Three steps, in order, on any passage. Observe what the text says. Interpret what it meant. Apply what it asks. The scene below runs the three steps on Romans 12:1 and 2 as you scroll.
What is actually on the page? Three commands, one "therefore," two contrasts. Count the verbs before you count the doctrines.
1I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is your spiritual service. 2And be not fashioned according to this world: but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is the good and acceptable and perfect will of God.
What does it say?
Read the passage slowly and write down what is on the page before you explain any of it. The verbs. The connecting words, especially "therefore", "but" and "so that". What repeats. What is contrasted with what. Who is doing the acting. Most of what people call interpretation is really rushed observation, and most disagreements about a passage come from someone skipping this step.
What did it mean?
Now ask what those observations meant to the people who first received them. What situation were they in. Where does this sit in the argument of the book. How does the rest of Scripture use the same idea. Interpretation is not a private impression: a reading either fits what the text says and where it sits, or it does not.
What does it ask?
Then ask what the passage asks of you, and be specific enough that you could tell whether you had done it by Friday. "Be more loving" is not application. "Say the thing I have been avoiding saying to my brother" is. Application follows interpretation; it never replaces it.
The order matters more than the labels. Anyone who applies before they have interpreted is applying their own idea, and anyone who interprets before they have observed is interpreting a passage they have not actually read yet.
JOHN 1:1–3 · ASV · MOVE THE MOUSE ACROSS THE TEXT
1In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 2The same was in the beginning with God. 3All things were made through him; and without him was not anything made that hath been made.
The text had a first language. The lens shows it under John's words, for the pleasure of seeing it. Everything on this site is in English.
Scripture quotations marked SBLGNT are from the SBL Greek New Testament. Copyright 2010 Society of Biblical Literature and Logos Bible Software.
THE BOOK · OCTOBER 3, 2026
The whole method in one place: forty short chapters, three worked examples and a 14-day plan through Mark. Kindle, paperback and hardcover.
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