Why a Detailed Study of Scripture Can Cause More Harm Than Good

Imagine it is Friday evening and you are at the Gheen household. My wife and I have invited you over for game night. The house you’re in looks like your average 1,500 square foot, split-level home. A few toys are still scattered around the living room because I have 3 small children. But the kids have been put to bed, you have a mug of hot tea (or coffee, you pick), and you’re looking forward to a fun evening of Monopoly or Life or whatever weird board game we got for Christmas last year. I turn to you and say, “Instead of playing a board game would you like to do a puzzle together?” You respond, “Sure!” I go to the hall closet and return with a 500-piece jigsaw puzzle in a Ziploc bag, empty the pieces on the floor and start sorting. Puzzled (no pun intended), you inquire whether I have the box the puzzle came in. I shake my head. You ask, “What is the completed puzzle supposed to look like?” To which I respond, “I have no idea, but I suppose we’ll figure it out eventually.” Could we complete the puzzle? Maybe. Would it be a long, frustrating process? Most definitely.

Yet in ministry—whether from the pulpit, or during adult Sunday School, or Wednesday night Bible study—that is often the approach taken to teaching scripture. We’re doing an in-depth word study over here. We’re examining the Greek verb tense over there. We’re looking at maps of Paul’s missionary journeys. We fixate on these little scripture puzzle pieces while neglecting to explain what the completed story of scripture looks like. And that will leave the average church attendee bewildered.

I’m a Pastor of Discipleship, so I spend a lot of time thinking about how to help Christians grow in spiritual maturity. I’ve found that most Christians care deeply about their relationship with God. They yearn to know God. Rarely do I meet someone who professes Christ and attends church yet displays total spiritual apathy. In my experience, most Christians want to “be filled with the knowledge of his [God’s] will in all spiritual wisdom and understanding, so as to walk in a manner worthy of the Lord…” (Colossians 1:9-10). They want to do this, yet they don’t know how. They are well aware that reading one’s Bible is vital to spiritual growth. But even though they read scripture it doesn’t have the desired effect. The reason is because they struggle to understand what they’re reading.

I’m convinced that, in the majority of cases, Christians struggle to understand their Bible because they’re missing the big picture. They see the 66 books, and even chapters within a book, as disconnected from one another. They perceive the Bible as a broad smattering of theological topics rather than a cohesive, interrelated story of God’s redemptive plan for creation and mankind.

What caused this disjointed view of scripture? Largely to blame is the conservative evangelical notion of “good” Bible teaching. For too long we’ve believed that quality exegetical teaching equals obsessing over minutia. That going deep into scripture requires diagramming sentences, using words like “chiastic structure,” and taking 9 months to teach through Galatians. (Never mind the fact that Paul was writing a letter, and like most letters it was intended to be read in one sitting.) Meanwhile, average-Joe Christian has long forgotten why Paul wrote Galatians in the first place. He has no idea how the message of Galatians fits into the larger message of the New Testament, or how the Old and New Testament come together to tell the full story of scripture. He goes home feeling inadequate to study scripture on his own and becomes overly dependent on the guy up front who knows Greek.

What is the solution? It begins by rejecting the idea that solid exegetical Bible study demands pausing at every participle. Yes, a detailed word analysis has some value, but we need devote just as much energy to explaining the big picture of scripture and answering the larger questions. Neglecting the big “what’s” and “why’s” leaves people without a context. Now wonder, for example, so many in the church find large chunks of the Old Testament mystifying—it’s difficult to interpret the details of God’s interactions with Israel when one never understood the bigger picture, namely, God’s overall purpose for the nation of Israel.

I’m all for detailed study of one or two verses when it’s warranted. But as Bible teachers our task is to continuously zoom-in and zoom-out. To, if necessary, explain smaller detail, but then also explain how it fits into the bigger picture. If we neglect that, our people will be left holding pieces of Bible knowledge, unable to fit them together.

If you found this content valuable, don’t forget to subscribe to Clergy Craftsman.

This blog post was was originally published in Fellowship Focus, January/February 2020. Used with permission.