ChurchThePeople.com: Study Guide: Bible Study Basics Using Psalm 1

Bible Study Basics Using Psalm 1

ChurchThePeople.com

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Why study the Bible?

The Bible teaches that the ultimate goals of life are 1) to begin a relationship with God through faith in Jesus Christ as our Savior and 2) to grow in that relationship by faith until we become disciples of Jesus Christ as our Lord.

Anyone, including you right now, can begin a relationship with Jesus as Savior by simply believing three things – 1) that Jesus Christ is God's only Son, 2) that He died on the cross for your sins, and 3) that He rose from the dead. When anyone believes in Jesus, that person becomes part of God's family and will live forever in heaven with Him.

After we have trusted Christ as Savior, God wants us trust Jesus as Lord moment-by-moment as we grow as His disciples.

There are three primary ways that Christians who have trusted Christ as Savior interact with and grow closer to God as we progress onward to become disciples of Jesus –

Prayer
Bible study (Precept)
Worship (Praise)

All three are necessary for a healthy relationship with God, and often they work together simultaneously (ex. We may pray a Scriptural passage or sing a prayer or sing Scripture in worship).

This study is going to focus primarily on one of these disciplines, maximizing our Bible study time.

Stop for a minute and realize that the Bible is the one and only book written by God – the only God who could have made you and me and the only God who can save you and me.

Also realize that Jesus and the Bible are the only unfallen revelations of God to mankind, which simply means that Jesus and the Bible can be trusted in all situations in life. If you've spent much time on this planet, you've probably figured out that everyone and everything else, even the most trustworthy of us, lets us down from time-to-time.

Jesus prayed to His Father for His disciples, “Sanctify them by Your truth, Your Word is truth.” (John 17:17). God makes it clear He wants to communicate with us – back and forth – so that we can grow closer to Him and become more like Him (the “sanctification” that Jesus spoke of in John 17:17). To do that, God has given us His very own words in the Bible, in such a way that even though the 66 books of the Bible were written by human beings, they were also inspired by the Holy Spirit of God so that ”What the Bible says, God says.” (1978 Chicago Statement from the International Council on Biblical Inerrancy).

So, if God has already spoken, that's a great place to pick up our conversation with God. If we seek to know God and grow in Christ, studying the Bible is essential.

Why is learning “how” to study the Bible important?

Paul told Timothy, “Work hard to show that you have been approved by God as a worker who does not need to be ashamed, accurately using the Word of Truth.” (2 Timothy 2:15). Learning “how” to study the Bible gives us techniques we can use to understand the Scriptures more clearly and apply them more accurately. In turn, we can then present the Scriptures more clearly and simply to others.

The Bible study techniques in this study guide are not a formula, but rather a group of study tools that we can “accurately use” to become better disciples. The Bible Study techniques in this guide will help you focus your individual study time in God's Word so that you can grow as a disciple and so that you can teach God's truth from God's Word in a simple, quick, and easy-to-understand way.

Why are we using an “interpretive paraphrase” of the Scriptures instead of a translation?

The studies at ChurchThePeople.com contain interpretive paraphrases of Scripture, which try to –

make the Bible easier to read in English.
bring out the interpretation of the text that the teacher thinks is correct (without wasting time and confusing you with the “three schools of interpretation on this passage”).
avoid copyright issues.

You are encouraged to study from multiple translations of the Bible if you do not know the original languages of Greek or Hebrew.

BibleGateway.com or the Youversion phone app are great sources to find multiple translations of Scripture.

How can I pray so that I can best study the Bible?

Five-fold prayer

Begin with a five-fold prayer –

1) Pray that God the Holy Spirit will teach you God's truth. Who is better to teach us what a book means than the Author Himself. Several passages in the New Testament tell us that God the Holy Spirit is overjoyed to teach us how to reach the two-fold goal of the Christian life – to know Christ and to become more like Him as His disciple.

2) Pray that God would speak to you as you study Scripture – God wants us to have a relationship with Him, and conversation is the lifeline of any relationship. Remember that when we study the Scriptures, we already have God's very own Words at the heart of our conversation. God can speak to us any way He chooses, but He normally starts, and never contradicts, the words He has already spoken in the Bible.

3) Pray that God would help you be able to see what the text says as you observe the words of Scripture during your study.

