Best Christian Books on Bible Study: 13 Classics on How to Read It
If you want one book on how to study the Bible, start with D. L. Moody's Pleasure & Profit in Bible Study. It takes about three hours, it's full of plain advice, and it will make you want to open your Bible. When you're ready for a method, go to R. A. Torrey's How to Study the Bible for Greatest Profit. It shows, step by step, how to study a book, a topic or a life.
The old teachers agreed on more than you might expect. Read the Bible itself, not only books about it. Read it as God's Word, with a heart ready to obey, because doing comes before knowing. Read regularly, the way you eat. Read whole books, not just favorite verses, and let each passage say what it says. Ask the Holy Spirit to teach you, and expect Him to. And keep Christ in view, since the whole Book is about Him.
Search the scriptures; for in them ye think ye have eternal life: and they are they which testify of me.
John 5:39
Here are thirteen of the best books on Bible study in TheWay Library. For commentaries to use alongside them, see our guide to the best classic Bible commentaries.
Start here
1. Pleasure & Profit in Bible Study, by D. L. Moody
Moody said he would rather preach about the Word of God than anything except the love of God. The first chapters show why the Bible matters: it is the Christian's weapon, the young convert's food and a guide to heaven. Then he turns practical. Search, don't just read. Study by subjects. Mark your Bible, with his examples. And his four-word rule for every passage.
Always ask God to open the eyes of your understanding that you may see the truth; and expect that He will answer your prayer.
Pleasure & Profit in Bible Study, Summary of Suggestions
See D. L. Moody's books. Read Pleasure & Profit in Bible Study.
2. How to Study the Bible for Greatest Profit, by R. A. Torrey
The best short handbook of methods. Torrey walks you through studying a single book of the Bible, with worked examples, then tracing a topic, studying Bible characters, studying types and reading straight through. The chapter on the conditions of profitable study is worth reading every year.
There is a great difference between believing theoretically that the Bible is God's Word and studying it as God's Word.
How to Study the Bible for Greatest Profit, chapter VIII
What regularity in eating is to physical life, regularity in Bible study is to spiritual life.
How to Study the Bible for Greatest Profit, Final Suggestions
Torrey's later The Importance and Value of Proper Bible Study gives eleven rules from eleven texts and some principles of interpretation; its scan has some misread letters. See R. A. Torrey's books. Read How to Study the Bible for Greatest Profit.
3. The Bible and the Closet, by Thomas Watson and Samuel Lee
Two short Puritan pieces. Watson gives about two dozen directions for reading Scripture with profit: prepare the heart, read with reverence, meditate, apply every word to yourself, and pray. Lee follows with secret prayer and short prayers through the day.
Gregory calls the Bible the heart and soul of God.
The Bible and the Closet, How We May Read the Scriptures with Most Spiritual Profit
More Puritans are in the best Puritan books. Read The Bible and the Closet.
4. The Inner Chamber and the Inner Life, by Andrew Murray
Murray on the morning hour alone with God. Most of the book is about how to read Scripture there: doing comes before knowing, the heart matters more than the head, and the aim of all Bible study is holiness. A good corrective for anyone who studies a lot and is changed little.
All Bible study to be fruitful should be learning of Christ. The Bible is the school book, Christ is the Teacher.
The Inner Chamber and the Inner Life, Learning of Christ
See Andrew Murray's books. Read The Inner Chamber and the Inner Life.
Methods
5. How to Master the English Bible, by James M. Gray
A one-hour book with one big idea. Before you take a book of the Bible apart, put it together: read it through at one sitting, without stopping at chapter breaks, again and again until you see its main idea, and before you read a commentary. Gray, who led Moody Bible Institute for many years, tells how he learned the method and what it did for his preaching. The scan has margin notes run into the text.
The synthetic study of the Bible, it may be said in a word, is an attempt to put it together rather than to take it apart.
How to Master the English Bible, Explanation of the Method
Read How to Master the English Bible.
6. Knowing the Scriptures, by Arthur T. Pierson
The fullest book here. Pierson treats the Bible as one designed whole and moves from its large structure down to the details: words, names, key passages, refrains, context, then topical and other methods, and types and symbols. Use it as a course, a few chapters a week.
For God's written Word no substitute has ever been found.
Knowing the Scriptures, Introduction
See Arthur T. Pierson's books. Read Knowing the Scriptures.
7. Notes from My Bible, by D. L. Moody
Short notes gathered from the margins of Moody's own Bibles, in Bible order from Genesis to Revelation. It shows you what a well-used Bible looks like, and it's good to keep beside yours as you read.
This Book will keep you from sin, or sin will keep you from this Book.
Notes from My Bible, The Bible
8. What the Bible Teaches, by R. A. Torrey
Topical study done for you. Torrey gathers the passages on each doctrine, God, Christ, the Holy Spirit, man, salvation, the future, and then states what they teach in plain propositions. Use it to learn the method by watching it, then check his work.
Nothing will demolish self-righteousness like one real sight of God.
What the Bible Teaches, The Holiness of God
Background and big picture
9. A Brief Bible History, by James Oscar Boyd and J. Gresham Machen
A course for classes, with review questions after every lesson. Boyd tells the Old Testament story from before Abraham to the hope of "the Coming One." Machen follows Jesus, the early church and Paul's missionary travels. The best short overview of the whole Bible story in the library.
The Christian Church is founded on the fact of the resurrection of Jesus; if that fact had not occurred there would be no Church to-day.
A Brief Bible History, The Beginnings of the Christian Church
10. The Literature and History of New Testament Times, by J. Gresham Machen
Lessons for Bible-class teachers on the Roman, Greek and Jewish world, the first church, Paul's travels and each New Testament book. Machen warns that a church that neglects Bible history will lose its power.
There is a tendency in the modern Church to neglect the study of Bible history. Such neglect will inevitably result in a loss of power.
The Literature and History of New Testament Times, Introduction
Read The Literature and History of New Testament Times.
11. Why Four Gospels?, by Arthur W. Pink
Why does the Bible tell the life of Jesus four times? Pink argues that the Gospels are four portraits: Matthew shows the King, Mark the Servant, Luke the Man, John the Son of God. It will change how you read them. The opening letters of most chapters are garbled in the scan.
Not only the Revealer of God, but God Himself revealed.
Why Four Gospels?, The Gospel of John
12. Lectures Introductory to the Epistles of Paul, by William Kelly
Kelly takes Paul's letters one at a time and shows each as a whole: why it was written, what it is about, how it moves. Read his lecture on a letter before you study the letter itself. See Who Was William Kelly?
There is nothing to divert the heart from Christ, the great High Priest in the heavens.
Lectures Introductory to the Epistles of Paul, Hebrews VII–XIII
Read Lectures Introductory to the Epistles of Paul.
More to explore
H. A. Ironside's The Four Hundred Silent Years fills the gap between Malachi and Matthew, though some chapters lost their opening words in scanning. C. I. Scofield's Question Box answers students' questions on hard passages, apparent contradictions and translations. For confidence that the Bible is God's Word in the first place, see our guide to Christian books on the inspiration of Scripture.
Where to start
- Never studied the Bible: Moody, then Torrey.
- Want a method: Torrey, then Gray.
- Study but feel dry: Murray's Inner Chamber, then Watson.
- Want the big story: A Brief Bible History.
More books are on the Bible study topic page.