2 Ti 2:15

15 Be diligent to present yourself approved to God as a workman who does not need to be ashamed, accurately handling the word of truth. (NIV)

15 Study to shew thyself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth. (KJV)

I saw a survey where it showed that only 16 percent of Christians read their bible every day. Only about 30 percent said they did more than once a week.

Why do you suppose that so few people study the scriptures? It does seem like a daunting task at times, and can seem so complicated that people give up. It can also be boring to a point, until you get beneath the surface. We can also become bewildered by all the interpretations that are out there, and all the teachings that circulate.

Also, our culture promotes the idea of instant everything, and the deeper truths of scripture are never instant by any stretch.

We do have a helper in the Holy Spirit, who has promised to help us in our understanding, but I don’t think the Spirit will do it for us. God inspired the scriptures to teach us about himself, so that means that we should get that information from the book he wrote. Nowhere in scripture are we promised that we will be told things by the spirit apart from the scriptures.

What the Spirit does, is enlighten the scriptures, to give us understanding. The Spirit can also give us an appetite for the things of God, and for the written word.

When Paul was writing to Timothy, he told him (and us) to be diligent in our efforts to grow in the faith.

In the above verse, the King James says Study to show yourself approved, while most other translations say Be Diligent, or make every effort….

Be Diligent is probably a better translation, because it does not mean study in the sense of preparing for a test. The Greek word is SPODAZO, which is related to a word translated Zeal. It means to attack it in such a way as to grasp it fully. It means to exert some energy in pursuit of something, in this case the pursuit of God. A very loose translation of the verse could be… “make every effort to grasp fully the truth of God.”

We should then chase after the truth of God, as a workman who is good at what he does, who works hard. This is not to gain acceptance from God, but rather it is to develop our own spirits to their fullest. Should we be satisfied with just a rudimentary knowledge of the gospel? I think not.

The workman, in this case, is to “rightly divide” the word of truth, meaning to handle it in a way that is accurate. The Greek word for dividing is a word that means to divide, like marking off boundaries, or making a straight cut in a piece of wood. In 2: Corinthions 4:2, Paul speaks of perverting the word, or handling it in a wrong way, just the opposite of what he tells Timothy here.

Today, we also have more tools at our disposal than at any time in the history of the world. I would recommend using tools such as dictionaries, concordances, commentaries and whatever else you can find. These tools will open the scriptures to you in that they will help explain nuances that are not apparent to the naked eye. It is also good to use different translations to get a broader picture of what is being said. (With a Strongs’ Concordance, you can find the Greek and Hebrew meanings without having to know the languages.)

Here are some basic principles that will help you “rightly divide” the Word of truth.

1. The plain meaning is usually best. Take it literally unless it is obviously meant to be not taken literally. (Like Jesus saying to pluck your eye out if it causes you to sin.)
2. Let scripture interpret scripture… meaning to compare the text you are reading with other texts. See where the words in the verse are used elsewhere. How does it compare with other things you have read in the bible? How does this compare to other things the writer said on this subject? How does it compare with what other writers wrote?
3. The pure meaning is what it meant to the original writer and the original audience. Try to avoid reading it strictly from our own cultural point of view. Try to find out what it mean to the first readers. This is not done through imagining it, but through checking it out in reference material.
4. Keep it in context. It means what it means in light of the chapter and book. It is never good to take a single phrase and make that into a teaching. It must be kept in its context or flow of thought.
5. Ask questions. Don’t assume you know what something means. The more you question, the better chance you have of discovery. Finding the right question is they key to knowledge.
6. Watch out for cultural problems. In American culture, we tend to see things as black and white only, whereas the scriptures were written in a more Eastern mindset, where things are not so black and white.

Here is something I copied from J.I. Packer’s book called Concise Theology. It concerns bible study and interpretation.

Concise Theology: Interpretation

INTERPRETATION

CHRISTIANS CAN UNDERSTAND THE WORD OF GOD

Give me understanding, and I will keep your law and obey it with all my heart.

PSALM 119:34

All Christians have a right and duty not only to learn from the church’s heritage of faith but also to interpret Scripture for themselves. The church of Rome doubts this, alleging that individuals easily misinterpret the Scriptures. This is true; but the following rules, faithfully observed, will help prevent that from happening.

Every book of Scripture is a human composition, and though it should always be revered as the Word of God, interpretation of it must start from its human character. Allegorizing, therefore, which disregards the human writer’s expressed meaning is never appropriate.

Each book was written not in code but in a way that could be understood by the readership to which it was addressed. This is true even of the books that primarily use symbolism: Daniel, Zechariah, and Revelation. The main thrust is always clear, even if details are clouded. So when we understand the words used, the historical background, and the cultural conventions of the writer and his readers, we are well on the way to grasping the thoughts that are being conveyed. Spiritual understanding—that is, the discernment of the reality of God, his ways with humankind, his present will, and one’s own relationship to him now and for the future—will not however reach us from the text until the veil is removed from our hearts and we are able to share the writer’s own passion to know and please and honor God (2 Cor. 3:16; 1 Cor. 2:14). Prayer that God’s Spirit may generate this passion in us and show us God in the text is needed here. (See Ps. 119:18-19, 26-27, 33-34, 73, 125, 144, 169; Eph. 1:17-19; 3:16-19.)

Each book had its place in the progress of God’s revelation of grace, which began in Eden and reached its climax in Jesus Christ, Pentecost, and the apostolic New Testament. That place must be borne in mind when studying the text. The Psalms, for instance, model the godly heart in every age, but express its prayers and praises in terms of the typical realities (earthly kings, kingdoms, health, wealth, war, long life) that circumscribed the life of grace in the pre-Christian era.

Each book proceeded from the same divine mind, so the teaching of the Bible’s sixty-six books will be complementary and self-consistent. If we cannot yet see this, the fault is in us, not in Scripture. It is certain that Scripture nowhere contradicts Scripture; rather, one passage explains another. This sound principle of interpreting Scripture by Scripture is sometimes called the analogy of Scripture or the analogy of faith.

Each book exhibits unchanging truth about God, humanity, godliness, and ungodliness, applied to and illustrated by particular situations in which individuals and groups found themselves. The final stage in biblical interpretation is to reapply these truths to our own life-situations; this is the way to discern what God in Scripture is saying to us at this moment. Examples of such reapplication are Josiah’s realization of God’s wrath at Judah’s failure to observe his law (2 Kings 22:8-13), Jesus’ reasoning from Genesis 2:24 (Matt. 19:4-6), and Paul’s use of Genesis 15:6 and Psalm 32:1-2 to show the reality of present righteousness by faith (Rom. 4:1-8).

No meaning may be read into or imposed on Scripture that cannot with certainty be read out of Scripture—shown, that is, to be unambiguously expressed by one or more of the human writers.

Careful and prayerful observance of these rules is a mark of every Christian who “correctly handles the word of truth” (2 Tim. 2:15).