For many years, any medication sold in the United States has been labeled with information about that specific medication. In addition to ingredients and warnings about possible side effects, the label instructs people about how much of the medication someone should take and how often. Whether swallowing a pill every four hours or using a topical cream every day, these directions help a person apply the medication to their own situation. Such application takes the benefits of the medicine and connects them to someone’s need for health and healing.
Similarly, application in Bible study helps us connect the truth of the text to the needs of our hearts and lives. There are right and wrong ways to take medications, and we can apply the Bible in right and wrong ways as well. When we apply the Bible the right way, we find help and health beyond what any pharmaceutical company could ever provide. Let’s look at a few steps for healthy Bible application.
Remember the main character of the Bible.
The Bible is God’s Word. God wrote the Bible through human authors, and He wrote it about Himself first of all. Because God wrote the Bible about Himself, the Bible is about God before it is about us. The Bible is theology not “me-ology.” We can be so eager to get the healing medicine of the truth into our hearts that we can skip over the main character. But that would be like trying to take medicine before reading the label on the packaging, leading to a lot of problems. Before we try to think about how any part of the Bible applies to us, we should seek to understand what it teaches about God.
Remember the original context of the Bible.
The Bible is an ancient book, with eternal truth. When we read the Bible, we must remember that God wrote to and through people who lived long ago and far away, both culturally and geographically. The Bible was first from God to them. We must not skip over the original human authors and audience. Instead, we should think about how someone in ancient Israel or Rome would have understood what was originally written for them. Once we understand what the text meant to the original audience, the next step is to try and identify the differences between the biblical audience and us. Then we can move toward application.1
Discover the theological truth of the text.
Once we understand the main character and the original context, we can discover the theological truth that connects to our lives. The book Grasping God’s Word calls this “the principlizing bridge” that connects the original context with our own context.2 In other words, every part of Scripture has a truth or principle that we can understand and apply directly to our own lives. Some verses are basically written as a theological principle. Think of John 3:16. Others require a little more prayerful study. Once we understand a passage’s theological truth, we should check that it fits within the context of the section, book, testament, and storyline it is a part of.3
Take the Medicine
After learning the theological truth of a passage, we can discover how it applies to our own lives, world, church, family, and more.4 We can “take the medicine” of the Bible by asking questions about how a passage connects to what we believe (our heads), what we feel and love (our hearts), and what we do (our hands).
- A question for our heads: What should I believe because of this passage?
- A question for our hearts: What should I feel and love because of this passage?
- A question for our hands: What should I do because of this passage?
For example, think about John 3:16: “For God loved the world in this way: He gave his one and only Son, so that everyone who believes in him will not perish but have eternal life.”
- What should we believe because of this verse? We should believe in Jesus and His death and resurrection for our salvation.
- What should we feel or love because of this verse? We should love God because He first loved us.
- What should we do because of this verse? We should get to know Jesus better and tell others about Him.
Someone might think, I can think of even more answers to those questions about John 3:16. Good! We can answer with many points of application as we learn from the Bible.
When we “read the label,” learning how to apply the Bible the right way, we can experience the healing medicine of God’s Word in our lives, families, churches, and world.
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This article is excerpted from How to Study the Bible, a 6-week course designed to share practical Bible study skills to help you grow in your understanding and application of God’s Word. Download a free sample of this resource here.
1. J. Scott Duvall and J. Daniel Hays, Grasping God’s Word: A Hands-On Approach to Reading, Interpreting, and Applying the Bible, 3rd ed. (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2012), 237.
2. Ibid., 237.
3. Ibid., 239.
4. “What’s this ‘sermon application grid’ that 9Marks keeps talking about?” 9Marks Ministries, https://www.9marks.org/answer/whats-sermon-application-grid-9marks-keeps-talking- about/.