Product Description

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #30630 in Books
• Published on: 2007-01-01
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 400 pages

Features

• ISBN13: 9780802408235
• Condition: USED - VERY GOOD
• Notes:
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From the Back Cover

About the Author

Customer Reviews

A Workbook for "The Book"
If you've ever had an excuse for not getting into the Word, this book is for you. Howard Hendricks who chairs the Center for Christian Leadership (affectionately know as "Prof." to his students at Dallas Theological Seminary) with the aid of his son Bill, has written this phenomenal book on the "why" and "how" of Bible study.

In the first few chapters, Hendricks challenges all the excuses we have for not studying our Bibles and posits clearly superior reasons in favor of doing so. He then uses Scripture itself to show us what we will gain from regular study of God's Word. In typical Hendricks fashion he begins by humoring "I wish we had a better term than `Bible study,' because for most of us, `study' is a bad news item. It has all the appeal of flossing our teeth" (13). He tells the story of a man he met at a Bible conference who drove twelve hundred miles to "get under the Word" and Hendricks muses "was he just as willing to walk across his living room floor, pick up a Bible, and get into it for himself?" (9).

There are three steps, which will transform that sometimes-dry text into the spiritual growth that we desire in our lives. They are Observation, Interpretation and Application. These three steps are the heart of the book.

The ability of Howard Hendricks to communicate clearly and effectively is unmatched in this introductory work on Bible study. The pages of this book come alive as he swiftly and painlessly removes the obstacles to personal study while at the same time equipping the reader with the proper tools to understand God's Word. Virtually every chapter contains exercises for the student of Scripture to get hands-on experience instead of just theoretical book knowledge. Much of this book is essentially the application of Mortimer Adler's book, How to Read a Book, (which Hendricks highly acclaims) to the Bible. The anecdotes, illustrations and "quotables" are alone worth the price of the book, not to mention the enlightening elaboration of the three-step approach to Bible study. This book should be the absolute first book a new Christian reads apart from the Bible itself.

Helps beginners have quality Bible study
This is an easy reading book, in 45 fun little chapters, to help people gain the basic Biblical interpretation skills they need to transform their lives. The Hendricks' show us how proper interpretation of scripture is used to fuel our minds for improved prayer/meditation based on God's principles. These principles are to be applied in our daily lives to change us and consequently change our corner of the world. The overall approach is the same used by most Bible study methods; that is, "inductive" Bible study - observe, interpret, apply.

The authors stress honest observation of the Biblical text without the influence of a pretense or agenda to affect the interpretation. An extremely detailed and systematic observation of the text being studied is stressed as the most crucial aspect of interpretation. Proper interpretation is unlikely without the foundation of an extremely thorough observation of the text itself. About half the book is used to fully explore the questions and forms of textual observation.

The book is loaded with practical ways to assist in interpretation during your Bible study. For example, transporting your senses into the story to help relate to David in a cave or Paul in prison. Clever tools like the fingers of your hand can be used to remember 5 things to look for when interpreting a passage. Another easy-to-remember idea is to ask the 6 w's - who, what, where, when, why and wherefore (wherefore is the "so what?" part of life application).

The authors encourage the application of Biblical principles in our lives. The final section of the book presents a set of questions and motivations for applying the Bible in everyday life. There are many lists to derive life application points: is there a command to obey, an example to follow, a doctrine to be believed, etc.? A recurring theme is the Biblical understanding of Godly knowledge that is summarized as `knowing without doing isn't knowing at all.'

I like this book overall but there are a few things I don't care for. I think it is too long and redundant on some points. 150 pages on every conceivable aspect/permutation of observing a text is excessive. Chapter 7, for example, talks about general reading skills. This is good information to mention but I don't think it deserved a chapter. You can get value from the book by selectively reading most of the chapters and omitting some like 7,13,14,20 (about 7% of the book). This is definitely not the author's intent, but it is how I recommend the book to people who don't have much reading time.

Another way to improve this book would be more coverage about literary genre (parable, poetry, history, letter, etc.). Chapter 29 covers this somewhat, but with a book this size, I would expect more on this important area for interpreting a text. How To Read the Bible for All its Worth, (Fee) and Effective Bible Teaching (Wilhoit) cover genre very well and are better choices if you don't need something as basic as "Living by the Book".

Living by the Book is a good choice for adult beginners, including high school students, to get started into productive Bible study.

A must read
Not only is the method subscribed by this book useful in getting out of the Bible that which was intended, but if the first couple chapters don't get you downright excited about a study of the Word of God, then nothing will. This book will light a fire of desire to search, and find, ALL of God's Word.