---
title: 'Archibald Alexander on How to Approach Bible Study'
type: post
author: 'R. Andrew Myers'
date: 2022-09-09
url: https://confessional.org/blog/2022-archibald-alexander-on-how-to-approach-bible-study
---

# Archibald Alexander on How to Approach Bible Study

Counsel from Archibald Alexander:

“Be much in the perusal of the Holy Scriptures, and strive to obtain clear and consistent views of the plan of redemption. Learn to contemplate the truth in its true nature, simply, devoutly, and long at a time, that you may receive on your soul the impression which it is calculated to make. Avoid curious and abstruse speculations respecting things unrevealed; and do not indulge a spirit of controversy. Many lose the benefit of the good impression which the truth is calculated to make, because they do not view it simply in its own nature, but as related to some dispute, or as bearing on some other point....It is not the critic, the speculative or polemic theologian, who is most likely to receive the right impression, but the humble, simple-hearted, contemplative Christian.” — [Archibald Alexander](/authors/archibald-alexander), *Thoughts on Religious Experience* (1841), pp. 196-197