A reader found three holes in my book.
Tongues got one line. I pointed to an outside book and never explained it. And the prophecy list promised 351 and stopped at 315.
Fair hits, all three. The same reader wrote, “The manual is excellent. When a question popped in my head, you were already answering it.”
That reader did to the Plain Bible Manual what the people of Berea did to the apostle Paul. “These were more noble than those in Thessalonica, in that they received the word with all readiness of mind, and searched the scriptures daily, whether those things were so.” (Acts 17:11) The Bible calls them noble for checking an apostle, and the next verse counts “honourable women” among them. So check me.
For a long time I couldn’t have checked anybody. I was thirty-four before I read the Bible for myself.
Three pages of that manual hold seven rules for reading it plain. They are hard, and here is every one of them.
1. Let the text speak first.
Before you ask what a commentator said, ask what the verse said. Jesus put two questions to a lawyer: “What is written in the law? how readest thou?” (Luke 10:26) What is written comes first. The words on the page get the first vote.
2. Do not steal a verse from its address.
A letter has an address, a command has a speaker and a promise has a people. Ask who is speaking and who is being spoken to. Paul called it “rightly dividing the word of truth” (2 Timothy 2:15). Many bad doctrines begin when somebody grabs a true verse from the wrong mailbox.
3. Read the nearby words before you chase the topic.
Topical study can turn into a scavenger hunt for verses that already agree with you. Read the paragraph first, then the chapter. The nearby words are usually the first fence.
4. Mark repeated words.
When God repeats a word, says a name twice or gives a number, stop moving so fast. Jesus said “Martha, Martha” before He corrected her (Luke 10:41). Do not force a meaning. Just refuse to pretend the detail is filler.
5. Write one plain sentence.
God told Habakkuk to “make it plain upon tables” (Habakkuk 2:2). Start your sentence “This passage is saying” and finish it. If you can’t, write “I do not understand this yet.” A clean question is better than a fake answer.
6. Keep the household in view.
Paul traces Timothy’s faith to “thy grandmother Lois, and thy mother Eunice” (2 Timothy 1:5), and says he knew the scriptures from a child. Two women did that at home. If your Bible study never reaches the table, it may only be decoration.
7. Obey the light you have.
You do not need to understand every hard passage before you obey the clear one in front of you. “But be ye doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving your own selves.” (James 1:22)
If you fell off your reading again, skip the speech and the dramatic vow. Tonight, read one chapter, copy one verse by hand and write one plain sentence. Do it for fourteen days.
Missed days do not become quit days.
Those seven rules are three pages. The other 172 are for what you hit next: the old words, the hard passages, the supposed contradictions, and the verse a Jehovah’s Witness brings to your porch.
I’m rebuilding the manual as the Complete Edition, with those three holes closed. It isn’t finished, so right now it’s a preorder, and the preorder costs less than a third of what the same system sells for on the store today. When it ships, the price goes up. You get the whole 175-page system now, on the next screen after you pay and in your email. The Complete Edition comes to the same email when it’s done.
It won’t teach you Greek. It teaches you to read what’s in front of you. If you already own the manual, don’t buy it again. Your update is free.
P.S. Many of you have asked how I’m doing. I still have pneumonia. I’ve started another round of meds and breathing treatments, and it is not spreading.
Thank you for praying.
