Beginner's Guide to Studying the Bible - Philemon |04.27.25| How to Study the Bible pt.1
Raise your hand for me if you would like to know God better. I.e. you’d like to understand him better, know his purpose for your life, have better peace about some of the bigger questions in life…
Would that describe you?
I need to encourage you with this: there is NO greater way to get to know God, to REALLY know his character, his heart, his goodness…
There is no greater way to understanding the life you were made for…than by reading his Word (the Bible).
But the truth is that MOST people don’t read the Bible! The American Bible Society found that in 2023, only 39% of people in America will actually use a Bible more that 3-4 times A YEAR (that includes church people).
The truth is, a majority of us just simply don’t read the Bible very regularly.
For some people, it’s because they don’t care, or they don’t think the Bible has anything relevant for their life. They think it’s outdated or a waste of time. Others have TRIED to read it, got confused or bored, and then gave up.
But the BIGGEST problem is when you ARE someone who wants to read the Bible, but you’re not sure where to start or how to go about it.
And the two most common ways that people start reading the Bible both have big issues. Some of you have experienced this first one: you start at the beginning!
And you read Genesis, it’s got some interesting stories. You read Exodus, it’s got some gripping sections, and then you get to Leviticus and your brain turns to goop and your discipline turns to goop and the whole thing is goop and you’re done. Tapped out. Bible closed.
Those of you laughing have clearly experienced exactly what I’m talking about!
The other method is what Pastor Craig Groeschel calls the “Lucky Dip Method.” It’s where you flip open the Bible to a random page, hoping you can plop your finger down and have God speak to you.
[Ezekiel 4:12]
But then we have people who are confused when God seemingly speaks to them through strange verses like Ezekiel 4:12, “You shall eat it as a barley cake, baking it in their sight on human dung.”
No joke, that’s a REAL verse in the Bible! So, yeah, maybe not the best method.
[Philemon]
That’s why we’ve partnered with Pastor Craig from Life.Church to run a two weeks series called, “How to Study the Bible,” using a short book in the New Testament: filet mignon.
Sorry, it’s actually Philemon. If I make jokes like that, y’all are going to be too hungry to learn anything.
I’m actually really excited about this series, because I have a strong goal to help you learn how to study the Bible for yourself, to feel confident on how to read the Bible so that you can connect with God.
Because the truth is that God’s word is ALIVE, it’s not just like any other book. It’s active, it’s powerful. It speaks to you, guards you, empowers you.
It builds faith, renews your mind, and shows you the truth that sets you free!
But I also want to ask a favor: I want to ask that you make a very intentional effort to come back to church next week. For some of us, two weeks in a row of church is a big ask, but I don’t want you to miss out on what God wants to do in you through his Word.
[5 Steps]
Truly, I don’t want ANYONE to miss out on connecting with God through his Word, so I’ll start today by sharing with you 5 Steps to Study the Bible…
Choose a translation you understand
Choose a time, a place, and a plan to study
Understand the context
Read slowly and ask questions
Pray for God to speak to you, and apply what he shows you (repeat list)
So we’re going to do that in the book of Philemon, starting in verses 7-8. But to do this, I need everyone (even online) to read these two verses aloud, so we can really get a feel for it. Can we do that?
[Philemon 1:7-8] KJV
“For we have great joy and consolation in thy love, because the bowels of the saints are refreshed by thee, brother. 8 Wherefore, though I might be much bold in Christ to enjoin thee that which is convenient…”
Okay, WHAT?! Well, we’ve got to understand this is a TRANSLATION, because the Bible was originally written in Hebrew, Greek, and Aramaic, depending on what part of the Bible you’re reading.
And very smart folks have studied those languages, and have translated them into language that we can understand. But how many of you know that language changes over time? (maybe even change since this morning)
The King James Version was originally translated in 1611, and so it has some phrases that don’t make sense now. Because back in 1611, they referred to emotions as coming from deep within you, from your bowels.
But nowadays, we’d probably say that we feel emotions in our heart. Or maybe that we feel it in our bones. And so that is why some very smart people who love Jesus very much have created many different translations over the years, going back to the original language and trying to convey what the intent was in modern language.
[Step 1]
That’s why Step 1 is: Choose a translation that you understand. Because there are over 3,000 translations, and you don’t want to confuse yourself more than you have to by picking a translation that is difficult to understand.
