---
title: '19th Century Bible Study Questions from A-Z'
type: post
author: 'Caleb Cangelosi'
date: 2019-05-16
url: https://confessional.org/blog/2019-19th-century-bible-study-questions-from-a-z
---

# 19th Century Bible Study Questions from A-Z

The right question makes all the difference in the world - and not just in Jeopardy. The best interviewers, whether on TV or on podcasts, ask the best questions - the most insightful, the most difficult, the ones that make their subject squirm, or laugh, or angry, or transparent. Knowing the right questions to ask of a person, or a text, usually means the difference between understanding and ignorance.

In 1884, the *Encyclopedia of the Presbyterian Church in the United States of America* was published by [Alfred Nevin](/authors/alfred-nevin). The following questions were included in it, as a guide for reading the New Testament in particular, but can be applied to the whole Bible. Helpfully, they are listed in alphabetical form. Keep these handy wherever you read and study God’s word.

In the study of the New Testament, and of the gospels especially, we need to inquire and compare. The inspired writings are infinitely rich in truth, and each verse is so connected with the rest that an intelligent inquirer may easily extend its investigations from one passage over the whole of Scripture. Without attempting to exhaust topics of inquiry, we mention the following :

A. What *analogies* between sensible and spiritual things may be here traced ?

A1. What prophecy is here *accomplished*? where found? when written? what rule of interpretation is illustrated?

B. What *blessing* is here sought or acknowledged, or promised, and why?

C. What *custom* is here referred to ?

C1. What trait of *character* is here given? good or bad? belonging to our natural or our renewed state? what advantages are connected with it?

D. What *doctrine* is here taught? how illustrated? what its practical influence ?

D1. What *duty* is here enforced, and how? from what motives ?

D2. What *difficulty* is here found in history or doctrine? how explained?

E. What *evangelical* or other *experience* is here recorded?

E1. What *example* is here placed before us? of sin or of holiness? lessons?

F. What *facts* are here related? what doctrine or duty do they illustrate? do you commend or blame them, and why ?

G. What is the *geographical* position of this country, or place? and what its history ?

H. What facts of *natural history* or of *general history* are here referred to or illustrated?

I. What *institution* or ordinance is here mentioned? On whom bindling? what its design? what its connection with other institutions?

I1. What *instructions* may be gathered from this fact, or parable, or miracle?

K. What *knowledge* of human nature, or want of knowledge, is here displayed?

L. What *lofty* expressions of devotional fervor?

L1. What *Levitical* institute is here mentioned? why appointed?

M. What *miracle* is here recorded? by whom wrought? in whose name? what were its results? what taught?

N. What is worthy of notice in this *name*?

P. What *prohibition* is here given? is it word, or thought, or deed it condemns?

P1. What is the meaning of the *parable* here given? what truth as to God, Christ, man, “the kingdom,” is taught?

P2. What *promise* is here given? to whom?

R. What prophecy is here *recorded*? is it fulfilled? how? when?

S. What *sin* is here exposed?

S1. What *sect* is here introduced? mention its tenets.

T. What *type* is here traced?

T. What *threatening*? when inflicted?

U. What *unjustifiable* action of a good man? what *unusual* excellence in one not pious?

W. What *woe* is here denounced? what *warning* given? against whom, and why?

X. What is here taught of the work, character, person of Christ?

X1. What sublimity of thought or of language is here? what inference follows ?