{"id":271,"date":"2006-01-29T14:30:37","date_gmt":"2006-01-29T19:30:37","guid":{"rendered":""},"modified":"2013-09-02T21:07:17","modified_gmt":"2013-09-03T01:07:17","slug":"stop-bible-study-method-on-context","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/biblearchive.com\/blog\/stop-bible-study-method-on-context\/","title":{"rendered":"STOP Bible Study Method on Context"},"content":{"rendered":"

The STOP method illustrated stands and falls on context. This is why Steadfastness and Orderliness are two of the important features of the method. By being disorderly, or lazily skipping over verses, you may potentially fall into one of the greatest dangers of Bible studying.<\/p>\n

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The Word of God is sharper than any two-edged sword and as such should be handled accordingly. Being careless with it can result in horrid theology, confused applications and potentially un-Christlike actions.<\/p>\n

The STOP method is not a topical method nor a systematic method and thus depends on the reading one verse to the next, one paragraph to the next and one chapter to the next without jumping around. Therefore, by skipping around, meanings that are outside of the immediate text wind up influencing the meaning of the studied text and thus ignore the fact that God inspired the text as it stands\u2014not as we have formulated our understanding.<\/p>\n

This is why when you are studying in an Orderly fashion you will encounter passages of great difficulty but you will be able to Steadfastly work through them with a Targeted goal of Popping one of the three \u201cGO!\u201d questions into your mind. Ignore the context at extreme peril.<\/p>\n

Now, as your STOP method increases in practice (perhaps after going through the entire Bible once) you may seek to widen the scope of it to include contextual verses in the passage\u2014especially after seeing our overview of Jude and possibly drawing some bad theology when not reading anything else.<\/p>\n

For example, let\u2019s take the STOP method to {{John 3:16}}. Contextually I would eventually find myself looking closely at John 3:14-18 as a block. 14 as a beginning because Jesus really starts explaining entrance into the Kingdom and 18 as the end of that block because in 19 He explains judgment.<\/p>\n

The STOP method would technically first bring us to the first verse and Steadfastly read through it asking question 1. While asking question 1 under the Orderly heading I would be forced to look up the passages Jesus refers to. For instance, Jesus refers to Numbers 21:1-9 in John 3:14 which would make that passage part of the context as well\u2014albeit further off than the immediate passage of John 3. The benefit of this direct connection is that it rounds off the \u201cGO!\u201d questions.<\/p>\n

If you recall:<\/p>\n