Analyze Discoveries: How to Find Meaning

Analyze what you have uncovered in your research. You want to assimilate your Bible study discoveries so you can use them in meaningful ways. Let’s explore that process.

Select Your Text

Let’s seek to apply the process we have been studying to reap the fruit of our studies. We will consider a favorite verse on ‘peace’ nestled in Isaiah 26:3. 

• The New International Version (1984): You will keep in perfect peace him whose mind is steadfast because he trusts in you.
• The Orthodox Jewish Bible presents Yeshayah 26:3: Thou wilt keep him in shalom shalom, whose yetzer (mind-set) is stayed on Thee; because he trusteth in Thee.
• The New Century Bible: You, Lord, give true peace to those who depend on you, because they trust in you.
• The Message: People with their minds set on you; you keep completely whole, Steady on their feet because they keep at it and don’t quit.

Research Your Text

Research helps us understand the context of the passage. Our verse falls in a poetic song of praise, addressing confident perseverance despite hardship and uncertainty. People need to trust God regardless of what they face. However, careful analysis reveals this verse spoke to Isaiah’s day and can speak prophetically in ours. 

 The interpreter needs to explore the definition of the keywords. 

• Different translations use the word “keep,” which means to guard as one watches to secure a garrison.
• The word “peace” occurs twice as the Orthodox Jewish Bible reveals. This doubly important peace is “perfect peace, inward peace, outward peace, peace with God, peace with conscience, peace at all times, in all events.” 
• As one’s mind is steadfast, a person is never double-minded. Here we note our analysis not only helps us find information about our subject but can lead us to explore the opposite meaning of a word.
• All the above depends on one’s willingness to trust God. In him, our security rests on the eternal rock. Such trust results in an undeviating commitment to the living God.

Analyze the Meaning

Our analysis reminds us, we need never fear because God is omnipotent, omniscient, and omnipresent. No power exists that can separate us from him. He can guard our hearts and minds with peace in all circumstances. The peace we seek connects with our relationship with God. Many times, trustworthy writers assist us as we analyze what we are seeing. C. S. Lewis wrote, “God cannot give us a happiness and peace apart from Himself, because it is not there. There is no such thing.”  

Further research on the concept of peace invites us to explore the translation in other languages. For instance, the Liberian word for peace means “heart sits down.” The Peruvian word means “well-arranged soul.” And the definition of the Hebrew shalom holds the concept of wholeness or completeness. It expects a state of harmony. But this brief introduction to shalom only touches the surface of the definition.

Compare and Analyze Texts

Now, we have stated what we believe Isaiah 26:3 means. We compare our text to other Scripture passages. Next, we want to analyze the ways this verse interacts with our daily lives. A fixed mind carries focused thoughts. Alexander MacLaren shows us how easily we can lose our peace with a divided mind. 

Most men’s lives are blown about by winds of circumstance, directed by gusts of passion, shaped by accidents, and are fragmentary and jerky, like some ship at sea with nobody at the helm, heading here and there, as the force of the wind or the flow of the current may carry them. If my life is to be steadied, there must not only be a strong hand at the tiller but some outward object which shall be for me the point of aim and the point of rest. Is he saying, ‘It’s not our circumstances, but how we think about them that robs us of our peace’?

MacLaren Expositions of Holy Scripture

Our reliance on God in a confident trust leads to the discovery of the peace of God. But finally, the peace of God requires making peace with God. 

A good analysis of one’s Bible study gives insights into a dynamic relationship with God. Our next blog will address the application of these insights.