4) Pray that God would help you be able to accurately understand what the text means as you seek to interpret the meaning of the Biblical text.

5) Pray that God would help you find what the text means to you personally today as you seek to apply the text practically in your life.

Much of this prayer is simply praying the Bible study steps found in most Bible study methods handbooks within the context of our relationship with God. I particularly like the simplicity of the last three steps – what does it say – what does it mean – what does it mean to me (I think that was from Josh McDowell).

Just a final note about prayer. I often get prayer backwards – I often think of it as something I have to do, instead of something I get to do.

Imagine if you or I met a famous person that we greatly admired, and he or she said to us, “I have time. Would you like to visit for a while?” I would feel like that conversation was a privilege, and not at all like I was only talking with that person because I had to. And I would certainly thank that person for taking the time to talk with me when our conversation ended.

Consider starting your prayer with a statement acknowledging that you greatly admire God and thank God for His “time.”

After I pray, how should I begin looking at the passage of Scripture I plan to study?

Read the passage first

The first thing we should do after we pray is simply read the Biblical text we plan to study so that we become familiar with the text as a whole before we begin to look at the smaller parts.

Particularly notice the basic literary structure of the text the first time through.

Is the text a story?
Or a list of commands?
Or proverbs?
Or a song (Psalm)?
Or prophecy?
Or poetry?
Or Law?
Or a letter?
Are there natural paragraph breaks within the passage?
Does the subject change within the passage?
If the passage is part of a larger book, how does the passage fit within the whole of the book and particularly with the passage right before and right after it?
Is there anything else about the passage that stands out the first time we read through the passage?

Since we are going to talk about “how” to study Scripture using Psalm 1 as our starting point, let's read Psalm 1.

1) Blessed is the man who does not walk in the advice of the ungodly or stand in the way of sinners or sit in the seat of the critics. 2) But his passion is in the Law of the LORD, and in His Law he meditates day and night. 3) He shall be like a tree planted by the rivers of water that brings forth fruit in its season whose leaf shall not wither. He shall prosper in whatever he does.

4) The ungodly are not so - they are like the chaff that the wind blows away. 5) Therefore, the ungodly shall not stand in the judgment, nor sinners in the congregation of the righteous.

6) For the LORD knows the way of the righteous, but the way of the ungodly shall perish.

Using the questions above, we can observe that Psalm 1 is a song (that's what the word “Psalm” means). We can also see by looking through the book of Psalms that it is complete in-and-of-itself and independent from the other 149 Psalms in the book of Psalms. We can also see that Psalm 1 was chosen to be the very first Psalm in the book in the book of Psalms.

Begin to imagine yourself in the situation that the writer was in when he wrote the Scripture you are reading

Writing a book or letter or psalm or proverb intended to be read by others is a deliberate, purposeful act, which is difficult to do, and even more so in ancient cultures. Our goal is to understand why the author was moved by God to want to write what he wrote to the people he wrote it to.

Some questions we may want to consider as we begin to study Psalm 1 are:

Who wrote Psalm 1?

Who was Psalm 1 initially written to?

What are the circumstances that were going on in the life of the writer at the time the passage was written?

What are the circumstances that were going on in the life of the initial readers at the time the passage was written?

What things about the background of the writer would help us better understand the passage?

What things about the background of the initial readers of the passage would better help us understand the passage?

When was Psalm 1 written?

Why was Psalm 1 written?

The goal is to accurately understand the subject and purpose of the original author in writing to his original reader(s). From the beginning of our Bible study we need to be on the lookout for information that will help us accurately understand the author's subject and purpose.

We will talk about how to ask questions about the text later, but we want to begin to develop our --

Author / Audience / Date / Background / Subject / Purpose Statement

I know that's a lot, but the goal is to develop a short statement that both introduces and summarizes the passage we are studying, if possible, so that we understand the context of each part of the passage.

I'm going to give you my statement about Psalm 1 now so you can see what it looks like and so you can see how I developed it as you continue reading this article.

My Author / Audience / Date / Background / Subject / Purpose Statement for Psalm 1

The Old Testament writer wrote Psalm 1 to the people of Israel about “Contrasts between the righteous man and ungodly people” to encourage believers to live righteously and minimize the influence of ungodly people.

