How to Read the Bible

I think most of us would say that we have some room to grow when it comes to our ability to understand what we read in the Bible. Sure, we understand the essence of the message of the Bible, and we can grasp certain things with confidence from any chunk of Scripture we happen to be reading. But we are often confused by the text and we find ourselves in need of help. If this describes you, let me highly recommend a resource I came across yesterday posted on Justin Taylor's blog, Between Two Worlds. It's a compilation of the articles found in the back of the ESV Study Bible on how to read the Bible, and they have put them into a nice handy PDF. Check out the original post here where you can download the PDF. Some of the articles include "Reading the Bible Theologically" (by J.I. Packer), "Reading the Bible in Prayer and Communion with God" (by John Piper), and "Reading the Bible for Personal Application" (by David Powlison). These would be great to pass on to a friend as well, or to read together with your spouse or family, or perhaps to work through with a new believer over a series of meetings.