One of Satan's greatest triumphs is in convincing Christians to abandon the Bible, or at least keeping them from really mining its depths. He tries to convince us that the Bible is outdated, unimportant or less important than many other things. He tries to convince us that it is difficult to understand and that we should rely on others to interpret it for us.

R.C. Sproul wrote Knowing Scripture early in his career to address these concerns and out of a desire to see Christians dedicate themselves to a systematic study of the Bible. Written in 1977, this is one of Sproul's earliest but most important and highly recommended books.

There are some books I can read in an evening or two and feel like I have a good grasp of what the book is all about. There are others that I can pour over hour after hour and still feel like I am only scratching the surface of the book. Evangelical Hermeneutics falls into the latter category. Though not an easy read, this book is rewarding.

Hermeneutics is one of the steps used in interpreting and studying the Bible. Specifically, the author defines it as "a set of principles for interpreting the Bible." Once a passage has been properly interpreted, meaning and application can be drawn from it. It stands to reason that if the principles of interpretation are wrong, the meaning and application are likely to be wrong as well. What the author seeks to show is how these principles have changed over the past decades and the effect that is having on Christianity today.

The author's goal for this book is fourfold:

Just a few months ago I came to the sudden and perhaps not-so-startling realization that although I have been reading the Bible for more than twenty years I had never really been taught how to study it. I have been told of the importance of spending time each day reading God’s Word, meditating on it and even memorizing it, but I do not ever recall being taught how to systematically study it.

After explaining this predicament to a friend of mine, she recommended the inductive Bible study approach, which she had only just discovered through buying the New Inductive Study Bible. Kay Arthur edited that version of the Bible and knowing she was a proponent of the inductive method, I decided to read How To Study Your Bible by Arthur.