When I visited London for the first time, a phrase struck me: I heard getting on to the train system, known there as the Tube. The announcer said in a stately, dignified way. Everything sounds better with a British accent, “Mind the Gap.” I did not know what he was talking about. Mind the Gap? Then I realized that he was talking about the gap that existed between the platform and the train car. When getting onto the train, please be cautious and mindful about your steps. This was his way of both protecting us and also helping us to be aware of a potential hazard. 

When it comes to understanding the Bible, we, too, must “mind the gap.” 

Studying the Bible is extremely rewarding. The primary benefit is that we know God. Yet, the Bible can also be very challenging at times because there are a number of “gaps” that exist between the world of the Bible and the world of the listener. In the book Inductive Bible Study, Fuhr and Kostenberger enumerate ten distinct gaps that exist between these two words. This is an excellent resource for those who want to dig deeper.

I am condensing their work into five (5) main gaps. 

5 Gaps to Mind in Our Understanding of the Bible
1. The Time Gap – We are far removed, historically, from the events that happened in the Bible. The history recorded in the Bible reflects a time gap from the creation to roughly the first century. This means that we have a gap of 2000 years between then and now.

Imagine getting in a time machine and entering back into America in 1860. You’d see newspaper stories with descriptions of “Firing on Ft. Sumter”, “abolitionists,” and “blockade runners.” You’d read about the Presidential Election of Abraham Lincoln, with references to political parties such as the “Know-Nothings” and the “Constitutional Union” party. These words and phrases would require very little work if you lived in the 1860s, but it would require a lot of work for those who live 160+ years in the future. 

If this time gap is true in our own country, it is even more pronounced when trying to understand Bible names, places, dates, and history. 

2. The Cultural Gap – We all tend to read the Bible and ask first, “What does this mean for me?” This is not a bad question. It’s just a bad first question. The best first question is to ask, “What did this text mean to the original audience for whom it was written?” This requires us to go back and do a study of the context, author, history, and culture of the original audience.

There are many phrases and concepts in the Bible that are odd to us.

For example, “greet one another with a holy kiss.” If you do that to the wrong person today, you might land in jail. 

3. The Language Gap – English translations of the Bible are good, trustworthy, and sufficient. But we must admit that they are already one step removed from the original languages. The Bible is written in 2 or 3 primary languages. Hebrew is the dominant language of the Old Testament, with Aramaic (a language similar to Hebrew) sprinkled in. The New Testament is written primarily in Koine (common) Greek, with Aramaic thrown in as well.

We should not suggest that ignorance of Hebrew and Greek means we cannot understand the Bible. However, we must admit that our ignorance will require us to do word studies from time to time because we may lose essential nuances in the original texts. 

An example is the word “slave.” The word is off-putting to us in America because of our country’s tragic and complex history of chattel slavery. But the word doulos is used 124 times in the New Testament. So, we need to understand what it means and apply it correctly, even though many people reject the word outright. In Romans, we are called “Slaves of Righteousness” (6:16-20). Paul considers this a positive term. So, we have to bridge the language gap to come to the same appreciation. 

4. The Theological Gap – Theology means the study of God. The Bible is God’s revelation of Himself to us and the world at large. Whereas creation is considered “general revelation,” the Bible is considered “special revelation.” The Bible does not tell us everything we want to know about God, but it does tell us everything we need to know about God.

God reveals Himself through 66 books, with different genres, from Genesis to Revelation. Kostenberger writes, “Although we read the Bible in a quest for God, we don’t attain a comprehensive understanding of God’s revelation of Himself all at once” (16). We must allow the full breadth of Scripture to reveal who God is.

This highlights the danger of building a theology off of one favorite verse. We must embrace the tension of how verses work together to paint a comprehensive picture of God. 

For example, “God is love” is a phrase from 1 John. Many people claim that’s all there is to know about God, and their version of “love” often, conveniently, matches up with our human forms of love. But God’s love is much richer. It is greater and wider but also encompasses important themes such as wrath, justice, atonement, and propitiation.

The theological gap is bridged when we try our best to understand how the Bible fits together.

5. The Appropriation Gap – This final gap is an essential and often overlooked challenge. To appropriate something is to take something for one’s use. It is to make something suitable for one’s use.

The appropriation gap of the Bible is figuring out how to take what we read and then put it into practice in our own lives. There are explicit imperatives in the Bible (e.g., “Do not lie,” “Do not steal,” and “Bear one another’s burdens”), but there are also implicit principles that are not always as clear as how they are to be put into you. In 1 Corinthians 8, Paul gives his advice about how believers should think through meat sacrificed to idols. However, that is not a normal ethical dilemma for most people living in America in 2025 (though it certainly still is in other parts of the world). Or, perhaps there is a law given to Israel in the Old Covenant that no longer applies to believers living in the New Covenant. For example, we do not have to eat with the same dietary restrictions as Israel did since, according to Acts 10, God has considered all animals clean. (By the way, I’m especially glad about the new covenant bacon.)

These are five (5) gaps (amongst many more) that highlight some of the challenges with studying the Bible. 

At the same time, we should emphasize that God gave us His Word so that we could know Him. He is not trying to hide from us. He has given us a revelation in the Bible. So we can know him. 

Does it take work? Yes. Thinking? Yes. Meditation? Yes. It takes all these and more. But we can mind these gaps and come to our Bibles with confidence, knowing that God is and that He is a rewarder of those who seek Him (Hebrews 11:6). 

3 Tools to Help
1. Pen and Paper – Your Mind – Meditate on Scripture, Holy Spirit, Bible, and Pen. Don’t rush to apps, commentaries, websites, etc. Time and Attention are important. I think it is particularly important in our digital age.

2. A Study Bible – With study notes, charts, maps, and articles, a study Bible is a valuable resource for serious readers, students, and teachers of God’s Word.

3. A Bible Handbook – A Bible handbook can be a great tool to help you gain a quick overview of a book of the Bible (or a section of Scripture). Most handbooks outline the book of the Bible and help you grasp its author, audience, purpose, primary structure, key passages, important topics, etc. This hefty book contains vivid descriptions of people, places, and cultural practices during biblical times.