CA3 – Studying the Bible on its own terms
© Jeff Stacey | Last updated: 11 May 2020
The Bible cannot really be understood properly unless it is accepted and studied on its own terms. The challenge is to “see” what it is actually saying without imposing prejudices onto it Acts 17:11. This is the ideal to be attempted. My priority here has been to try and study the Bible as it is, without trying to make it answer a lot of other questions it is not primarily addressing. Yet I know this cannot be fully achieved due to inevitable subjectivity [see CA6(a)(iv)].
Some controversial issues have been listed in the Charts’ introductions. Yet many of these matters have not been covered in the detailed explanations. This is not meant to suggest that they are unimportant or are being avoided. I have simply tried to keep focusing on what is emphasised as central and significant in each Bible passage being explained. I understand these core emphases and their purposes as:
- to give vital information about God, and
- to show how to respond rightly to that information.
Therefore my aim has been to clarify the Bible’s information about God, how He has made this known to people and how they responded. I have also tried to show how all aspects of this relate to each other, by using flow-charting and detailed explanations. It is my attempt to draw up the “architecture” of the Bible’s God-information or “theology”. But I admit my obvious limitations! Romans 11:33-34.