If you’d like to study the Bible but you aren’t sure where to start, let me give you some pointers. If you already study the Bible and you do know where to start, I’d like to give you some reminders.
Read it. You can’t properly study a book you haven’t read. I would strongly suggest reading the entire Bible at least once, and really more than once. While you don’t have to do it the way I and several of my church’s members do it, I’ve found that reading the whole Bible through in one year every year is a really good way to get and stay in God’s Word.
Look at the context. What’s going on around (before and after) the section that you’re studying? I don’t just mean the verses around the section, and I don’t even mean just the chapters around it. I mean to take it into the context of the entire Bible. Sometimes there are things that happen to people and things that God tells people to do that don’t make sense until much later in the Bible, or they don’t make sense unless you’ve read something much earlier. Another important thing about context: It keeps you from cherry-picking verses to make your own point, and keeps you from being tricked by others who do that. I’ve heard it said: “Look at the context, or you’ll be conned with the text.”
Listen to the Holy Spirit. While it’s also very helpful to study Biblical languages and extra-Biblical history so you can understand the local customs of the times and places of the Bible, the most important thing for studying the Bible is listening to the Holy Spirit! God wrote and preserved the Bible, so of course He can guide you into understanding what you need to learn from it. In fact, there are things you cannot learn from the Bible without the Holy Spirit, because there are some things that can only be spiritually discerned (which makes me think of 1 Corinthians 2:6-16).
While there is always more to say, these pointers are the most important things for you to remember. Your specifics and particular flavor of Bible study, both on your own and with others, will likely be different from mine, but as long as we’re studying the Bible properly and learning what God wants us to learn, that’s good.
Related:
Studying the Bible
Studying On Your Own
What Does That Mean?
Like You’ve Never Seen It Before
Growing in Bible Study
Biblical Languages and Bible Study
Reading Someone Else’s Mail
Our Perspective and the Bible