So, as your pastor, I’ll give you my opinion on a couple good ones to start with. This is just my opinion, but I think these translations are pretty understandable.
[translations]
If you’re asking me, I think that the NIV, NLT, NRSV, & ESV are all good, understandable translations. I grew up reading the NIV, and along with the NLT, those are two very readable versions with easy-to-understand language.
The NRSV is what we have here at New Life as the black, seat-back Bibles, and that one along with the ESV are a little more rigid translations where they focused more on the accuracy of translating each word, even if it’s not as modern in the phrasing.
[Step 2]
But we start with a translation you understand, so that you can get to Step 2: Choose a time, a place, and a plan to study.
Now, just like any habit that will transform your life, it’s best to be consistent. Pick your time and place that you’ll be able to keep up long term. When I was younger, I had more free time in the evenings. Now, I prefer mornings for my time.
So maybe you’ve got your certain chair that already has your Bible next to it. And so you create a habit to start your day with God with your coffee and your favorite chair and your Bible reading.
But then pick your method. Some people prefer to read a paper Bible and take notes or highlight favorite verses. Other people prefer to use the Bible app, since their phone is almost always with them. Some people prefer to listen to an audio Bible on their morning drive.
The method isn’t as important as developing the PRACTICE of doing it consistently. And it also helps to have a reading plan to guide your time.
Maybe you’re reading through the whole Bible, and so you’ve got certain chapters to read each day. Maybe you’re studying through a single book. Maybe you’re following one of the thousands of reading plans on the YouVersion Bible app, or you prefer to use the Our Daily Bread reading plan.
[Reading plan]
If you don’t have a reading plan, there are lots of great resources in the study guide for this series that Life.Church has created for us, and so you can scan that QR code right now, or we’ll put it up on the screen at the end of the message, too.
But once we’ve chosen a translation that we understand, and we’ve chosen a time, place, and a plan to create our habit of Bible reading, then we have to Understand the Context.
[Step 3]
Understanding the context is super important, because it protects us from making incorrect assumptions. Now, what if I told you that someone had seen some suspicious activity at our church, after hours? They had seen folks in all sorts of cars and trucks, driving up and dropping off packages.
And then word got out to the news, and they sent a reporter to investigate? Without any other CONTEXT, you could draw any number of conclusions about what was going on, from some sort of illegal activity all the way up to what it really was this last fall, when our church coordinated over 15 tons of hurricane relief supplies to send down to North Carolina. Context is important.
And when it comes to the Word of God, we can make the same mistakes by making assumptions about what we’re reading if we don’t take the time to understand the context.
Because we have to understand that the Bible isn’t just a book, it’s a LIBRARY of 66 books, ranging across multiple different genres, written in three languages, across three continents, over a 1,500 year period, by 40 different authors, which included shepherds, kings, tent-makers, doctors, and fishermen.
The Bible is a collection of poems, prophecies, letters, laws, histories, and biographies…written by people and inspired by God…telling one unified story that shows us our need for Jesus and teaches us to become like him.
And when we’re studying the Bible and want to actually UNDERSTAND what we’re reading so that we can APPLY what we read to our life today…context matters.
So there’s three questions to always ask when we jump in to a section of the Bible:
Who wrote it?
Who was it written TO?
WHY was it written? What was it’s purpose?
[Philemon 1:1-2]
And let’s do that process as we start with Philemon:
Paul, a prisoner of Christ Jesus, and Timothy our brother, To our beloved coworker Philemon, 2 to our sister Apphia, to our fellow soldier Archippus, and to the church in your house:
So who wrote it? Paul did. And if we look into different resources available online or in the Bible App, we’ll find out that this is the shortest letter that Paul wrote.
And he starts it by calling himself a prisoner of Christ, rather than by calling himself an apostle (like in many of his other letters). So we can see that he’s not trying to pull rank or seem impressive as he’s writing this letter, but he’s instead using terms of friendship.
And he’s writing it to someone named Philemon, which is why we call the book Philemon. And with a little research into the context, we’ll find out that Paul wrote this letter while he was in a Roman prison, to a wealthy man named Philemon, who led a church in his home.
So we’ve got WHO wrote it, and to WHOM it was written, now WHY…?
