Leaving Beyond – Grounded In Scripture

Written by: April J. Buchanan

Following is what I’ve learned and how I study my Bible. I am confident those better trained and who have been rightly handling Scripture longer than I have will have improvements to make upon my process. I do not say that with feigned humility, but with a settled awareness that it is true. My hope is that this process invites you into your own study with an open Bible and a renewed desire and discipline as you approach the Scriptures.

Buy a large pack of highlighters, notebooks you are most comfortable with, and prepare to give yourself fully to the work. There is no time for shallow presentation or attention seeking display. This kind of study requires time, and it is deeply worth it.

Pray. This step must never be neglected. It is essential for fruitful study. We are dependent upon God to illumine His Word to us, to conform our hearts and minds to it, and to help us retain what we have learned. We are quick to forget and even quicker to assume we can rightly understand divine truth apart from divine grace. Prayer is not preparation for study as much as it is the posture of study itself.

Read the entire book at least once before beginning the interpretive process, and return to it repeatedly throughout your study. Begin by forming your own outline, even if it is imperfect, and then compare it with reliable external outlines. Note the themes that appear in the text, recognizing that your initial observations may be partial or in need of correction. Compare what you see with the work of trusted sources, allowing them to correct misunderstandings or confirm what you have rightly discerned.

It is also helpful to write the entire book yourself if possible, preferably with pen and paper. As you move slowly through the text multiple times, reading and then writing it out, you will begin to notice patterns, connections, and emphases that are easily missed in casual reading. The discipline of writing trains the mind to see what the eye might otherwise overlook.

You are not a scholar by training, yet you are called to approach the text with reverence, diligence, and care. Your goal is to understand what the passage means within its immediate context and within the broader context of all of Scripture. This requires time, patience, and discipline. What may seem exhausting to a distracted mind becomes life-giving to one trained in endurance and devotion to truth.

As you study, attend carefully to historical, theological, and redemptive themes. Consider the setting, the author, the original audience, and the historical circumstances of composition. Observe repeated words, structural patterns, and the assumptions the author makes about his readers. Seek the intended meaning of the text as it would have been received in its original context.

Where possible, engage with the original languages, while recognizing your limitations and the value of those who have been trained in them. There is a humility and gratitude that grows as you listen to faithful laborers who handle the text with precision and care. Discern the genre of the passage, knowing that poetry must not be read as narrative, nor wisdom literature as law, nor historical description as moral instruction. Pay attention to hermeneutical distinctions such as imperative versus narrative, descriptive versus prescriptive, as well as comparisons, contrasts, and literary structure.

Add to your study faithful commentaries, but do not rush to them too early. Give yourself time first to read through the text multiple times, develop your own outline, and work through these foundational steps before comparing your observations with the work of others. At that point, you will likely find areas that need correction, whether small or significant. Yet this is part of the process. Just as important as learning what the text says is learning how to rightly handle the text in faithful study.

One very important and invaluable method of learning how to study your Bible rightly is to sit under the preaching and teaching of those who are expository preachers. This cannot be recommended highly enough. It is not only what you are learning from what is preached, but also the example, pattern, and discipline being set before you in how the text is handled. Watching faithful exposition trains the mind to think in terms of context, structure, and meaning, and it teaches you, often more quietly than you realize, how to approach Scripture with care and reverence.

Your outline may be imperfect at nearly every point, but you are being formed in the discipline of careful engagement with God’s Word. You are learning to receive the text rather than impose upon it your own conclusions. You are learning to care more about what it actually says and means than about defending your initial impressions or demanding agreement from others. The more you learn how to study and the more you see God revealed in the text, the more you will grow in love for faithful study, and the more your love for God and others will deepen.

Lean back. A discipline of John MacArthur that he shared with others pertaining to his time of study is the practice of “leaning back.” There is a posture of reflection that is just as important as careful reading. After studying, take time to sit with the text and think on what has been read. This is not imagination or speculation, nor the pursuit of new revelation, but the slow meditation upon what God has already said. In this space, the mind is not creating meaning but considering it, allowing the weight of the text to settle.

Memorize portions of the text. This becomes more beautiful when the meaning is rightly understood and not detached from its context. Scripture stored in the mind with understanding becomes a source of worship that is informed by truth rather than emotion alone. In remembering it, you are not extracting isolated phrases, but recalling living words within their intended meaning, leading to deeper praise and stability of soul.

Above all, resist the impulse to read yourself into every passage. Instead, allow the text to speak on its own terms. The aim of study is not immediate application but faithful understanding. Application flows rightly only from rightly understood meaning.

Scripture is not primarily about us but about God, His character, and His unfolding redemptive purpose in history. In every portion, we are being shown the glory of God revealed in Christ from beginning to end.

As you study, you come to know Him more truly. And in knowing Him, you are changed. This transformation is not merely the result of technique but of the living Word working through the Spirit in those who receive it in faith.

Therefore, study with diligence. Study with care. Study to know God.

This process will likely move you away from the practice of highlighting entire passages in a single color simply because you love all of Scripture. Instead, it will lead you toward a more intentional and discerning method of marking the text.

Over time, you may develop a personal system of annotation, using different colors, symbols, and markings that correspond to specific themes, structures, or observations within the passage. Each color or symbol will carry meaning that becomes familiar through repeated study. When you return to the text, you will be able to recognize patterns of emphasis, doctrinal themes, literary structure, or redemptive connections at a glance.

This kind of disciplined marking does not diminish reverence for the text but deepens engagement with it. It trains the eye to observe carefully and the mind to think theologically and contextually, rather than flattening everything into a single undifferentiated emphasis.

Develop your own system of color-coded and symbolic annotation, carefully and consistently applied, so that your Bible becomes not a record of emotional reaction but a map of thoughtful, repeated, and prayerful study.

Grace and peace to you in the Lord Jesus Christ.