What Does It Mean to “Apply” the Bible?

Disciples are followers of God’s Word. So why do we so often wonder what to do with the Bible? Making sense of the words is one thing. Applying them to my life is another. What must I do to behave “biblically”? Does it require a rigid step-by-step method?

There are entire books that try to clarify what application is, but it is not as complicated as we might think.

What does it mean to apply the Bible?

The word application was first used as a hermeneutical concept by Pietists. It was seen as the next step after understanding and interpretation. For the Pietists, hermeneutics involved not only our thoughts but also our affections. The right affections resulted in holy living.¹ Thus, the preacher’s task, for instance, was not merely to convey the meaning of the Scriptures, but to plant it into the souls of listeners.

Nowadays, application is not less emphasized. Yet it has become less significant and less affective. For scholars, application may be an optional step after exegesis. For pastors, it may be the last-minute point at the end of an expositional sermon. At the same time, lay Christians may either apply without constraints or become discouraged by overly complex methods. Yet, in fact, application is essential and accessible in our ordinary life.

The question of how to apply it rightly is unavoidable. Application happens in our daily reading and devotion, in our weekly preaching and Bible study, and everywhere in our ordinary life. We are applying the Bible when we choose to apologize to our spouse after a fight, or when we pray for the annoying driver who repeatedly blocks our way. Daily life is filled with applications.

There will be many struggles, confusions, and failures when we try to live “biblically.” But when we repeatedly open ourselves to be challenged and transformed by its stories, teachings, and testimonies, we will gradually discover a pattern of decision making—biblically grounded discernment and judgment—forming in our hearts. Application makes biblical teachings our way of life, our way of being before God and neighbors.

To apply the Bible means to use it faithfully, relate it to our situation fittingly, and devote ourselves to it fervently.

If we understand what “apply” means in ordinary language, we may already know how to do it more than we realize. To apply the Bible means to:

1. Use it faithfully,
2. relate it to our situation fittingly, and
3. devote ourselves to it fervently, with our head, heart, and hands.

These three senses are inseparable aspects of the whole process of application. Each aspect involves the other two.

Why should we apply the Bible?

God is speaking to us through the Bible. God’s Word is not only informative but also normative and formative, and thus demands our response (Matt 7:24, 26; Jas 1:22–25). Application, therefore, is not an optional postscript. It is demanded by the meaning of the biblical text.

Interpretation without application is like the following child:

Mom: “Listen, it’s time to practice the piano.”

Child: “I hear you, Mom.”

(Ten minutes later, the child is still watching cartoons.)

Mom: “Did you hear what I said? Do you understand what I mean?”

Child: “Of course I understood. You told me to play the piano.”

Mom: “Then why are you still sitting there?”

We intuitively know from this example that to truly grasp the meaning of the mother’s words is to apply them. So too the meaning of the biblical text—the divine author’s communicative intent—is not simply to provide us with information about the past. A failure to apply the Bible is actually a failure to reckon with its meaning. The Bible is not a mere database of raw material from which to develop abstract doctrines. It is God’s authoritative address, and it demands our obedient response.

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How do we apply the Bible?

Popular textbooks on hermeneutics devote entire chapters to application, but in doing so they often employ differing concepts.

• Grant Osborne speaks of contextualization, the way to make an ancient text relevant today.²³
• Kevin Vanhoozer employs the idea of theatrical or musical performance, an external enactment of biblical truth in daily living.⁴
• Jeannine Brown differentiates between movement and participation models of application among scholars.⁵

We may feel overwhelmed by so many different names for and models of application. Yet we can eliminate much confusion by clarifying the underlying concept.

Aspects of application

The ordinary use of the word apply has multiple possible meanings. We can apply ointment or paint, for example. We can apply a technique we’ve learned to a task. We can apply for a job or apply the law to a particular case. But when apply is used in hermeneutics, it generally means:

1. Use = make functional (i.e., I apply the Word of God to my life)
2. Relate = make relevant (i.e., I apply the Word of God to my current situation)
3. Devote = attend to with diligence (i.e., I apply myself to the Word of God)

Thus, when scholars disagree over the concept of application, sometimes it is because they may be using application in one of these different ways. For example, Scholar A says, “Application must happen after interpretation.” Scholar B says, “No! Application is already happening in interpretation.” Scholar A is right if application means use, because we can only apply (i.e., use) something (i.e., meaning) if we first have it. Scholar B is right if application means relate, because we have to apply (i.e., relate) the text to our own context to know the correct meaning of the text. I have to apply (i.e., relate) Paul’s command for women to cover their heads (1 Cor 11:6) to our modern context to determine whether the command is culturally specific or universally binding.

Though scholars categorize application in different ways, these categories often follow a shared pattern resembling the three aspects above:

1. use,
2. relevance, and
3. devotion.

John Frame, for instance, defines theology as the application of the Word of God to all areas of life by persons. Such theology is tri-perspectival:

1. It is the application of Scripture (normative perspective)
2. to situations (situational perspective)
3. by persons (existential perspective).⁶

Daniel Doriani’s book Putting Truth to Work (2001), which might be the only comprehensive book specifically on application, matches Frame’s categories as he identifies different aspects of application:

1. Duty (or norms) that governs the choices we should make
2. Discernment and goal that help us decide when and where to apply which norms
3. Character or the transformation of the person⁷

So too we can describe these three aspects of application in terms of Vanhoozer’s performance model of textual understanding:

1. The canon is the authoritative holy script that establishes the norms for Christian life and thought.
2. The cultural context is the stage on which the holy script is performed in situationally fitting ways.
3. The actors are the interpreters who fervently devote themselves to the task of faithfully performing the normative text in new situations.