We’ll find out as we keep reading, but this letter was written ABOUT Onesimus, who was a runaway slave who had stolen from Philemon. Apparently, Onesimus had met Paul in Rome, and Paul had led Onesimus to Christ.
So now Paul is writing a letter to Philemon to encourage him to FORGIVE Onesimus and accept him as a brother in Christ.
Now, this would have been a BIG DEAL back then. Historians estimate that there were as many as 60M slaves in the Roman empire, ranging from horribly treated menial workers, all the way up to folks who were working off a debt with their labor and were treated as trusted members of the family.
Let’s understand that slavery was not okay back then, it’s not okay now. And the Bible isn’t saying it’s okay. It’s just written during a time when that was a reality.
And one of the awful parts of that reality was if a slave ran away, the owner would have been completely within their rights in the Roman empire to pursue them, try to capture them, maybe even brand them as a fugitive and beat them or kill them.
But Paul is going to make a big ask. The slave that stole from you? That then ran away? I’d like you to FORGIVE him. In fact, I’d like you to receive him NOT as a slave, but as an equal, a brother in Christ.
So, even here, we can see Paul talking ABOUT slavery, but actively working to show that following Jesus undermines the very concept of slavery, because all of us are equal as children of God.
But because this is a big ask, I think maybe Paul is trying to butter up Philemon. I mean, let’s read the next section together and you tell me if you think that maybe Paul is buttering up Philemon to get him to do what he’s asking:
[Philemon 1:4-7]
4 I thank my God always when I mention you in my prayers, 5 because I hear of your love for all the saints and your faith toward the Lord Jesus… 7 I have indeed received much joy and encouragement from your love, because the hearts of the saints have been refreshed through you, my brother.
So, perhaps Paul is way more godly than me, and is actually super grateful for what he’s been hearing about Philemon, and that has nothing to do with what he’s about to ask of him.
Or, maybe because I’m more skeptical, maybe Paul is buttering him up… “You’re so loving, you’ve got so much faith…that I want you to forgive and receive back the slave that stole from you and then ran away. And treat him like a brother, not a slave!”
So we can see that when we better understand the context, we can ask better questions about what we’re reading. But once we understand the context, we move on to step 4.
[Step 4]
Step 4 is to read slowly and ask questions. We don’t just want to rush through the reading JUST so we can check off the box and move on with our life. If we truly believe that God’s Word is able to transform us to become more like Jesus, then we want to go a little more slowly and ask some questions.
I think the 3 most important questions for every follower of Jesus every time we read the Bible is 1) What is God saying to me? What’s standing out?
2) What am I going to do about it? How is he inviting me to obey him this week?
3) Who can I tell?
Now, because you’re all coming back next week, you’ll see this come alive next week in a way that blows my mind. Because when we read Scripture in context and seek to understand it and APPLY it to our lives, we actually experience transformation in our lives. But you’ve got to come back next week. This week, we’re just setting it up.
But to set it up, we go step by step: Pick a translation we understand, choose a time and place, seek to understand the context, read slowly and ask questions, and then step 5: Pray and apply it to your life.
[Step 5]
When we ask questions of the text, like “what is standing out to me,” we trust that God might be trying to teach us something or show us something or invite us to experience something through that. And when we pray, “God what are you trying to show me today,” my pastoral encouragement is to NOT make it too complicated!
Sometimes, I’ll just have my brain stick on a word or a phrase that catches my attention. Sometimes, a theme of forgiveness or friendship will stick out to me. Sometimes, I’ll read a command in Scripture and it will definitely feel like that is for me that day!
But God’s word was never meant to just stay on the page, or stay in our thoughts. It’s meant to be LIVED OUT. So when we have something that sticks out to us, we try to find a small, simple way to live that out this week, and that’s how we partner with God as he’s working in our lives to transform us to become more and more like Jesus.
And in fact, I actually want to pray that God will actually speak to each of us in these next few minutes through these next verses. Let’s pray: “God help us hear you and follow you, amen.”
Okay, let’s read…
[Philemon 1:8-10]
For this reason, though I am more than bold enough in Christ to command you to do the right thing, 9 yet I would rather appeal to you on the basis of love—and I, Paul, do this as an old man and now also as a prisoner of Christ Jesus. 10 I am appealing to you for my child, Onesimus, whose father I have become during my imprisonment.
