Here is a quick review of the items to look for during bible reading:
1. Repetition of words – Look for words and phrases that repeat.
2. Contrasts – Look for ideas, individuals, and/or items that are contrasted with each other. Look for differences.
3. Comparisons – Look for ideas, individuals, and/or items that are compared with each other. Look also for similarities.
4. Lists – Anytime the text mentions more than two items, identify them as a list.
5. Cause and effect – Look for cause-and-effect relationships.
6. Figures of speech – Identify expressions that convey an image, using words in a sense other than the normal literal sense.
7. Conjunctions – Notice terms that join units, like “and,” “but,” “for.” Note what they are connecting.
8. Verbs – Note whether a verb is past, present, or future; active or passive; and the like.
9. Pronouns – Identify the antecedent for each pronoun.
10. Questions and answers – Note if the text is built on a question-and-answer format.
11. Dialogue – Note if the text includes dialogue. Identify who is speaking and to whom.
12. Means – Note if a sentence indicates that something was done by means of someone/something (answers “how?”). Usually you can insert the phrase “by means of” into the sentence.
13. Purpose/result statements – These are a more specific type of “means,” often telling why. Purpose and result are similar and sometimes indistinguishable. In a purpose statement, you usually can insert the phrase “in order that.” In a result clause, you usually can insert the phrase “so that.”
14. General to specific and specific to general – Find the general statements that are followed by specific examples or applications of the general. Also find specific statements that are summarized by a general one.
15. Conditional clauses – A clause can present the condition by which some action or consequence will result. Often such statements use an “if … then” framework (although in English the “then” is often left out).
16. Actions/roles of God – Identify actions or roles that the text ascribes to God.
17. Actions/roles of people – Identify actions or roles that the text ascribes to people or encourages people to do/be.
18. Emotional terms – Does the passage use terms that have emotional energy, like kinship words (“father,” “son”) or words like “pleading”?
19. Tone of the passage – What is the overall tone of the passage: happy, sad, encouraging, and so on?
1. Repetition of words – Look for words and phrases that repeat.
2. Contrasts – Look for ideas, individuals, and/or items that are contrasted with each other. Look for differences.
3. Comparisons – Look for ideas, individuals, and/or items that are compared with each other. Look also for similarities.
4. Lists – Anytime the text mentions more than two items, identify them as a list.
5. Cause and effect – Look for cause-and-effect relationships.
6. Figures of speech – Identify expressions that convey an image, using words in a sense other than the normal literal sense.
7. Conjunctions – Notice terms that join units, like “and,” “but,” “for.” Note what they are connecting.
8. Verbs – Note whether a verb is past, present, or future; active or passive; and the like.
9. Pronouns – Identify the antecedent for each pronoun.
10. Questions and answers – Note if the text is built on a question-and-answer format.
11. Dialogue – Note if the text includes dialogue. Identify who is speaking and to whom.
12. Means – Note if a sentence indicates that something was done by means of someone/something (answers “how?”). Usually you can insert the phrase “by means of” into the sentence.
13. Purpose/result statements – These are a more specific type of “means,” often telling why. Purpose and result are similar and sometimes indistinguishable. In a purpose statement, you usually can insert the phrase “in order that.” In a result clause, you usually can insert the phrase “so that.”
14. General to specific and specific to general – Find the general statements that are followed by specific examples or applications of the general. Also find specific statements that are summarized by a general one.
15. Conditional clauses – A clause can present the condition by which some action or consequence will result. Often such statements use an “if … then” framework (although in English the “then” is often left out).
16. Actions/roles of God – Identify actions or roles that the text ascribes to God.
17. Actions/roles of people – Identify actions or roles that the text ascribes to people or encourages people to do/be.
18. Emotional terms – Does the passage use terms that have emotional energy, like kinship words (“father,” “son”) or words like “pleading”?
19. Tone of the passage – What is the overall tone of the passage: happy, sad, encouraging, and so on?
- J. Scott Duvall & J. Daniel Hays, Grasping God's Word:
A Hands-On Approach to Reading, Interpreting, and Applying the Bible, 2016
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