After we have read the text and have begun to try to understand why the author wrote what he wrote to who he wrote it to, what do we do next?

After reading the text, there are several techniques that can be helpful in observing, understanding, and applying the text. Don't feel obligated to use these techniques in any particular order. Often these techniques overlap and become complementary.

Remember that Scripture will be studied forever and learning is a process. Don't become overwhelmed by all the different techniques presented here. No one uses all their tools every time they do a home repair project. Similarly, no one uses every one of these Bible study techniques when they sit down to study Scripture for ten minutes. You will find that as you begin to use these techniques, they will become more natural and you will often use them without even realizing it.

What can I learn by studying the words of the passage?

Six grammatical teaching points

Many of the teaching points and illustrations that good Bible teachers use come from simply observing six grammatical teaching points in the text. These six grammatical teaching points specifically help us to observe what God wrote.

ChurchThePeople.com uses a color-coded key to identify these six grammatical teaching points to help us observe what the text actually says –

Contrast, Cause and Effect, Repetition, Pictures, Comparison, Progression

Let's look at these one at a time.

Contrast – Contrast points out the opposite or the difference between persons, ideas, things, etc. While lots of words can be used by a writer to denote contrasts, the word “but” is the most common.

The righteous man in Psalm 1 is characterized by his passion for and meditation on the Bible in contrast with getting his input from the advice, sin, or critical attitude of ungodly people.

Cause and effect – Cause-and-effect is a conditional statement which says that if one thinks, says, or does something, then there will, or often will be, a particular, predictable result. Look for words like “because,” “for,” “therefore,” and “if/then.”

Remember that the Bible contains cause-and-effect principles (which are generally true, but not in every situation) and cause-and-effect promises (which are true in every situation).

Here's an example of a cause-and-effect principle that is generally true –

When a man's ways please the LORD, He causes even his enemies to be at peace with him. (Proverbs 16:7)

The lives of Jesus or Jeremiah or Paul shows that, while this is generally true, it is not always true. Our faith and obedience can certainly positively influence other people's reactions to us. But no amount of faith or obedience on our part can take away the free will of another human being if they choose to do evil against us. This passage gives us a cause-and-effect principle that is generally true.

Example of a cause-and-effect promise that is always true –

4) The ungodly are not so - they are like the chaff that the wind blows away. 5) Therefore, the ungodly shall not stand in the judgment, nor sinners in the congregation of the righteous. (Psalm 1)

God promises that someday He will judge every ungodly person and they will be separated from the righteous forever. The writer is giving us a cause-and-effect promise that is always true.

Repetition – Repetition is using the same word(s) or synonymous word(s) multiple times for emphasis.

2) But his passion is in the Law of the LORD, and in His Law he meditates day and night. (Psalm 1).

The writer of Psalm 1 repeats the term “Law” to emphasize the importance of Scripture in the passionate thought-life of the righteous man.

6) For the LORD knows the way of the righteous, but the way of the ungodly shall perish. (Psalm 1).

This verse is interesting because the repetition of “the way” is used to describe the cause-and-effect relationship between two opposite “ways” or contrasting worldviews.

Pictures – A picture is an illustration used by the author to help his readers understand the truth he is trying to communicate. Look for words “like,” or “as.”

3) He shall be like a tree planted by the rivers of water that brings forth fruit in its season whose leaf shall not wither. He shall prosper in whatever he does.
4) The ungodly are not so - they are like the chaff that the wind blows away. (Psalm 1)

The picture here is of plants in the arid Middle Eastern climate of Israel. The righteous man is pictured like a healthy, fruit-bearing tree that draws water from the soil around a river, while ungodly people are pictured as chaff that blows away when grain is thrown into the air to be separated. Notice that the writer uses these pictures to illustrate the contrast between opposite categories of people.

Comparison – Comparisons evaluate two different persons, places, things, ideas, etc. Look for words like “than,” “better,” “worse,” “different,” etc.

Psalm 1 is a psalm of contrasts, so it's not surprising that there really aren't any direct comparisons. One of the great comparisons in all of Scripture is contained throughout the book of Hebrews, as the writer compares the Old Covenant, which was superseded for Christians by the New Covenant.

But Jesus now has obtained a better ministry (than Moses), and He is also the Mediator of a better covenant, which is based on better promises. (Hebrews 8:6).

