Living by the Book

Rating:
Summary: A Workbook for "The Book"
Review: If you've ever had an excuse for not getting into the Word, this book is for you. Howard Hendricks who chairs the Center for Christian Leadership (affectionately know as "Prof." to his students at Dallas Theological Seminary) with the aid of his son Bill, has written this phenomenal book on the "why" and "how" of Bible study.

In the first few chapters, Hendricks challenges all the excuses we have for not studying our Bibles and posits clearly superior reasons in favor of doing so. He then uses Scripture itself to show us what we will gain from regular study of God's Word. In typical Hendricks fashion he begins by humoring "I wish we had a better term than 'Bible study,' because for most of us, 'study' is a bad news item. It has all the appeal of flossing our teeth" (13). He tells the story of a man he met at a Bible conference who drove twelve hundred miles to "get under the Word" and Hendricks muses "was he just as willing to walk across his living room floor, pick up a Bible, and get into it for himself?" (9).

There are three steps, which will transform that sometimes-dry text into the spiritual growth that we desire in our lives. They are Observation, Interpretation and Application. These three steps are the heart of the book.

The ability of Howard Hendricks to communicate clearly and effectively is unmatched in this introductory work on Bible study. The pages of this book come alive as he swiftly and painlessly removes the obstacles to personal study while at the same time equipping the reader with the proper tools to understand God's Word. Virtually every chapter contains exercises for the student of Scripture to get hands-on experience instead of just theoretical book knowledge. Much of this book is essentially the application of Mortimer Adler's book, How to Read a Book, (which Hendricks highly acclaims) to the Bible. The anecdotes, illustrations and "quotables" are alone worth the price of the book, not to mention the enlightening elaboration of the three-step approach to Bible study. This book should be the absolute first book a new Christian reads apart from the Bible itself.

Rating:
Summary: A Workbook for "The Book"
Review: If you've ever had an excuse for not getting into the Word, this book is for you. Howard Hendricks who chairs the Center for Christian Leadership (affectionately know as "Prof." to his students at Dallas Theological Seminary) with the aid of his son Bill, has written this phenomenal book on the "why" and "how" of Bible study.

In the first few chapters, Hendricks challenges all the excuses we have for not studying our Bibles and posits clearly superior reasons in favor of doing so. He then uses Scripture itself to show us what we will gain from regular study of God's Word. In typical Hendricks fashion he begins by humoring "I wish we had a better term than 'Bible study,' because for most of us, 'study' is a bad news item. It has all the appeal of flossing our teeth" (13). He tells the story of a man he met at a Bible conference who drove twelve hundred miles to "get under the Word" and Hendricks muses "was he just as willing to walk across his living room floor, pick up a Bible, and get into it for himself?" (9).

There are three steps, which will transform that sometimes-dry text into the spiritual growth that we desire in our lives. They are Observation, Interpretation and Application. These three steps are the heart of the book.

The ability of Howard Hendricks to communicate clearly and effectively is unmatched in this introductory work on Bible study. The pages of this book come alive as he swiftly and painlessly removes the obstacles to personal study while at the same time equipping the reader with the proper tools to understand God's Word. Virtually every chapter contains exercises for the student of Scripture to get hands-on experience instead of just theoretical book knowledge. Much of this book is essentially the application of Mortimer Adler's book, How to Read a Book, (which Hendricks highly acclaims) to the Bible. The anecdotes, illustrations and "quotables" are alone worth the price of the book, not to mention the enlightening elaboration of the three-step approach to Bible study. This book should be the absolute first book a new Christian reads apart from the Bible itself.

Rating:
Summary: Living by the Book
Review: Living by the Book, by Howard Hendrix is a guide to using and understanding life's instruction manual, the Bible. This particular book is not just your average Bible study guide. It is a very in depth, detailed guide for digging deep into God's Word. Hendrix writes powerfully and uses layman's language to explain his brilliant methods for studying the Bible.

Rating:
Summary: Living by the Book
Review: Living by the Book, by Howard Hendrix is a guide to using and understanding life's instruction manual, the Bible. This particular book is not just your average Bible study guide. It is a very in depth, detailed guide for digging deep into God's Word. Hendrix writes powerfully and uses layman's language to explain his brilliant methods for studying the Bible.

Rating:
Summary: A must read
Review: Not only is the method subscribed by this book useful in getting out of the Bible that which was intended, but if the first couple chapters don't get you downright excited about a study of the Word of God, then nothing will. This book will light a fire of desire to search, and find, ALL of God's Word.

