The Key to Finding the Author’s Emphasis When You Read the Bible

Scripture’s Structure Is a Guide

Every passage in the Bible has a structure. The human authors of Scripture were inspired to write by God’s Holy Spirit, but they wrote with careful attention to organization and structure; in other words, they did not write haphazardly, randomly, or chaotically. Often, however, we do not work hard to actually find the structure of the biblical passages that we study. We simply read them and ask general questions—or make general comments—about them, or we focus on the impressions or feelings that biblical passages give us. When we study this way, failing to pay attention to the structure of the passages we are focusing on, we run the risk of making incorrect interpretations and applications.

To counteract that danger, we need to add the construction tool to our hermeneutical tool belts.

Understanding the Construction Tool

The construction tool is designed to help you find the structure (or the shape) of any given passage in the Bible in order to find your way to its true meaning, purpose, and application.

This tool operates on the basis that every passage in the Bible has a clear structure, and the structure is important because it shows us the focus or thrust of the passage. In other words, the way the biblical author puts a passage together can show us what that author means to emphasize, highlight, and bring out for his readers. Very often, the structure of a passage is the main key to interpreting it well, understanding it rightly, and applying it faithfully to our lives. This is why the construction tool is so important—it helps us see what the biblical authors want us to see.

Understanding God's Word

Jon Nielson

In this accessible guide to biblical interpretation, pastor Jon Nielson presents 6 hermeneutical tools and demonstrates how to use them effectively to improve personal or small-group Bible studies.

What are some ways that we can begin to see the structure, or construction, of a passage in the Bible? We can do the following:

Look for key words (such as so, therefore, if, or since) and phrases (such as “In conclusion” or “Because of this . . .”). Those kinds of key transition words and phrases often help us see the way a passage is put together.
Look for changes in subject or topic; when an author shifts from one topic to another, that is usually an indication of the way he is structuring his thoughts or argument.
Look for repeated words. Repetition of words in key places in a biblical text can offer a hint as to the structure of that text.

This tool helps us avoid problems in our study of the Bible, as well as providing some benefits when we put it to work in good ways that can help us in our study and grasp of the biblical authors’ emphases and main points.

Problems Avoided

The construction tool is not simply a fun and helpful addition to your hermeneutical tool belt (although it is); it also can actually protect you from some serious errors and misunderstandings about the Bible. As I noted briefly above, we often read and study Scripture simply to hear it and see how it makes us feel rather than to discern the way the biblical author has intentionally put his words together in order to teach us. Now, hearing the Bible and being emotionally moved by it are, of course, good things. There are certainly times when we should simply sit and listen to the Bible, or read it devotionally, without the kind of careful study that we are learning about in this book. But as I hope to convince you, there are also times to study the Bible carefully in order to understand what it really means (given its context, structure, etc.), and therefore, how we should apply it as Christians today. That’s where the construction tool comes in. It is extremely important for helping you rightly understand the main point and main application of any passage in Scripture.

What are some problems in Bible interpretation and application that can be avoided when we use the construction tool well?

Misplaced emphasis. First, by rightly applying this tool, you can avoid the problem of misplaced emphasis. As we noted earlier, the structure—or construction—of a passage is almost always a very important key to understanding its focus, main point, or emphasis. The biblical authors put their writing together in very intentional ways in order to help us see what they were emphasizing. If we do not work hard to put the construction tool to work—to find the structure of the biblical passages that we study—we are in danger of finding the emphasis of any given passage in a place where the author never intended it. We might stumble on a biblical truth and yet completely miss the central truth that a Bible passage is intended to teach us.

Wandering thoughts. Second, you can avoid the problem of wandering thoughts. Some students of the Bible tend to just read along without really thinking carefully about the meaning of the passage before them, much less its organization. Sometimes when we read the Bible this way, we almost get the impression that the biblical authors simply wrote random thoughts, putting down whatever words happened to pop into their minds. That could not be further from the truth. The biblical authors worked hard to carefully craft their writing; they were not just recording their wandering thoughts or jotting down words in a stream-of-consciousness kind of way. As we study the structure of their writing carefully, we will be guarded against thinking that the Bible was put together randomly.

Literary abuse. Third, you can avoid the problem of literary abuse when you apply this tool faithfully. This final point is very important. If we do not work hard to find the structure of biblical books, we are actually doing literary damage to the Bible, which is a literary book. Because real human authors wrote the Bible, even as they were inspired by God’s Holy Spirit, we should expect that they wrote in logical and organized ways. To fail to look for the construction of their writings is to fail to respect the Bible as a true literary work—even one that is also God’s inspired word.

Seeing the construction of a passage is actually the way that you discover how you are to apply God’s word to your life.

Benefits Received with This Tool

Now let’s shift our focus to the great benefits that come to your Bible interpretation and application when you use the construction tool well in your study. I want you to see some of the important insights that this tool can give you and to come to understand why I am placing such emphasis on construction.

Here are some of the benefits of using the construction tool:

Finding the author’s outline. Have you ever written a paper for school? If so, you probably had some kind of outline as you prepared to write. You knew, for example, that you would begin with an introductory paragraph, then move on to talk about several points (logically in order), and then end with a paragraph of conclusion. The biblical authors also had outlines” as they wrote, and the construction tool can help you find them. When we put this tool to work carefully, we can begin to discover the way the biblical authors were putting their writing together in order to allow it to flow out logically and with good organization. When we uncover their outlines, it is then much easier for us to understand what they are saying and how we should apply it.

Finding the author’s emphasis. Far too often, as we read and study the Bible, we place a lot of emphasis on things that just happen to jump out at us as we read. Perhaps a certain word strikes us from a passage; all of a sudden, we become very focused on that word and begin to think about it as the most important part of the passage. That can often be very dangerous. It is the structure of a passage that actually shows us what the author is emphasizing—not just what happens to jump out at us as we read. Careful work with the construction tool to discover the structure of a passage is key to seeing what the author is building toward—the key point that he wants us, the readers, to focus on.

Discovering the right application. The construction tool also can help you apply a Bible passage in the way that the human (and divine) author intends. This is the most practical benefit of this tool. By discovering the structure of a Bible passage, we find the main focus (or emphasis) of the biblical author; that emphasis then leads us to the right application of the passage to our lives. Have you thought deeply about this? Seeing the construction of a passage is actually the way that you discover how you are to apply God’s word to your life. This makes the construction tool extremely important.

The construction tool can help you find the structure (the shape or organization) of every biblical passage you study. This structure is the author’s outline, and it is almost always the key to finding the author’s emphasis and main point. Finding that point of emphasis can help protect you against focusing on the wrong things in a Bible passage or missing the correct application.

This article is adapted from Understanding God’s Word: An Introduction to Interpreting the Bible by Jon Nielson.

Jon Nielson (DMin, Trinity Evangelical Divinity School) serves as the senior pastor of Christ Presbyterian Church of Wheaton in Wheaton, Illinois. He is coeditor of the book Gospel-Centered Youth Ministry and author of the Theology Basics series. He and his wife, Jeanne, have four children.

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