PRINCIPLE #1: The Bible is a library, not a book. The word “Bible” is a derivative of the Greek word biblia, which means 'books'. It is a collection of 66 books, 3 languages, and 1500 years. When you read the Bible, think less book and more ancient library. Like a library, it contains a variety of sections: history, poetry, legal material, narrative–each with their own unique subgenres. PRINCIPLE #2: The Bible was written for us, but not to us. “For no prophecy was ever produced by the will of man, but men spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit.” -2 Peter 1:21 The Bible is a divine-human partnership. God inspired human authors–each with their own unique language, culture, personality, and writing style–to communicate his divine message. When we study the Bible, we want to do our best to read it as the original readers would have read it. This requires work on our part–a good study Bible or commentary are useful tools. PRINCIPLE #3: Never read just one Bible verse. No single verse exist on its own, but is part of a larger unit of meaning, a paragraph, a chapter, a book, a movement, etc. There is always something that comes before and after. The technical word we use is ‘context’. PRINCIPLE #4: The Bible is a unified story that leads to Jesus. As you open the Bible, you find out that there is a God story being revealed to us, it is the grand narrative, the reason everything was created, the grand story of all human history, the big ‘why’ of it all—and that why is the person of Jesus Too often we treat the bible like Wikipedia. I have a specific problem or issue that I am dealing with and so I search through its pages to find a solution. Rather, through Scripture, we come face to face with the person of Jesus.