Progression – Progression illustrates a point with a picture that moves in a logical direction. This is the rarest of the six grammatical teaching points.

1) Blessed is the man who does not walk in the advice of the ungodly or stand in the way of sinners or sit in the seat of the critics. (Psalm 1).

This verse presents a progressive increase in thought and influence when a person moves from walking to standing to sitting with ungodly people. The righteous man avoids the negative spiritual effects of ungodly people by avoiding the progressive amounts of time, attention, and influence that normally accompany our communications as we walk with someone, then stand to visit with them, then sit down for in-depth conversation.

How can I take what I see in the text and transition to understanding what the text means?

The six reporter questions

Ask the six reporter questions. The six reporter questions are –

Who?

What?

When?

Where?

Why?

How?

Asking the six reporter questions from the text is a great transition from looking at what the text says (What does it say?) to trying to understand what God means in the Biblical text (What does it mean?), and even begins the process of applying the text to my own life (What does it mean to me?). This method helps focus teaching time on what God says as the basis for our teaching.

Some examples from Psalm 1

Who wrote Psalm 1?

Who was Psalm 1 directly written to?

Who is the righteous man in Psalm 1? Is it a generalized personification of a righteous man or did the writer has someone specific in mind?

Who are the ungodly people in Psalm 1? Did the writer make a generalized personification of ungodly people in general or did he have a specific group in mind?

What are the circumstances that are going on in the life of the writer at the time the passage was written?

What are the circumstances that are going on in the life of the initial reader at the time the passage was written?

What things about the background of the writer would help us better understand the passage?

What things about the background of the initial readers of the passage would better help us understand the passage?

What does ungodly mean?

What does righteous mean?

What is the advice of the ungodly? The way of sinners? The seat of the critics?

What is a critic?

What does it mean to meditate on the Law of the LORD day and night?

What is a tree planted by rivers of water like? What is a tree not planted by rivers of water like?

What is blessing? What is prosperity? Are they the same?

What is the judgment?

What is chaff?

What is the congregation of the righteous?

What does perish mean?

What do I need to change today to apply this teaching about being a righteous man?

When was Psalm 1 written?

When is the judgment?

When will the ungodly perish?

Where is an area in Israel that would illustrate what a tree planted by rivers of water is like?

Where is an area near where I live that would illustrate what a tree planted by rivers of water is like?

Where do the critics sit?

Where does grain get processed where the chaff blows away in the wind?

Where is the congregation of the righteous?

Where will the ungodly perish to?

Why was Psalm 1 written?

Why did the author describe the righteous man in the singular but ungodly people in the plural?

Why is being righteous so important to the writer? To God?

Why does the fruit that a righteous person brings forth occur “in his season?”

Why does “the way” of the righteous man and “the way” of ungodly people ultimately separate?

How does one become righteous?

How does one become ungodly?

How does a righteous person stay righteous?

How does a righteous person interact with ungodly people all day long and still stay righteous?

How does a righteous person bring forth fruit in his season? Prosperity? Blessing?

How could I apply this teaching about being a righteous man to my life today?

How could I make a specific change in my life today?

Asking and then seeking to answer questions raised by the text is the starting point for where God can take us in our Bible study as we observe the text of the Bible and try to understand what it means and begin thinking about how we could apply its truths.

What are some other resources outside the text itself that I can use to help me understand and apply the text?

There are lots of places to get help in observing, understanding, and applying a Biblical text.

Other Translations

I don't know Greek or Hebrew (the languages that almost all of the Bible was written in), so I rely on multiple translations to help me understand how different translators understand the original texts through the lens of the English language. I now use the New King James Version and the New American Standard Version as reference points, and use other translations and paraphrases for depth of understanding. I use the BibleGateway app on my phone or computer most often. YouVersion app or another source can be valuable as well.

Other Passages in the Bible.

The passage we are studying is part of the entire Bible. Start by reading the larger context of the passage or the rest of the book to see if it answers questions from the text or gives insight into the passage. That's not applicable to Psalm 1 since it is a self-contained whole. But let's say you're studying a passage in the book of Revelation and are trying to understand the context for God's timing for the passage (the “when” question). John chronologically outlines the entire book for us as he quotes Jesus, glorified in heaven, in verse 1:19 –

“Write down the things you have seen (chapter 1), the things which are happening now (chapters 2-3), and the things which will happen in the future (chapters 4-22).”

