To most people the Bible appears intimidating and inaccessible. Sadly that’s often the case within the church. Vaughan Roberts highlights the problem when he writes in the foreword, ‘The need for a straightforward, user-friendly guide to how to read the Bible was obvious. There were plenty of learned studies for pastors and theologians, but very little that I could confidently put in the hands of the average Christian wanting help in understanding the Bible for himself or herself or in teaching it to others’. Help is at hand in ‘Dig Deeper! Tools to Unearth the Bible’s Treasure’.

This is a book about understanding how to read the Bible. It’s a terrific little book. I wouldn’t hesitate to recommend it to our small group Bible study leaders, Sunday School teachers and apprentice preachers. Mark Dever, the Senior Pastor of Capitol Hill Baptist Church, Washington DC expresses his enthusiasm in a wonderfully understated way when he writes, ‘I like this book. In fact, I think we’ll start using it at out church!’ Isn’t that brilliant! Surely there’s no better commendation for a book than that a Pastor decides to use it and not only write about it.

It’s written by Nigel Beynon, the Student Minister at St Helen’s Bishopsgate and Andrew Sach, student at Oak Hill Theological College and co-author of a forthcoming IVP book defending penal substitution. Between them have years of experience at teaching the Bible and teaching others to teach the Bible. This is a book written by blokes who know ‘how to’!

The book, published by IVP, is only 160 pages long and so already it’s appealing. It’s written in a winsome and accessible style. Occasional witty anecdotes are included to produce a wry smile and illustrate a point. They’re often employed to mock the mistakes of bad Bible handling. It’s not a hard read.

The 16 key chapters outline the various tools for handling the Bible. In totality the book provides a comprehensive introduction to essential issues like authorial intent, biblical theology, structure, context and genre. What the tool is and how it’s to be used is explained in a simple, clear and straightforward way. Each chapter is only about ten pages long and so covers the material quite quickly. But the authors have done a great job of dealing with the material so thoroughly in the space they have available. The advantage of their approach is that it creates a sense of progression through the tool box. It also means that a chapter could be read and the further exercises practised in one sitting. The worked examples demonstrate how the tool works in practice. The choice of worked examples is cunning! Many of the classic texts that end up mangled by suspect Bible handling are given a thorough treatment. Misunderstanding about Gideon’s fleece, the second blessing, perseverance of the saints, apocalyptic imagery and descriptive or prescriptive norms are helpfully cleared up. The chapter then closes with a brief summary and an opportunity to ‘go it alone’ with the further exercises.

The great thing about this book is that it helps make the Bible accessible. It does that by putting in our hands a few useful tools that rightly applied will help us understand what God is saying to us in His word. Through reading this book those of us who feel biblically incompetent will quickly become competent.