles and commentaries. And on some passages, faithful Christians who read carefully still land in different places. When that happens, state each reading fairly, ask which one accounts for more of the surrounding text, hold your conclusion with humility, and keep hold of the plain points the readings share. Disagreement after careful reading does not mean the method failed or that the passage means nothing.

Step 5: Get real

Only now does the passage turn toward your life. Ask yourself:

• How would I summarize this passage in my own words?
• Is there a truth I need to accept and believe?
• Is there a sin I need to confess?
• Is there a person I need to ask for forgiveness or accountability?
• Is there a behavior I need to adopt?
• What do I need to ask the Lord to help me with in light of this passage?

The summary question always applies, and it doubles as a check on the first four steps. If you cannot say what the passage means in a sentence or two, you are probably not ready to apply it.

The workshop: 2 Peter 1:5-9

The curriculum practices the method on 2 Peter 1:5-9, a fitting choice, since the passage is itself about knowledge growing into character. Here are verses 5-7 in the KJV:

And beside this, giving all diligence, add to your faith virtue; and to virtue knowledge; And to knowledge temperance; and to temperance patience; and to patience godliness; And to godliness brotherly kindness; and to brotherly kindness charity.

Get still. Alone, pray briefly before reading. In a group, one person can pray for everyone.

Get familiar. Read three times. First, one person reads aloud slowly. Second, everyone reads silently. Third, someone reads aloud again while everyone listens for repeated words and connecting words. Alone, read aloud, then silently, then aloud with a pen. What word keeps appearing in verses 5-7, and what does the repetition stress? Find the “but” in verse 9. What two kinds of people does it set against each other?

Get curious. Who wrote this letter, and to whom? See 2 Peter 1:1. Then look at the opening of verse 5. The lesson works from a modern translation that begins “In view of all this,” and asks what that phrase points back to. The KJV’s “beside this” (2 Peter 1:5) does the same job. Read verses 3-4 and write down what “this” refers to. You will find God’s divine power and his precious promises. God gives first; the list of qualities comes second.

Get understanding. Some KJV words have shifted since 1611. Look up “virtue,” “temperance” and “charity” in a dictionary or study Bible. Many modern translations render them as moral excellence, self-control and love. Write the list both ways. The modern words change what you notice: a reader who hears “charity” as giving to the poor and “temperance” as avoiding alcohol misses that the list climbs from inner discipline toward relationships, ending in brotherly kindness and love. Then answer two questions: what is the author’s main point, and how would you put it in your own words? If a question stays open, take the lesson’s advice: “It’s a process.” Note it and bring it to a trusted friend or commentary later.

Get real. Answer at least one of the application questions in writing.

For a group leader: the questions about confessing sin and asking forgiveness are personal. Give time to answer them silently or on paper, and make clear no one has to say their answer aloud. Invite volunteers to share their summary sentence instead, which builds shared understanding without pressing anyone to disclose anything.

Questions for discussion or reflection

1. Look back at what you wrote about how you usually read. Which of the five steps does your habit skip, and what has skipping it cost you?
2. In Matthew 5:21-22, one small word carried the turn. What did you find on each side of that “but,” and how does it change what the command asks of you?
3. Before and after reading Jeremiah 29:1-10, how did your understanding of verse 11 change?
4. Of the three helps, which do you lean on most? Think of a time you relied on one and ignored the other two. What happened?
5. In 2 Peter 1:3-4, God’s power and promises come before the command to “add to your faith” (2 Peter 1:5). Does that order change how you hear the list that follows?
6. Where does the list in 2 Peter 1:5-7 end, and why might it end there rather than with knowledge?
7. Is there a passage you have avoided because it confused or troubled you? Which of the five steps would you start with, and why?

Carry it forward

Choose a passage of ten verses or fewer from a book you have never studied closely. Give it two sittings. In the first, do only steps 1 through 3, and end with a written list of questions. In the second, work through step 4 with the surrounding chapters and a study Bible, and only then move to step 5. Splitting it keeps you from rushing to application before you understand what the author said.

When you finish, take out what you wrote at the start about how you usually read. Next to it, write one sentence describing what you did differently this time. That sentence is the real measure of whether the method has started to work.