So as we study a particular passage in the book of Revelation, we need to be aware of where that passage falls within the timeline that God gave us throughout Scripture to understand what He is doing or trying to communicate in that passage.

Or let's say you are studying Isaiah 7:14. Isaiah prophesies to King Ahaz that a young woman that they apparently both knew, who was an unmarried virgin at the time, would get married and bear a son and call him Immanuel.

Therefore the LORD Himself will give you a sign – a virgin shall conceive a child and have a son and shall call his name Immanuel.

The next few verses explain that within a few years of the child's birth, God would judge Ahaz's kingdom through an Assyrian invasion.

It's hard to imagine that even Isaiah himself realized that his prophecy would have a second fulfillment in the virgin birth of Jesus, the Messiah of Israel. The world did not find that out until God acted as recorded in Matthew 1:18-23.

Concordance

A concordance helps us look at the way a word is used in other places in Scripture. The best concordances track the use of the same original Hebrew or Greek word in other Scriptural texts (since the Bible was written almost completely in Hebrew and Greek).

But please, please understand that Biblical writers do not always use the same words in the same way in every context. For example, most of the misunderstandings that people have from the book of James would be eliminated if people understood that James uses the word “faith” in the multiple ways throughout the book.

2) Brothers, count it all as joy when you encounter different types of trials in your lives, 3) knowing that when your faith is tried, it will result in patience. 4) Let the trial complete your patience, so that you may become complete and finished, lacking in nothing. 5) If you need wisdom, ask God – He will give it to you generously and without belittling you for asking. 6) But you need to ask God in faith, without wavering, because a person who wavers is like a wave in the sea that is churned and lifted by the wind. (James 1:2-6).

James describes the justification part of salvation (which is finalized forever when we believe in Christ – making us “brothers” – the “faith” that already exists) that is tried in verse 3 and then describes the sanctification part of salvation (which is a moment-by-moment struggle requiring moment-by-moment faith – which all us struggle with and waver in constantly – sometimes we pray with “faith” and sometimes we pray with “faith” that wavers,) in verse 6).

A final practical note about using concordances. A concordance can bog down your study and bog down your teaching. If you use very many Biblical cross-references when your goal is to teach a passage, the original passage gets lost. Cross-references are the nice tool to use when you are presenting a topical message using passages throughout the Bible, but limit your word-study references if your goal is to teach a particular passage of Scripture.

Other teachers

The Holy Spirit is our ultimate teacher as Christians. However, other gifted teachers that the Holy Spirit has also taught may help us understand Scripture as well. A pastor or other gifted teacher or leader can be a source for one-to-one discipleship in Scripture. This is how God designed the Body of Christ (the real ChurchThePeople) to work.

Through books and commentaries and systematic theologies and periodicals and videos and websites, gifted teachers throughout the world can be a great source of insight to help us observe and understand and apply Scripture.

Doctrine

Doctrine (systematic theology) is processing the passage we are studying in light of all the Bible teaches about a particular subject to form a cohesive understanding of that subject. Doctrine is simply thinking consistently about God. Scripture is consistent, that is, it does not contradict itself since God does not contradict Himself. Give God the benefit of the doubt – it all fits together, even if we don't understand it all right now. Make sure that what you think the passage you are studying says is consistent with what God has said in other passages of Scripture, if the two truths can be reconciled. Remember that God knows lots of things that human beings cannot understand, not because we're stupid, but because God has chosen not to reveal them to us. “The secret things belong to the LORD our God, but the things He has revealed belong to us and our children forever, so that we may obey all the words of this Law.” (Deuteronomy 29:29).

No one understands how God could be one essence and three persons. No one understands how Jesus could be both fully God and and fully man after His incarnation (with the exception that His virgin birth allowed Him to be born as a man without the innate sin nature that the rest of us inherited from Adam). No one understands how God's sovereignty and our free will work together. When two unexplainable doctrines are clearly presented as true, just accept both truths and move on – sometimes it's both/and, not either/or.

What are some tools to help organize the passage so that I can place the individual verses within the context of the whole passage I'm studying?

An Outline

Dr. Charles Ryrie taught me the value of outlining a passage of Scripture by choosing a title that fits the entirety of the passage and then finding sub-points from the text that support the title so that the parts help explain the whole.