Watch what Paul says, he's talking to Philemon and he's gonna ask him to forgive. "I could be bold and I could order you to do what you ought to do." Remember, I'm an apostle, I outrank you. I could tell you, but I'm not gonna do it that way.
He says, "I prefer to appeal to you on the basis of love." But then I think he pulls on the heart strings a little bit.
He says, "It's me, Paul, an old man." I've been serving Jesus for a long time and I may be in the end of my life, "An old man and now also a prisoner of Christ Jesus." I've been serving God for a long time and I'm writing to you from prison.
He said it's on these terms, "I appeal to you," and watch what he calls Onesimus, "My child," "My son Onesimus, whose father I have become while I was in chains."
"I led your runaway slave to Christ. And now this slave is a son in the faith to me." This is massive because Onesimus stole from Philemon. He runs to Rome, he meets Paul. Paul leads him to Christ and now Paul is saying, "I don't see him as a slave, I see him as a son."
Now, Pastor Craig turned me on to a fun little Easter egg in the Greek meaning of the name Onesimus. His name means “useful or profitable.”
[Philemon 1:11]
And if you read verse 11 it says, “Formerly he was useless to you, but now he is indeed useful to you and to me.”
Paul is using a play on words. He's taking the name Onesimus, which means useful and he's saying formerly he was useless. Now he's useful.
And it made me think of my story. And so many of YOUR stories that you’ve shared with me. We all have a “formerly…but now” part of our story. In fact, you CAN’T have a “but now” part of your story without something that came before.
Formerly Onesimus was a slave, he was useless. But now because of the power and the grace of God, he's profitable. So if I'm reading this and I'm asking, “What is God saying to me?”... He’s probably showing me, your life was formerly one thing, but now God took that thing that you didn't want and made it profitable or useful.
I wonder what that is in your story? Formerly, you were anxious…but now you experience peace more often than not.
Formerly, you were stuck in that pattern of life…but now you’re free.
Formerly, you were lost…but now, you’ve been found. And you’re continuing to find yourself and step into the light of God’s love for you.
What’s your “formerly…but now” story?
I’m reminded of a story one of our members told me about how their faith-life had changed once they came to New Life. This is what they sent in an email to me:
“We were asleep in the pews at our former church. Plenty of $, little personal involvement or sacrifice. I had an attitude of "this is enough or maybe even plenty".”
Then they went on to share how coming to New Life and being a part of a life group has dramatically changed their relationship with others for the better.
Or I think of my own story from before we moved here to IL, and I was hungry for friendships with other guys, but struggling to find any connection. I felt like I was constantly trying to make a new friend, but never knowing if they would accept my ups and my downs, or if they would be there to support me as a young dad and husband.
But now, God has made a way for many friendships for myself and other men in our community, ones where we are real with each other, real about our struggles and our faith, and are experiencing real life-change and growth.
God is always taking things that were formerly useless, lonely, dark… and he’s working in us and through us so that we can say BUT NOW he’s taking what WAS useless and making it useful for our growth and life!
What’s your “formerly…but now” story? Next week, this will come to life for you. Because God is still writing your story.
[QR]
And as a church, we want to help you discover how God is working through his Word. So we’ve got this simple guide you can download today. Scan the QR code or ask me to get it.
Some of you, your story is still in process because formerly you were sick, but now, by the grace and power of God, you are experiencing healing!
There are some of you that formerly, you were addicted…but now, because of the grace of Jesus, you’re now two days sober or one week sober and you’re on your journey to being someone with a testimony of someone who has been healed of your addiction through the power of Jesus.
Maybe formerly, you battled with depression. But now the peace of God, which passes all understanding, guards your heart and your mind in Christ Jesus.
There may be those of you who have lived the story where formerly, your marriage was hanging on by a thread. Maybe you’re listening and you’re saying, RIGHT NOW our marriage is struggling. But one day your story will be FORMERLY we were in trouble, BUT NOW we’ve been healed by Jesus and we’re seeking God together.
God is writing your story. And how does he actively write it? As we read his word, as we let the living and active and powerful Word of God work in us and build our faith and set us free.
Don’t miss the chance to know God more deeply. To hear his voice. To let his Word shape your life. Because God wants to help you experience the full life that you were made for, that Jesus saved you for, and that he’s still writing as we speak. Isn’t that good news?