In applying the Bible, then, we can focus on each of these aspects as three strands that make up a unified cord of understanding:

1. Use: If our focus is textual meaning, then our application will be normative use (i.e., we use the text as an authority for Christian living).
2. Relevance: If our focus is on the present situation, then our application will be situational relevance (think: case law). We make a contextually appropriate specification of the text’s communicative intention.
3. Devotion: If our focus is on our own subjectivity, then our application will be existential devotion. We expose ourselves to the light of the text.

Criteria for application

Following these three aspects of application, allow me to suggest three criteria for right application:

1. Faithful use: We apply (use) the text as a norm in a way that is faithful to the canonical text and to the history of its orthodox reception in Christian tradition.
2. Fitting relevance: We apply (relate) it to our present situations and make judgments that are fitting to new cultural contexts.
3. Fervent devotion: We apply (devote) ourselves fervently to participate in the text’s world—God’s kingdom—and let it transform our whole person.

To what do we apply the Bible?

Application ideally unfolds in three stages and involves three domains of the person.

1. First, we contextualize the meaning of the text and discern its relevance within our present context. This is application in the cognitive domain (“head”), where we do theoretical theology or practical theology by relating the meaning to ourselves and new contexts.
2. Second, we internalize this relevance so that it transforms our affections, dispositions, and will. This is application in the affective domain (“heart”), where we personalize the general relevance and allow it to change us.
3. Finally, we enact what has been internalized through concrete patterns of life and practice (performance). This is application in the behavioral domain (“hands”), where we actualize the relevance of the text in practice. This is the outward realization of what has been formed in our heart.

Domain	Process	Product
Cognitive Domain	Contextualization	Relevance
Affective Domain	Internalization	Transformation
Behavioral Domain	Enactment	Performance

Application is ultimately about the renewal of the whole person, including the cognitive, affective, and behavioral domains. Too often our idea of application stops at the cognitive domain. Yet application involves not just the head, but also the heart and hands. Likewise, merely to perform the text without inner transformation is shallow. That is why scholars consider other terms besides “application” to better capture its scope.

Conclusion

The fruit of application takes time and hard work. Application is so rich that one verse is enough for us to repeatedly meditate and apply for a whole year. Yet application is also simple enough that everyone can understand and do it every day of their lives.

Yes, we must be faithful and treat God’s words with fear. But in another sense, we do not need to fear. Application is simply about trust and obedience: We find out what God is doing with these words and then apply them by responding obediently.

When God is declaring, we believe.

When God is promising, we hope.

When God is commanding, we obey.

When God is warning, we repent.

When God is calling, we follow.

Share your thoughts

What hermeneutical principles should guide application? Join us in the Word by Word group to share your thoughts.

Resources for further study

Related content

• What Is Hermeneutics? | Kevin Vanhoozer
• All about Hermeneutics: A Guide to Interpreting God’s Word Faithfully
• What Is Exegesis & Why Is It Important? Plus, How to Start
• Legalism, License & the Tightrope of Bible Application
• On Expository Preaching | David Helm

1. Jean Grondin, Introduction to Philosophical Hermeneutics, trans. Joel Weinsheimer, Yale Studies in Hermeneutics (Yale, 1997), 60–61.
2. Grant R. Osborne, The Hermeneutical Spiral: A Comprehensive Introduction to Biblical Interpretation, 2nd ed. (InterVarsity, Richard Alan Fuhr and Andreas J. Köstenberger prefer appropriation, the process of interiorizing the word. 2006).
3. Richard Alan Fuhr and Andreas J. Köstenberger, Inductive Bible Study: Observation, Interpretation, and Application through the Lenses of History, Literature, and Theology (B&H Academic, 2016).
4. Kevin J. Vanhoozer, The Drama of Doctrine: A Canonical-Linguistic Approach to Christian Theology (Presbyterian Publishing, 2005).
5. Jeannine K. Brown, Scripture as Communication: Introducing Biblical Hermeneutics, 2nd ed. (Baker Academic, 2021), 240–241. The movement model sees interpretation and application not as separable processes but as a series of back-and-forth movements between the world of the text and the world of the reader (i.e., the reader’s experiences, culture, questions, traditions, etc.). According to this view, we may distinguish interpretation and application in theory, but they are inseparable in practice. Instead of moving back and forth between the two worlds, the participation model encourages readers to enter into the world of the text through imaginative indwelling. The biblical text here challenges and transforms our way of viewing the world. Readers therefore live in their own worlds but with renewed horizons. As Calvin says, the Bible becomes the “spectacles of faith,” a new set of lenses that enable us to see with what Paul calls the “eyes of the heart” (Eph 1:18). John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion, ed. John Thomas MacNeill, trans. Ford Lewis Battles, 2 vols. (Westminster John Knox, 2006), 1.6.1.
6. John M. Frame, The Doctrine of the Knowledge of God: A Theology of Lordship (Presbyterian and Reformed Publishing, 1987), 81–84. Likewise, Walter C. Kaiser Jr. and Moisés Silva identify three types of application that resemble these categories: (1) theological use; (2) cultural use; (3) devotional use. Walter C. Kaiser and Moisés Silva, Introduction to Biblical Hermeneutics: The Search for Meaning (Zondervan, 2009), pt. 3.
7. Daniel M. Doriani, Putting the Truth to Work: The Theory and Practice of Biblical Application (P&R, 2001), chap. 5. Doriani subdivides the situational perspective (discernment and goal), so he actually proposes four aspects of application. I have combined them here for ease of understanding and demonstrating these common triads.