Grasping God's Word

In our culture reeling from heavy doses of nihilism, interpretation of any text has become a violent intellectual free-for-all. This becomes especially disconcerting when modern interpretive methods are applied to the Bible—people end up utilizing a pick and choose methodology in which elements they like are preserved and those they don’t are summarily thrown out.

Perceiving amid this wasteland of relativity a need to train Christians to read and understand the Bible according to the principles of authorial intent and objective meaning, J. Scott Duvall and J. Daniel Hays wrote Grasping God’s World as a manual both introductory and in-depth. The result is readable, intelligent, and probably exactly the book many have been waiting for.

How Does This Work?

The text is highly adaptable. It can be used as a one or two year high school course or as the basis for an adult Bible study or Sunday school series; many Christian colleges use it for Bible study methods classes. There are five units, each with a specific theme: the first unit is practical in nature, the next two are largely theoretical, and the final two units blend the theoretical with the practical.

Students are led through discussions of literary devices, word studies, application, context (both literary and historical), and the narrative structure of Scripture. The different literary styles of the prophetic works, the Gospels, Paul’s theological epistles, historical and poetic works, etc. are all covered individually because they each require different methods of interpretation.

Each chapter (22 in all) ends with a series of assignments to put to use the tools and methods learned. An accompanying workbook contains each assignment with plenty of room to record answers. If you have a large class or Sunday school/Bible study group with several members the workbook can be useful; if you’re teaching one or two students it’s mostly superfluous.

While you could use the book by itself (you’ll need a Bible), there are other important resources that will greatly aid your study. A list of these is included in Appendix 2: Building a Personal Library. Appendix 1: Writing an Exegetical Paper guides students through the process of explicating a passage of Scripture, organizing what they learn, and putting it all into a research paper. While you could skip this step, as a culminating exercise it provides an excellent opportunity to implement everything the student has learned thus far.

Our Honest Opinion:

This is an excellent resource for those without much formal Bible study training. Its narrative approach to the entirety of Scripture will appeal to those from a Covenant background as well as to those confused by often disjointed approaches to Biblical interpretation. For those who’ve used a Bible knowledge-oriented program for elementary and middle school like Veritas Bible or Christian Liberty Bible, this would make a good follow-up as it will better prepare students for study of theology and doctrine specifically.

Review by C. Hollis Crossman C. Hollis Crossman used to be a child. Now he is a husband and father, teaches adult Sunday school in his Presbyterian congregation, and likes weird stuff. He might be a mythical creature, but he's definitely not a centaur. Read more of his reviews here.

Review by C. Hollis Crossman
C. Hollis Crossman used to be a child. Now he's a husband and father who loves church, good food, and weird stuff. He might be a mythical creature, but he's definitely not a centaur. Read more of his reviews here.