November 23, 2025

This time Jack Wilkie describes a common problem with Bible Study. Sometimes even when sincere we go to the bible looking for confirmation instead of revelation. 

Robin Hood didn’t become good at archery by shooting arrows at random and then drawing a bullseye around them wherever they landed. Neither will we become good Bible students by coming to the text with a conclusion and then drawing a bullseye around it by finding a way to make the Scriptures say what we want.

One of the best ways to guard against this error is to apply two of the previous steps: keep everything in context, and don’t pit the Bible against itself. Finding what the Bible says rather than what I want it to say requires me to dig deep into the context of the verses in question. That way I can understand them the way the original writer (and, more importantly, the Holy Spirit) intended before applying them. If I come looking for a conclusion, on the other hand, I can simply pull out a concordance and look up any verses that talk about my topic of interest and then string them together to say what I want them.

The name for this approach to Bible Study is commonly called proof texting. This bad habit has become all the easier with the ability to do a computer search and get a list of passages. I am not saying that topical research is bad. I do want to say that we need to engage in detailed study of all passages which are relevant to our topic. This is very time consuming and often difficult but our understanding of a topic will be deeper and more complete if we are willing to put in the work. We will be much less likely to make mistakes and miss the point that God is trying to make. Further we will be more able to defend our conclusions should the need arise. 

A good question to consider is what biases we are bringing to the text and how those biases might impact our understanding. 

Kevin Cleary