Short Answer
To know what to apply from the Bible, you must understand the original meaning, identify the timeless principle, and then apply it to your life today. A helpful method is: Then → Always → Now.
The Overview
Understanding how to apply the Bible is a central part of Christian growth, and it requires careful interpretation. Not every command or situation in Scripture applies directly in the same way today, but every passage contains truth we can learn from. The key is to interpret it correctly before applying it.
The first step is understanding the original context—what the text meant to the original audience. This includes the historical setting, cultural background, and the author’s intent. Without this step, it’s easy to misapply Scripture or take it out of context.
Next, you identify the timeless principle. This is the truth that reflects God’s character, values, or moral standard—something that applies across all times and cultures. Even specific Old Testament laws or narratives often carry broader principles that are still relevant today.
Finally, you move to application today. Once you understand the principle, you ask: “How does this truth apply to my life now?” This step requires wisdom to ensure the application is faithful to the original meaning and consistent with the rest of Scripture.
This process—Then (original meaning), Always (timeless truth), Now (modern application)—helps believers handle Scripture accurately and apply it effectively in daily life.
Key Takeaways
- Start with Original Meaning (Then)
Understand what the text meant in its context. - Find the Timeless Principle (Always)
Identify truths that reflect God’s character. - Apply It Today (Now)
Translate the principle into your life. - Not Everything Applies Directly
Some texts require interpretation before application. - All Scripture Teaches Something
Every passage has value and meaning. - Practice Builds Skill
Regular study improves understanding over time.
Transcript
[00:00:00 – 00:00:56] Carol has written in already and she says, “When reading the Bible, how do we know what we should apply to our lives and what we should not apply uh but we read just as observers?” Great question. That is a question that’s going to take uh going to take a whole semester to figure out. Yeah, that that is basically the question that we tackle in a class that we teach here at uh Compass Bible Institute. We call hermeneutics. How to interpret the Bible or Bible interpretation. Um, yeah, we’ve got to
[00:00:28 – 00:01:21] figure that out by looking at what we’re reading. It’s not that we can’t um figure out some kind of application from almost every section of the word because we can uh even as Paul says to the Corinthians when he says, you know, we read in the law of Moses, you shouldn’t muzzle the ox while he’s threshing out the grain. And and Paul says, you know, we can learn a principle from that. And what he says there is you should be able to pay your pastor uh when he’s preaching the word of God to you. Now,
[00:00:54 – 00:01:47] how do we get from not muzzling the ox while he’s threshing to paying your pastor when he preaches to you? And he tries to describe the the the pathway from not putting a muzzle on your ox all the way to trying to talk about how you are paying soldiers when they’re fighting for you and how you uh you know, if you’re a farmer, you’re going to eat some of the food that you’re going to uh to plant and and use to sell in the marketplace. And you know, of course, you’re not going to keep, you
[00:01:21 – 00:02:09] know, the the oxen from uh putting his head down and eating some of the grain that you’re making him thresh out. And of course, you’re not going to muzzle the ox while he’s threshing. And of course, the pastor who’s sewing into your lives uh spiritual truth, you’re going to pay him material wealth so that he can do the work uh to uh to teach you. And and he’s saying, “Yeah, you can derive a principle from a text like that.” And you should know that we can we can learn from that. And Paul had
[00:01:45 – 00:02:34] already taught that and how he’s teaching the Corinthians by quoting the Old Testament. He does that in 1 Corinthians chapter 10 when he says, “Look at the Old Testament people as they came out of of Egypt and they uh sat down to eat and drink and they rose up to play. They did whatever they wanted and God destroyed them because all they cared about was doing whatever they wanted.” And he said, “We can learn a principle from that.” And he says, “Don’t be like they were and God struck
[00:02:09 – 00:03:04] them down.” Or even talking about their complaining and don’t do what they did. So we learn from the the narrative of the text or even principles about what God commanded them to do with their oxen and we can derive principles from that. So we can look at what was done in Old Testament texts or any narrative text even in the book of acts or in the gospels and we can say what is the timeless principle and the timeless truth that represents the nature or the attribute of God and then how do we take
[00:02:37 – 00:03:30] that out of that text and say okay here’s a principle that reflects God’s nature God’s values and now say what is the way in which we can rightly apply this right without doing any damage to that principle and apply it to our lives today. Now, we need a lot of practice with that and that’s what hermeneutics textbooks do. And that’s what we try to do in biblical interpretation, learning how to not violate any principle of the word. And that’s why someone who knows the Bible really well and can make sure
[00:03:03 – 00:03:51] they’re keeping all of the Bible in view when they interpret the text. That’s what hopefully your pastor is good at. He knows all of the scripture and he can get in in the pulpit, take a text of scripture, show you how to extract the principle of scripture and then making sure he’s not violating any other text of scripture because there’s ultimately one author of scripture and give you an application of that scripture that uh is is making sure that none of it is being violated and giving you a proper
[00:03:27 – 00:04:26] application of it. That’s what we need to all learn to do and and that is biblical interpretation. And so Carol, that’s the work that that we need to to learn to do. And and what I try to teach people to do uh in in that is is a is a process called then, always, and now. So in the text, we always need to work first and say, what is the original authoral intent? What is the author intending for this to mean? Like don’t put a muzzle on an ox when he’s treading out the grain. We need to figure out
[00:03:57 – 00:04:48] what does that mean in its original context? What does it mean that the people sat down to eat in the desert? They just cared about their food, whether it’s, you know, we want meat or we want mana or we want food or whatever and then we just want to get up and do whatever we want. What does the text mean in its original context? What is the author mean when Moses is talking about these things? And then what is the always principle? Let’s extract a principle that’s always true in any
[00:04:21 – 00:05:17] context. And then we can finally from that principle think about the now. How does this affect life in the 21st century where I live? I can extract from that timeless principle. How to apply it to my life today. Carol, that’s the work that we do in in everyday Bible study. Then always now at our church, we call it tanning. And and to work at just a basic plan as to how to do that. I’ve I’ve written that out in something we call around here our partners’ manual. The partners manual is just our
[00:04:50 – 00:05:43] disciplehip workbook. And if you want to get a hold of that, you can get a hold of us at focalpoint, which is our radio ministry here. Just go to pastormike.com, which is basically our radio ministry website, and you can request one of those. You can talk to our uh leader of that ministry, Jay Jay is in charge of that, and just request one of that. Hopefully, maybe your church can get involved in doing that uh uh disciplehip manual, the partners’ manual, and and uh you can train each other on how to do that in your church,
[00:05:16 – 00:06:06] Carol, and that will help you get good at that. And some people in your church can can train other people in your church to get good at that. You can always keep each other accountable at making sure you handle the word properly because it’s not just your pastor who should be doing that publicly on the weekend at church. It should be all of us that are digging into the scripture to know what the then is all about, what the always principle is, and then how to effectively put this into a now kind of
[00:05:41 – 00:06:38] application. Then always now. And I think that’s the way um I I’ve figured out at least how to help people to do this in a way they can do it every single morning as they dig into God’s word. So go to pastormike.com and we can give you about 30 I don’t know what it is 25 or 30 pages uh to try and help you work out a pattern that you can do with a piece of you know yellow tablet uh you know every single morning or a journal. You can do it electronically on a a word doc or whatever on your computer and and
[00:06:10 – 00:06:27] you get practice every day. every day of the week. You can do this and Carol, you’ll get real good at it. Uh, if you just keep practicing it.
