Bible Study (The Goal of Bible Study)

It is the presupposition of all interpretation of documents that the authors of these documents intended to set down a meaning in writing. Therefore, if sufficient pains are taken, the meaning of the author may be recovered. All interpretation of documents—be it fragment of the pre-Socratic philosophers or a page from some medieval mystic—has as its goal the recovery of the meaning of the author.

Bible exegesis is the recovery of the meaning of the writers of Holy Writ; Bible study has the same goal only is less technical and less scholarly, and more popular and devotional. The heart of Bible Study must always be the matter of meaning. The first question of Bible study is not: “What is devotional here?” nor “What is of practical importance here?” nor “What is inspirational here?” but “What does this passage mean?”

(Bob Smith, Basics of Bible Interpretation, Waco, Texas: Word Books, 1978, 31; From Chapter 3, The Goal of Bible Study)