A Strategy for Tackling a Passage of Scripture

Over the years I have participated in many Bible Studies in which we used a manual or workbook with prescribed questions. Recently I have heard an increasing sentiment to get back to the basics and just... READ THE BIBLE without a lot of bells and whistles. But it's also good to have a method or strategy to aid the process of "unpacking" the Scriptures. I was so happy to learn from one of my pastors of some suggested questions prepared by one of her seminary professors at Trinity School for Ministry in Pennsylvania. These questions make sense and can be tucked in your Bible for use whenever you pick up a passage of Scripture to read.

Rod Whitacre’s Suggested Questions for

Scripture Reflection and Study

1.​

A.​How does this passage offer comfort?
B.  ​How does this passage challenge?

This first set of questions starts with our own gut-level reactions.  This is a very good place to start, though we must recognize that our answers may come more from our own experience than from what the text itself is trying to say.  These questions help us bring the text into contact with our own lives and not merely play intellectual games.  Other question, on the other hand, will help us avoid merely hearing our own voice in the Bible rather than God’s.

2.​

A.​How does this passage encourage faith?
​B.​How does this passage encourage hope?
​C.​How does this passage encourage love?

This second set of questions focuses on the three “cardinal virtues,” faith, hope and love.  St Paul says these three are eternal (1 Cor. 13.13)—they are what we can “take with us.”  It makes sense, therefore, to build these qualities into our lives as much as possible.  The way to do so is by focusing on God, revealed in Scripture and in our lives.  So in this section we are not just looking at these virtues as such, but using them as filters for reflecting on our response to the God revealed in the Scripture passage.
These questions are more specific than the first set.  They help us focus on the content of the passage while continuing to bring the text into direct contact with our lives.  Insights gained in this section can often give direction in sermon preparation.  Each of these terms refers to two distinct ideas:

​Faith

Faith refers to trust and belief.
Does this passage give us reason to trust God?  Does it give us some truth to believe?
​Hope​

Hope refers to future expectations and to expectation of help now.
Does the passage give us something to look forward to?  Does it offer us encouragement in the midst of difficulty?
​Love​

Love refers to a heartfelt sense of concern and to sacrificial self-denial?
In this passage do we see God’s love?  People loving one another?

3.​What does this passage teach about God’s work in history?
We now move to question that are even more directly focused on the content of the passage.  This third question is put in a very general form in order to include the fruit of both historical and organic study.  Reference works are helpful at this point.  What exegetical details (literary, historical, cultural) are especially important?  What themes of the Christian Faith are touched on in this passage?  What patterns and echoes of material elsewhere in Scripture are present here?

4.​What does this passage reveal of God’s delightful beauty?
The fourth question focuses on God Himself, whom to know is eternal life (Jn. 17.3).  What is taught about the Father, Son and/or Holy Spirit?  What do we learn of God’s character?  His heart, i.e. what He loves and hates?  His ways of dealing with us?
This question is the most significant of all, though the answers may be only a list of attributes.  Scripture reveals God and His ways to us.  The Bible is a glorious means to a yet more glorious end, the personal knowledge of God Himself through union with the Father in the Son by the Holy Spirit within the covenant People of God.

What is Heaven?

I believe in God the Father almighty,

creator of heaven and earth;

I believe in Jesus Christ his only Son our Lord.

He was conceived by the power of the Holy Spirit and born of the Virgin Mary.

He suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, died, and was buried.

He descended into hell;

On the third day he rose again.

He ascended into heaven, and is seated at the right hand of the Father . . .

Jesus ascended into heaven—but what is heaven?  Most of you think you are going there at the end of your earthly life, so it’s probably good that we know something about it.  In the Bible heaven means 3 things:

First, heaven is where God is.  It is the endless, self-sustaining life of God.  God has always dwelt there, even before creation.  In as sense where God is there is heaven. 

Second, the Bible tells us that heaven is the infinite sky above us, an emblem in space and time of God’s eternal life.

Third, heaven is the state where angels or men share the life of God in his presence.  We see this most clearly in the Book of Revelation where the elders and angels surround the heavenly throne.  We, the church, ascend into heaven in worship where we get a foretaste, knowing that we will also experience the fullness of heaven in the future.  Heaven is our inheritance and our reward.  It is where our treasure and hope are to be stored.  It is where our true citizenship is, and therefore we should never confuse our earthly citizenship with it.