Have you ever read a passage of Scripture and understood every word on the page, but still missed what the writer was trying to show you? We tend to think that deeper Bible study always means digging deeper into individual words. We look up definitions, compare translations, study the original Greek or Hebrew, circle repeated words, and search for cross-references. Those are all valuable Bible study skills, and they are an important part of the Dissect & Digest Bible Study Method. But sometimes the thing we need to notice isn’t found in one particular word. Sometimes it’s found in the relationship between several words or ideas. The biblical writers often intentionally connect one thought to another:
- One thing produces something else.
- One truth explains another truth.
- A command is followed by the reason for the command.
- A problem is followed by a solution.
- One action leads to a particular result.
When that happens, we don’t want to study each part as though it exists by itself. We need to slow down and pay attention to how those parts work together. Those words aren’t next to each other by accident.
Romans 5:3–5 is a great example of this. Paul tells believers that they can rejoice when they run into problems and trials because those trials help them develop endurance. Endurance develops strength of character, and character strengthens their confident hope of salvation. Paul then explains that this hope will not lead to disappointment because God’s love has been poured into their hearts through the Holy Spirit. There are several important words in those few verses that we could study individually including: trials, endurance, character, and hope. But if we only study what each word means, we can miss something important about what Paul is communicating.
Paul hasn’t simply given us a list of four Christian words. He has placed those ideas in relationship with one another. Problems and trials are connected to endurance. Endurance is connected to character. Character is connected to hope. One leads to the next, which means the relationship between those ideas is part of what we need to study. This is a Dissect & Digest skill we call “Make the Connection.” When Scripture connects two or more ideas, we want to stop long enough to understand why they are connected and what that connection contributes to the meaning of the passage. Sometimes Scripture makes these connections easy to recognize. Words and phrases such as “because”, “therefore”, “produces”, “develops”, “through”, “so that”, and “for this reason” tell us that one thought is related to another. At other times, the connection is revealed through the structure of the passage itself. The writer may begin stacking thoughts together, with each idea building upon the one before it. Whenever we notice that happening, it is worth slowing down. Instead of immediately moving to the next verse, we can ask what the writer has connected, how those things relate to each other, and why that relationship matters.
Look at the first connection in Romans 5. Paul says that problems and trials help us develop endurance. We could immediately look up the definition of endurance, and that might be helpful. But there is another question worth asking: Why are trials connected to endurance in the first place? When we stop and think about that relationship, we begin to see something that a simple definition might not show us. Endurance cannot really develop unless there is something that requires us to endure. We don’t learn perseverance when everything is comfortable and going according to plan. Endurance develops when we have to continue trusting God, obeying Him, and walking faithfully even when our circumstances are difficult. That doesn’t mean the difficult circumstance itself is good, nor does Paul suggest that suffering doesn’t hurt. He is showing us that problems and trials do not have to be empty experiences. God can accomplish something in us while we walk through them. The trial creates an opportunity for endurance to develop. That is why these two ideas are connected, and understanding the relationship between them helps us see more clearly what Paul is saying.
Then Paul connects endurance to character. Again, we could study the definition of character, but we should also study the relationship between endurance and character. What happens to us as we continue walking with God through something difficult? We learn to trust Him when we cannot see what He is doing. We learn whether we will obey Him when obedience is costly. Truths about God’s faithfulness that we may have understood intellectually begin to become truths we have personally experienced. Over time, continuing to trust and obey God through difficulty does something in us.
Even the order of Paul’s words deserves our attention. He doesn’t move directly from trials to character. Endurance sits between them. That tells us something about the process he is describing. The difficult circumstance provides the opportunity to endure, and endurance becomes part of the process through which character is formed. When we begin asking why one idea comes before another, we are doing more than defining words. We are paying attention to the relationship the writer intentionally created between them.
Paul then moves from character to hope, and this connection may require us to meditate on the passage a little longer. Why would character strengthen hope? By this point in the process, something has happened that wasn’t true when the trial first began:
- We have walked with God through difficulty.
- We have had to depend on Him.
- We have experienced His grace in places where we needed it.
- We have seen that He was faithful even when our circumstances were not what we wanted them to be.
We now have a history of God’s faithfulness to look back on. That history changes the way we look forward. When we have experienced God sustaining us in the past, we have greater reason to confidently trust Him with what lies ahead. The trial required endurance, endurance developed character, and through that process our hope became stronger. We would miss much of that if we simply looked up the definitions of “character” and “hope” and then moved on. The relationship between those two words is part of the lesson. This is why one of the most helpful habits we can develop in Bible study is learning to study not only the words themselves, but also what is happening between them. Imagine taking a piece of paper and drawing a line down the middle to separate the paper into two columns. On the left, write: Endurance. On the right, write: Character. There is value in studying what is written on either side of that paper, but there is also value in studying the line of separation itself. How does endurance lead to character? What happens in the process between those two ideas? Why did the writer connect them? Those questions force us to think more carefully about what the passage is actually saying instead of simply collecting definitions.
This same Bible study skill can be used throughout Scripture because writers connect ideas in many different ways. Sometimes we will find a cause followed by an effect. In another passage, we may find a problem followed by its solution or a command followed by the reason God gives for obeying it. We may find a condition connected to a result, a truth connected to the response it should produce, or two ideas deliberately placed beside one another for comparison or contrast. The particular relationship will change from passage to passage, but the Bible study habit remains the same. When the text connects something, we need to pay attention to the connection.
There is one more important step, though. After we have slowed down and examined the individual connections, we need to step back and look at the passage as a whole. This is where the “Digest” part of Dissect & Digest becomes especially important. We have taken the passage apart and examined its pieces, but now we need to put those pieces back together and ask what larger picture they create. When we do that with Romans 5:3–5, something stands out. Look at where Paul’s sequence begins and where it ends. He begins with problems and trials, but he ends with hope. Those aren’t two things we would naturally put together. When we experience problems, we may be more likely to connect them with fear, disappointment, frustration, exhaustion, uncertainty, or discouragement. Yet Paul shows us how a believer can move from the experience of a trial to strengthened hope. Everything in the middle helps explain that connection. The trial provides an opportunity for endurance. Endurance develops character. Character strengthens hope. Paul isn’t asking us to pretend our problems aren’t difficult. He is helping us see that God can be doing something in us in the middle of those difficulties that we may not recognize while they are happening. When we step back and look at the entire chain of connected ideas, we see a much bigger picture than we would have seen by studying each word individually.
The next time you are studying Scripture and notice that the writer has connected several thoughts, don’t automatically keep reading. Give yourself time and space to stay there for a while. Write the connected ideas down and consider drawing arrows between them. Ask yourself what each idea has to do with the one before it and the one after it. Consider why the writer chose this particular order and whether one thing is causing, explaining, producing, contrasting with, or building upon another. Then, after you have examined those individual relationships, step back and ask what all of those connections are showing you together. Deep Bible study doesn’t always require finding something obscure. Sometimes the thing we have been missing has been sitting right in front of us. We saw the words, but we didn’t stop long enough to consider why they were placed together. Learning to notice those relationships can help us move beyond simply reading what a passage says to understanding how the writer’s thoughts work together to communicate the larger message.
As you open your Bible this week, pay attention when one thought begins to lead into another. Don’t just ask what an individual word means. Ask why that word is connected to the words around it and what you can learn from their relationship. Slow down, examine the connections, and then step back far enough to see the whole picture the passage is painting. Because those words aren’t next to each other by accident!
