What is biblical theology? This phrase refers to the attempt to understand and embrace the interpretive perspective of the biblical authors. We want to read the Bible the way later biblical authors read earlier biblical passages. We want to think about the world and life the way the biblical authors themselves did. And when we open our mouths to speak, or start typing words on our keyboards, we want what flows from our hearts to come from the biblical authors’ own way of thinking: the network of assumptions, the things that are taken for granted and assumed, the truths believed, the world’s big story, the understanding of sin, of virtue, and the way to respond with thanks and praise to God. All this is bound up in the phrase “interpretive perspective,” and when we do biblical theology, we’re trying to bring our interpretive perspective into line with that of the biblical authors.

We all want to get better at biblical theology, because we want to understand the Bible so that we can please God by trusting him for salvation, overcoming sin, and loving him and his people with everything we are. How do we become better biblical theologians?

Here are four things that you can start doing today. In my opinion these are the most important, most beneficial, most rewarding activities, so I commend them to you:

  1. Read big chunks of the Bible all at one sitting
  2. Memorize as much Scripture as possible so you can meditate on it day and night.
  3. In your meditation on Scripture, think deep and wide.
  4. Pray that God will give you insight into the meaning of his word.

Allow me to comment on each of these in a bit more detail.

  1. Read big chunks of the Bible all at one sitting.

If you read one chapter of Genesis per day, you will get to the last chapter on day 50. The things at the beginning of the book will not be fresh on your mind. But if you read the whole book in one day, or if you read 25 chapters one day, and the rest the next, there are so many points of contact you will recall. Reading the whole book at one sitting, or 25 chapters of it, will allow you the time and concentration to enter into “deep reading.” Even ten chapters will put you in position to begin to immerse yourself in the Bible’s world. Breathe its air. Hear its sounds. The past is a foreign country. They do things differently there. We have to acclimate our modern selves to the world the biblical authors inhabit.

  1. Memorize as much Scripture as possible so you can meditate on it day and night.

As you read, take note of verses that are fresh, piercing, and moving. The Lord speaks to us in his word. We want his words written on the tablets of our hearts. We can inscribe them there by repeating them constantly to ourselves until we know the phrase, sentences, paragraphs, flows of thought, and indeed the contents of the Bible.

Don’t be intimidated by the prospect of rote memorization. Take a verse, or part of a verse, and read it ten times in a row. Then close your eyes or look away and try to say it to yourself ten times. I suspect that after the twentieth time you will pretty much have it. If you do this first thing in the morning, revisit it at some point during the day to see if you can still say it. The next morning, go to the next verse and do it again. One verse a day adds up quickly.

  1. In your meditation on Scripture, think deep and wide.

Writing the words of Scripture on the tablets of our hearts (i.e., memorizing the Bible) puts us in position to meditate on what the Bible says. This process of meditation is “deep thinking.” Seek to understand the words of the verse in context. Once you have thought your way around and through and between the particular verse you are considering, like someone standing very close to a particular tree looking at it very intently, begin to back away and survey the surroundings of that tree. Consider the verse in the context of the whole book. The more of the book you have memorized, the easier this will be. Consider the verse in the context of the whole Bible. In the way that someone who has examined a particular tree in a forest very closely, then that person backs away to see the tree in the context of the forest, we can back further and further away from a particular verse so that our field of vision expands and we see it in the context of the whole Bible. The better we know the Bible, the more of it we have memorized, the more we’ve engaged in “deep reading” and “deep thinking,” the easier this will be.

  1. Pray that God will give you insight into the meaning of his word.

I have enumerated these pieces of advice (1, 2, 3, 4), but really you should start doing all these things together and not think of them in sequence. All along the way, before you start, as you’re reading, when you’re trying to memorize, and as you meditate, ask God to grant you understanding. He inspired the Scriptures by his Spirit. Jesus opened the minds of his disciples to understand the Bible. Ask the Lord to do these things for you. Pray that God will enable you to see things from the perspective he inspired the biblical authors to have. Ask him to bring to mind relevant passages from elsewhere in Scripture. Seek the Lord on how the passages you’re reading and the verses you’re memorizing and meditating on demand that you change your own thinking, hoping, desiring, choosing, and acting. And in the midst of all this, cry out to the Lord Jesus to abide in you by his word. Ask him to cause the Spirit to strengthen your heart by faith so that you can know his love, which surpasses knowledge. Worship the Father through the Son by the power of the Spirit. Commune with God as you hear from him in his word. Enjoy his presence, which he mediates through the words he inspired the biblical authors to write. Behold the glory of God in the face of Christ.

And you will be a better biblical theologian.