Rating:
Summary: Choose your audience
Review: This book put me to sleep over and over again. However, when I read it, I was taking a college course on biblical interpretation--it's not a scholarly book, not even a very deep book theologically. But that's not what it was written for. Now that I'm a pastor, I am turning to this book to train people how to study the Bible.
After working through this book with new Christians, the Bible will not put them to sleep! The Bible will not be as confusing as it was for them before. The interpretation of the Bible will not be totally up to what the reader "feels" the passage means to them. New believers, or new Bible-studiers, will discover that there is a way to find what the passage really means, for all people, at all times, everywhere.
This book also guides the new Bible reader through the process of applying biblical truth to personal life.
I highly recommend it. But not for people who are only interested in academic, intellectually challenging, theologically complex, dissertations on evangelical approaches to hermeneutics. This book is for normal people.

Rating:
Summary: Worth the Money
Review: This information will change your life. It has opened my eyes to how to study the Bible. Before I would look at a single verse, but this teaches you to review the full context and history. I had the privilege of learning this information from "Prof" at Dallas Theological Seminary. I could not have asked for better teaching.

Rating:
Summary: Helps beginners have quality Bible study
Review: This is an easy reading book, in 45 fun little chapters, to help people gain the basic Biblical interpretation skills they need to transform their lives. The Hendricks' show us how proper interpretation of scripture is used to fuel our minds for improved prayer/meditation based on God's principles. These principles are to be applied in our daily lives to change us and consequently change our corner of the world. The overall approach is the same used by most Bible study methods; that is, "inductive" Bible study - observe, interpret, apply.

The authors stress honest observation of the Biblical text without the influence of a pretense or agenda to affect the interpretation. An extremely detailed and systematic observation of the text being studied is stressed as the most crucial aspect of interpretation. Proper interpretation is unlikely without the foundation of an extremely thorough observation of the text itself. About half the book is used to fully explore the questions and forms of textual observation.

The book is loaded with practical ways to assist in interpretation during your Bible study. For example, transporting your senses into the story to help relate to David in a cave or Paul in prison. Clever tools like the fingers of your hand can be used to remember 5 things to look for when interpreting a passage. Another easy-to-remember idea is to ask the 6 w's - who, what, where, when, why and wherefore (wherefore is the "so what?" part of life application).

The authors encourage the application of Biblical principles in our lives. The final section of the book presents a set of questions and motivations for applying the Bible in everyday life. There are many lists to derive life application points: is there a command to obey, an example to follow, a doctrine to be believed, etc.? A recurring theme is the Biblical understanding of Godly knowledge that is summarized as `knowing without doing isn't knowing at all.'

I like this book overall but there are a few things I don't care for. I think it is too long and redundant on some points. 150 pages on every conceivable aspect/permutation of observing a text is excessive. Chapter 7, for example, talks about general reading skills. This is good information to mention but I don't think it deserved a chapter. You can get value from the book by selectively reading most of the chapters and omitting some like 7,13,14,20 (about 7% of the book). This is definitely not the author's intent, but it is how I recommend the book to people who don't have much reading time.

Another way to improve this book would be more coverage about literary genre (parable, poetry, history, letter, etc.). Chapter 29 covers this somewhat, but with a book this size, I would expect more on this important area for interpreting a text. How To Read the Bible for All its Worth, (Fee) and Effective Bible Teaching (Wilhoit) cover genre very well and are better choices if you don't need something as basic as "Living by the Book".

Living by the Book is a good choice for adult beginners, including high school students, to get started into productive Bible study.



Rating:
Summary: If I could get everyone to read just one book, this is it!
Review: This is probably the most important book to get Christians to read. More important than the Bible? Yes -- because reading this will 1) get people excited about getting into the Bible and 2) give them the tools to get the most out of their time in the Bible.

It is a good introduction to Bible study that covers observing the text (the most important step and the one given the least space in most introductory books), interpreting the text, and applying the text (another often neglected step). Through explanation and example the author will show the reader how to make the Bible text his own, and then at the end of most chapters there is a passage (or a few) that is recommended as especially well suited to practicing the new skill.

(Also available is a workbook that complements this book with more exercises for each skill.)

This is an introduction aimed at the average layman, not clergy, and one can certainly go deeper into the topic, but this is a great book to help the average believer to understand and apply the truths that the Biblical authors (and Author) left us.