Chapter 2. Bible Study Basics
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# Chapter 2. Bible Study Basics

## Our Purpose as we Approach the Bible

| You search the Scriptures, because you think that in them you have eternal life; and it is these that bear witness of Me; and you are unwilling to come to Me, that you may have life. |
| --Jn.5:39-40

The chief purpose of the book is to bring us to the Person. Martin Luther said “we go to the cradle only for the sake of the baby”; just so in Bible study, we do it not for its own sake but for fellowship with God.

| The Jews to whom Jesus spoke [...] imagined that to possess Scripture was tantamount to possessing life. Hillel used to say, "He who has gotten to himself words of Torah has gotten to himself the life of the world to come." Their study was an end in itself. In this they were grievously deceived. [...] There is neither merit nor profit in the reading of Scripture for its own sake, but only if it effectively introduces us to Jesus Christ. Whenever the Bible is read, what is needed is an eager expectation that through it we may meet Christ. |
| --John R.W. Stott, Christ the Controversialist, InterVarsity Press 1978, pp.97, 104.

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