Introduction

Studying the Bible is a lot of fun, but it is also a process. In my fifteen years of studying the Bible both personally and academically, I have covered a lot of topics. Some were brief. Others were long. And still there has always been another category: recurring. You see, there are some topics I keep coming back to because I feel I have not arrived at a satisfactory conclusion. Sometimes we’ve maximized the extent to which we can study a topic for the time being, and the only thing left to do is shelve it for later.

What Is “Shelving” a Topic?

Shelving a topic means you cease your active investigation into a topic and you let it rest on the proverbial “shelf” in the back of your mind. This doesn’t mean you completely forget the topic or pretend you’ve never studied it. It simply means you’re no longer actively studying it. I always keep a mental inventory of shelved topics, and I allow myself to tease out the idea of whether or not it is time to re-activate that topic.

The act of shelving a topic has proven to be an invaluable study skill, and I wish more people knew how to do it.

Why Would You Shelve a Topic?

If the purpose of Bible study is to investigate the text so that you can know God, then why would you ever shelve a topic?

The answer is because the overarching goal is to know God, not arrive at the quickest or first acceptable answer. I am a serious student of the Bible because I am a serious student of God. I want to know Him. There is a difference between knowing God and identifying your first acceptable answer to a topic. The “first acceptable answer” refers to the first answer you encounter that seems to satisfy your inquiry, whether it is correct or not. I don’t find it productive to be satisfied by an answer that is not correct, so I shelve topics for additional study when I have some measure of uncertainty about them.

When Do You Know It’s Time to Shelve a Topic?

This is a great question.

My approach to Bible study is to exhaust the study. That means I look under every rock and stone, behind every nook and cranny. I know it’s time to shelve a topic when I have conducted the most thorough investigation of the text I can but still have not landed on a satisfactory answer.

To clarify, a satisfactory answer is not based on my personal preference. Instead, it is “satisfactory” in that it coheres with the necessary context of a passage and the intended meaning of the Author (God) & writer (human agent). The conclusion “satisfies” the investigative questions one could ask about the text.

Thus, I know it is time to shelve a topic when I no longer have a direction to take my investigation but I still have lingering questions.

Reasons For Shelving a Topic

There are various reasons I need to shelve topics:

Time

This is a common reason for shelving a topic during my seminary semester. We conduct a lot of studies, and they are all on a time crunch. I often desire to study a topic in more detail than what the time allotment for that assignment allows.

Refinement

Similar to the above, there are times I am 90+% sure that I have arrived at a satisfactory conclusion, but I want to test it to see if I missed anything in my original study. Here, I am looking for errors in my logical progression; are there any conclusions that depend on an assumption? Did I miss or misinterpret any relevant biblical passages? This is when I am looking for weaknesses in my conclusions and trying to poke holes. If my conclusion withstands the scrutiny, then I feel even more confident it is satisfactory.

The Nagging Feeling of Uncertainty

There are times I get a hunch that a conclusion is the best I currently but is not satisfactory. This is a clear sign that I need to shelve it for later. In this situation, I don’t exactly know why it’s unsatisfactory, but I’d rather let the study process play out than be easily satisfied and begin teaching something that is less than correct.

Lacking the Right Resources

Sometimes a conclusion hinges upon a question that I don’t have the right resources to answer. This might be word study data and analysis; a particular aspect of the historical cultural context; or maybe the book I need is sitting on a library shelf that I cannot access. Whatever it is, sometimes the resources I have don’t answer the questions I’m asking. If a satisfactory answer cannot be reached without answering those questions, then the topic gets shelved until I can access the appropriate resources.

When Do You Re-Activate a Study Topic?

Short answer: whenever I have reason to do so.

Sometimes it’s because I now have access to the right resources. Other times it’s because my time has been freed up. But I’ve also re-activated studies simply because my curiosity got the best of me. No matter the reason, I hold off on re-activating a study until I know I can dedicate the appropriate time and energy to conduct a thorough investigation of the text and the topic.

It is possible to think about a shelved topic without re-activating the study. For example, I wrote a seminary paper arguing that Isaiah 7:14 only refers to Jesus (single-fulfillment prophecy) and not to both Maher-shslal-hash-baz and Jesus (double-fulfillment prophecy). I have thought about re-evaluating my conclusion, but I have not formally re-activated that study. I do, however, think about this topic every time I encounter other single-fulfillment and double-fulfillment prophecies.¹

On more than one occasion, I’ve found that time away from a study topic has allowed me to encounter and grow from other parts of Scripture. This growth has proven invaluable during a re-activated study.

Conclusion

Learning to shelve topics has been very good for me. It has removed the pressure of “finding the right answer right now” from my Bible study. I know I have a good study process, and I believe I will arrive at a satisfactory conclusion if I let that process play out. We should study the Bible because we want to know God. Gaining knowledge of Him occurs as much in the process of studying as it does in nailing the conclusion. Therefore, it is more faithful to your pursuit of God to learn how to shelve and re-activate studies than it is to be easily satisfied and embrace the first acceptable answer. I’ve found that first acceptable answers are often the ones that most closely align with my preunderstanding, which may or may not be correct. God helps us understand who He is through the study process, so don’t be in a hurry to “find the right answer.” Be patient. Be calm. Enjoy the process, because it is time spent with God.

Happy Bibleing!

Footnotes

1. A single-fulfillment prophecy is when a prophecy is fulfilled only once. I argued in my paper that the birth of Maher-shalal-hash-baz did not meet the necessary criteria to fulfill the prophecy of Isaiah 7:14.
   
   A double-fulfillment prophecy is when a prophecy is fulfilled multiple times. Double-fulfillment would mean that the prophecy of Isaiah 7:14 was fulfilled (at least to some degree) when Maher-shalal-hash-baz was born in Isaiah 8:3, and it was fulfilled again when Jesus was born. ↩︎