Understanding and Applying the Bible, rev. ed.
Digital Logos Edition
Overview
Why do even the sincerest students of God's Word sometimes find it dry or confusing? Too often, Robertson McQuilkin suggest, it’s because they don't know how to read it.
In his classic introduction to Bible study, McQuilkin shows everyday believers how to navigate the Bible’s genres and plumb its thought structures with accuracy, experiencing afresh living encounters with the inspired Word.
Newly revised and updated, Understanding and Applying the Bible also examines the most common errors in Bible reading. In the end, McQuilkin maintains Scripture can be understood by anyone, simply by following a set of straightforward and time-tested principles.
- Explores various aspects of interpretation in proportion to their usefulness in understanding the Bible
- Introduces serious Bible students to the basic principles of interpretation
- Examines the most common errors in Bible reading
Part I: Presuppositions and Principles
- Presupposition of Biblical Interpretation
- Supernaturalistic Approaches of Premoderns
- The Naturalistic Approaches of Moderns
- The Naturalist Approaches of Postmoderns
- Dogmatic Approaches
Part II: Guidelines and Skills
- Understanding Human Language
- Historical, Physical, and Cultural Setting
- A Method for Word Study
- Analyzing Thought Structure
- Examining the Context
- Figurative Language
- Parables
- Hebrew Poetry
- Unity of Scripture
- Coherence of Truth
- Approach to Alleged Discrepancies
- Biblical Prophecy
Top Highlights
“But there is a further problem in applying Scripture. Much of the division in the church does not start at the point of some disputed passage of Scripture. Rather, someone states an idea, some accept it, others reject it without examining it carefully, and the church is divided. If we do not begin with a passage of Scripture (as in chart 1) but with a doctrine or activity, how do we evaluate its biblical authority for faith and contemporary living?” (source)
“A parable is a true-to-life short story designed to teach a truth or to answer a question” (source)
“To interpret metaphors of God, it is necessary to discern the point of comparison intended by the writer and not to improvise some point of comparison felt to be a ‘fresh insight.’ When God ‘breathed’ into the lifeless form of Adam, for example, what did He actually do? How important it is to discern what was intended by that figure of humanization, by that particular ascription of human qualities to God! The decision on what that means affects the whole theology of creation.” (source)
“In the meantime, a person’s love commitment will determine how he handles the data. For a document written long ago in an alien culture and foreign tongue over a period of 1,600 years by more than forty authors, dealing with matters of infinite truth, the miracle is that there are so few problems!” (source)
“All of our rigorous Bible study must be for the purpose of making the application to life, transferring the truth into day-by-day living.” (source)
Reviews
2 ratings
Dr Jason Harris
6/2/2023
I can only review the 1992 edition. I'm going through this book right now and it leaves a lot to be desired. It's certainly simple enough to be accessible to the undergraduate non-theology student, but it's a bit on the fundamentalistic side of things in it's tone and material. I would like to think there's something else out there that is just as accessible but not so mired in positivism. Also, the section on word studies in both this edition and the 1992 edition is just awful... truly, tragically, and chronically awful. Like, I don't think the author understands how semantics work. At all. Very dangerous if students take it seriously.
Gerold Joubert
11/20/2021
What a brilliant book. A clear cut, precise and simple approach to Hermeneutics. Taking the best of so many other sources and putting it together in a perfectly crafted package that is both easy to understand and practical. I am so grateful for this book.