We can then use the title as our main emphasis in understanding and teaching the passage, with the sub-points in our outline as the sub-points in our message.

If it is possible, use the structure built into the text to make your outline a natural outworking of the observation process.

But understand that it is not always easy or even possible to outline every Bible passage. Not every passage can be outlined neatly because not every text was written with one main theme. And some passages cannot be outlined at all (most of the book of Proverbs can't be outlined at all since a proverb is by definition a short, self-contained wisdom statement).

Sometimes your Bible has an outline or headings that you can use as a guide to start the outlining process. Just remember that no matter how many letters are after the writer's name, you may study the passage and see the structure and focus of the passage differently.

Here is my outline of Psalm 1. I understand Psalm 1 to contrast back and forth between the writer's description of the righteous man and ungodly people.

Contrasts Between the Righteous Man and Ungodly People

The righteous man

1) Blessed is the man who does not walk in the advice of the ungodly or stand in the way of sinners or sit in the seat of the critics. 2) But his passion is in the Law of the LORD, and in His Law he meditates day and night. 3) He shall be like a tree planted by the rivers of water that brings forth fruit in its season whose leaf shall not wither. He shall prosper in whatever he does.

Ungodly people

4) The ungodly are not so - they are like the chaff that the wind blows away. 5) Therefore, the ungodly shall not stand in the judgment, nor sinners in the congregation of the righteous.

The righteous man

6a) For the LORD knows the way of the righteous,

Ungodly people

6b) but the way of the ungodly shall perish.

Author / Audience / Date / Background / Subject / Purpose Statement

We mentioned this earlier, and hopefully now it makes more sense. My goal is to develop a short statement that both introduces and summarizes the passage I am studying.

Let's see what we can come up with from Psalm 1 from with the questions we have answered.

We do not know who the human author of Psalm 1 is.
We do not know the specific person or persons the writer wrote the Psalm to.
We do not know the date that Psalm 1 was written.
We do not know the background or the circumstances that caused the writer to write Psalm 1.
We do know the subject – Contrasts between the righteous man and ungodly people.
We can make an educated guess at the purpose – since the righteous man is highlighted throughout this Psalm, it seems likely that the Psalm was written to encourage people to live righteously.

So our Author / Audience / Date / Background / Subject / Purpose statement is:

If I simply do this one exercise, then much of my work is done in teaching Psalm 1 – I teach the “Contrasts between the righteous man and ungodly people” to encourage believers to live righteously and minimize the influence of ungodly people.

If we want to teach people about prosperity or judgment or meditation on Scripture we can quote the appropriate verse(s) from Psalm 1 as part of a topical study, as well as other verses from Scripture. But if our goal is for people to understand Psalm 1, we should teach God's main message from the passage and try to understand the different parts of the passage in the context of the whole passage. The Author / Audience / Date / Circumstances / Subject / Purpose statement, along with our outline, helps us stay on track and forms the backbone of our message and application.

What about applying the Scriptural passage I've studied to my life?

Specific Application.

Application of Scripture is about improvement, about progress, about moving closer to where God wants us to be as believers.

Because God wants to change us from the inside out, we should seek to hear God's voice in any of our three immaterial parts (the area that the Bible calls our "soul" or our "spirit," the Bible uses the terms interchangeably)

Our intellect – Is there something in this passage that causes me improve the way I think.
Our will – Is there something specific, timely, and measurable that I can start doing, preferably today if possible.
Our emotion – Is there something specific that I may not be able to change, but that I need to change the way I feel about.

The key is specifics. We need to identify the application with specificity improvement, specific timing, specific measurement.

A possible application of Psalm 1 would be to decide to change the subject in conversations this next month when I interact with people about ungodly, sinful, or critical subjects.

Or to work hard this month to find one particular way to limit the influence of ungodly people on my walk with Christ.

Or perhaps find one specific way to reach out to one specific person to interact with them about the difference between righteousness and ungodliness.

Another possible application would be to set aside 10 minutes a day to read and meditate on a Scriptural passage (maybe even Psalm 1) every day for the next week.

Conclusion

We study Scripture to interact with God – to know Him better – to become more like Him in our lives.

May these study techniques deepen your time with God in His Word.

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