How to Read the Bible for All Its Worth, 4th ed.

by Gordon Fee; Douglas Stuart

Publisher:

Zondervan

, 2014

Overview

Understanding the Bible isn’t for the few, the gifted, or the scholarly—it’s for everyone from armchair readers to seminary students. Just a few essential insights into the Bible can clear up a lot of misconceptions and help you grasp the meaning of Scripture and its relevance to your twenty-first-century life.

More than three-quarters of a million people have turned to How to Read the Bible for All Its Worth to inform their reading of the Bible. With updated language, a new author’s preface, redesigned and updated diagrams, and an updated list of recommended commentaries and resources, the fourth edition keeps pace with current scholarship and culture.

Covering everything from translational concerns to different genres of biblical writing, How to Read the Bible for All Its Worth uses clear, simple language to help you understand the Bible so you can uncover the inexhaustible worth that is in God’s Word.

Key Features

• Shows readers how to study the Bible for practical application
• Includes lists of recommended resources, diagrams, and other helpful tools
• Argues that the Bible is for everybody—not just scholars and theologians

Contents

• The Need to Interpret
• The Basic Tool: A Good Translation
• The Epistles: Learning to Think Contextually
• The Epistles: The Hermeneutical Questions
• The Old Testament Narratives: Their Proper Use
• Acts: The Question of Historical Precedent
• The Gospels: One Story, Many Dimensions
• The Parables: Do You Get the Point?
• The Law(s): Covenant Stipulations for Israel
• The Prophets: Enforcing the Covenant in Israel
• The Psalms: Israel’s Prayers and Ours
• Wisdom: Then and Now
• The Revelation: Images of Judgment and Hope

Top Highlights

“The aim of good interpretation is simple: to get at the ‘plain meaning of the text,’ the author’s intended meaning.” (Page 22)

“On this one statement, however, there must surely be agreement: A text cannot mean what it could never have meant for its original readers/hearers. Or to put it in a positive way, the true meaning of the biblical text for us is what God originally intended it to mean when it was first spoken or written. This is the starting point. How we work it out from that point is what this book is basically all about.” (Pages 34–35)

“The key to good exegesis, and therefore to a more intelligent reading of the Bible, is to learn to read the text carefully and to ask the right questions of the text.” (Page 30)

“Let it be said at the outset—and repeated throughout—that the aim of good interpretation is not uniqueness; one is not trying to discover what no one else has ever seen before.” (Page 21)

“The antidote to bad interpretation is not no interpretation but good interpretation, based on commonsense guidelines.” (Page 25)

Product Details

• Title: How to Read the Bible for All Its Worth
• Authors: Gordon Fee, Douglas Stuart
• Edition: Fourth Edition
• Publisher: Zondervan
• Print Publication Date: 2014
• Logos Release Date: 2015
• Pages: 304
• Language: English
• Resources: 1
• Format: Digital › Logos Research Edition
• Subject: Bible › Study and teaching
• ISBNs: 9780310517849, 9780310517825, 9780310591498, 9780310244806, 9780310373612, 9780310578567, 0310517842, 0310517826, 031059149X, 0310244803, 0310373611, 0310578566
• Resource ID: LLS:H2RBBLWORTH4THED
• Resource Type: Monograph
• Metadata Last Updated: 2022-09-30T00:27:02Z

About the Authors

Gordon D. Fee (b. 1934) is a leading expert in pneumatology and textual criticism of the New Testament. He is an ordained minister in the Assemblies of God and currently serves as professor emeritus of New Testament studies at Regent College in Vancouver, British Columbia. He is the author of Pauline Christology: An Exegetical-Theological Study and commentaries on First Corinthians and First and Second Thessalonians in the New International Commentary series.

Douglas Stuart is professor of Old Testament at Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary in South Hamilton, Massachusetts. He is the author of How to Read the Bible Book by Book, New American Commentary: Exodus, Old Testament Exegesis: A Handbook for Students and Pastors, and a commentary on Hosea and Jonah.