St.Augustine

1. St.Augustine III. How to Read, Mark, Learn, & Inwardly Digest the Word IV. How to Read Along: Scripture and Traditions Hermeneutics Lecture Series I. How to Use the Bible II. How to Interpret Anything

2. How to Use the Bible For Knowledge Of its Contents -------------- Book by book Hermeneutics Mastery Stable information And insight For Communion with God ------------- A means of grace Meditative reading Spiritual Memorization devotion Lectio divina For Practical Guidance ------------- Seeking principles How-To books Topical sermons “Searching the Scriptures” with specific situations in mind.

3. How to Use the Bible For Communion with God For Practical Guidance For Knowledge Of its Contents

4. R. A. Torrey’s Guidelines (From the introduction to his topical guide to scripture) 1. Study it daily 2. STUDY it, don't just read 3. Topically 4. By chapter 5. As the Word of God 6. Prayerfully 7. Look for Christ 8. Memorize it 9. Improve spare minutes

5. It is astounding how much heedless reading of the Bible is done. Men seem to think that there is some magic power in the book, and that, if they will but open its pages and skim over its words, they will get good out of it. The Bible is good only because of the truth that is in it, and to see this truth demands close attention.

6. A verse must oftentimes be read and re-read and read again before the wondrous message of love and power that God has put into it begins to appear. Words must be turned over and over in the mind before their full force and beauty takes possession of us. One must look a long time at the great masterpieces of art to appreciate their beauty and understand their meaning, and so one must look a long time at the great verses of the Bible to appreciate their beauty and understand their meaning.

8. “Here we have to deal with a false method of seeking edification and deriving pious reflections from every passage of Holy Scripture without regard to the time, the place, or the persons to whom it was written. This method of constraining the text to meanings that it cannot bear, does violence to the Word of God, which is not only not to be added to or taken from as a whole, but also as to all its parts. This spirit of interpretation, while nominally most reverential, is really very irreverential. It originates from a lack of knowledge of the Scriptures, and the neglect to use the proper methods of exegesis.”

9. Hermeneutics

10. Hermeneutics

11. Hermeneutics 8 Come, behold the works of the Lord,how he has brought desolations on the earth.9 He makes wars cease to the end of the earth;he breaks the bow and shatters the spear;he burns the chariots with fire.10 “Be still, and know that I am God.I will be exalted among the nations,I will be exalted in the earth!”

12. Hermeneutics Be Still, and Know That I am God

13. How the Bible says to Use the Bible II Tim. 3:16 – All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, that the man of God may be competent, equipped for every good work.

14. Chicago Declaration on Inerrancy (1978): Holy Scripture, being God’s own Word, written by men prepared and superintended by His Spirit, is of infallible divine authority in all matters upon which it touches: it is to be believed, as God’s instruction, in all that it affirms; obeyed, as God’s command, in all that it requires; embraced, as God’s pledge, in all that it promises. The authority of Scripture is inescapably impaired if this total divine inerrancy is in any way limited or disregarded, or made relative to a view of truth contrary to the Bible’s own; and such lapses bring serious loss to both the individual and the Church.

15. For Knowledge Of its Contents For Practical Guidance For Communion with God

16. How to master the English Bible! High-sounding title that, but does it mean what it says? It is not how to study, but how to master it; for there is a sense in which the Bible must be mastered before it can be studied, and it is the failure to see this which accounts for other failures on the part of many earnest would-be Bible students.

17. As I proceeded,I began to catch the drift of Paul’s thought; or rather, I was caught by it and drawn on. The mighty argument opened out and arose like a great work of art above me till at least it enclosed me within its perfect proportions. It was a revolutionary experience. I saw for the first time that a book of Scripture is a complete discussion of a single subject; I felt the force of the book as a whole, and I understood the different parts in the light of the whole as I had never understood them when reading them by themselves. Thus to master book after book is to fill the mind with the great thoughts of God.

19. I do not think half as much of this beech tree as yonder squirrel does. I see him leap from bough to bough, and I feel sure that he dearly values the old beech tree, because he has his home somewhere inside it in a hollow place, these branches are his shelter, and those beech-nuts are his food. He lives upon the tree. It is his world, his playground, his granary, his home; indeed, it is everything to him, and it is not so to me, for I find my rest and food elsewhere. With God's word it is well for us to be like squirrels, living in it and living on it. Let us exercise our minds by leaping from bough to bough of it, find our rest and food in it, and make it our all in all. --Charles Haddon Spurgeon (1834-1892), How to Read the Bible, 1879

20. How the Bible says to Use the Bible II Tim. 3:16 – All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, that the man of God may be competent, equipped for every good work.

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