How to Find the Meaning of a Bible Passage

I frequently get questions from both Christians and non-Christians about how someone can know what the Bible says. One of the reasons for this is a lack of good training about how to find the meaning of a biblical text. Other reasons come from the cultural ideal that communication only means what the listener or reader wants it to mean, or that the meaning of a text changes as the culture changes. We hear things like "The Constitution is a living document," and also that the Bible has to change to match our current culture.

A final reason that people think that Bible passages do not have set meanings is that many Christians, and even Christian leaders frequently use bad interpretation methods or no interpretation methods at all! When we say things like, "this is what the passage means to me," we are buying into the current cultural idea of locating all meaning in ourselves rather than what the author intended to mean.

I believe that the passages of the Bible have an intended meaning and there are proper methods to help us discover those meanings. If we do not use the proper methods, we can and often do come to the wrong meaning and do not get what the original authors intended to say.

Therefore, I would like to present a training for how to find the meaning of a Bible passage from Pastor John Piper, a scholar who I trust. This training can help you as a Christian find the meaning of a passage. It can even help non-Christians understand how good biblical scholarship leads us to definite meanings and therefore that mature Christians should not simply making up ideas to fit their current agenda, because the biblical meaning does not change with culture.

If you have not ever read or taken any classes on this subject, I recommend you listen through this playlist.

Meaning of the Biblical Text