This is the ninth lesson in Mel Lawrenz’ new “How to Study the Bible” series. If you know someone or a group who would like to follow along on this journey through Scripture, they can get more info and sign up to receive these essays via email here.

When I know I have to travel to a city and drive from one destination to the next, what I usually do is study a map of the whole. I note the natural boundaries of the city, whether they are ocean, desert, open land, or other cities. Then I observe the major highways that traverse or loop the city—the main ways people get from one part to another. Then I take a closer look at the places I am going to go, and just let that image get imprinted on my mind.

I know this sounds old-fashioned in a day when GPS in our cars or on our smart phones can give us turn-by-turn directions. But I have learned the hard way that if I do not have any general idea of where I am going, I might drive to an entirely mistaken location, or route myself through a risky part of town.

One can study the Bible by looking at an entire biblical book, but there are intermediate steps before we get to verse-by-verse understanding. We have to understand the flow of meaning of the biblical book we are studying. I say “flow” because most biblical books progress from one idea to the next along a trajectory of real meaning. A book may tell a story (narrative), or offer oracles (prophecy), or develop teaching (epistles), and we get the meaning when we understand the logical flow of the author. Like driving a car, we go from one road to the next; we do not skip from one location to another. We understand where we are by knowing where we just were, and the next set of turns ahead of us. (There are some biblical books that do not have a chapter-by-chapter logical progression, like the book of Psalms, which is a collection of songs and poems.)

What we actually do at this level of Bible study is outline. This can be one of the most fruitful personal exercises we do. Forget the outline you can find in your study Bible or commentary or dictionary. Just read the book through for yourself. Then read it again, noting the large logical sections. This is like studying the map for yourself, rather than letting the GPS give you turn-by-turn directions. It is what the authors of most of the books of the Bible intended for their original audiences. The epistles that were addressed to churches for instance, were read out loud in the congregations, from beginning to end in all probability. The original audiences heard the whole, and could comprehend the major points of meaning. After you come up with your own outline, you can compare that with the outline of scholars in the tools.

Let’s use Genesis as an example. Reading the book all the way through one one day, even if not in one sitting, gives us a perspective of the whole map. Because it is mostly narrative, we can see its stories broken down into 1) the early stories of the world (primeval history) from Creation through the Flood; 2) the story of Abraham; 3) the story of Jacob; and 4) the story of Joseph. As we read we look for markers of meaning, which may be statements that describe the whole or connect the parts. What God says to Abraham about making his descendants into a great nation, and that through him all the nations of the earth would be blessed, is a bird’s-eye view of the whole. Often the beginning of a book and the end provide clues of overall meaning. The Creation account is not just about things being created, but a people. Genesis 50 concludes with Abraham’s descendants starting to multiply, although displaced to the land of Egypt, another great theme of the Bible about being God’s people in a foreign place.

The epistle of 1 Corinthians in the New Testament has its own unique flow of meaning. After Paul gives the customary greeting, affirming the divine calling of the church and asserting his own apostolic authority, he confronts the Corinthian church about their scandalous divisions and the ways these problems happen (chapters 1-4). Then he asserts the moral standards Christians ought to follow (chapters 5-6), after which we see an important connecting statement: “now for the matters you wrote about” (7:1). This is our structural clue that helps us understand Paul moving from one topic to the next (marriage, worship, etc.), replying to questions the church leaders raised to him.

So here is what we need to be looking for as we try to understand the flow of meaning of a biblical book:

A. Repetition – themes mentioned frequently may reveal the intent of the author.

B. Connections – biblical books frequently have obvious connecting statements that show us the logic of the flow.

C. Major statements – we may not see these until we’ve real the biblical book several times, but statements that summarize overall meaning are like landmarks along the highway.

D. Parallels – cycles of repetition may signal that the meaning is to be found in the ideas repeated (like the sets of seven in the book of Revelation, for instance).

It is deeply satisfying to read and re-read and study a particular book and to gain a real familiarity with the locations of meaning in the text. It is like getting to know a new city, not just by memorizing a map, but by using the map to actually drive the streets and highways, note the landmarks and boundaries, and know where you are the next time you visit.

Mel Lawrenz trains an international network of Christian leaders, ministry pioneers, and thought-leaders. He served as senior pastor of Elmbrook Church in Brookfield, Wisconsin, for ten years and now serves as Elmbrook’s minister at large. He has a Ph.D. in the history of Christian thought and is on the adjunct faculty of Trinity International University. Mel is the author of 18 books, the latest, How to Understand the Bible—A Simple Guide and Spiritual Influence: the Hidden Power Behind Leadership (Zondervan, 2012). See more of Mel’s writing at WordWay.